The Real Season Begins Today for Hockey X-Women
Courtesy Glenn MacDonald, The Chronicle Herald
AN UNDEFEATED 24-0 regular-season record. An all-time conference-best 48 points. A league-leading 114 goals scored and 32 goals allowed.
Impressive stats, but throw them all out the window.
St. Francis Xavier was the class of Atlantic university women’s hockey, easily winning the regular -season title. But head coach David Synishin said none of that matters now.
The X-Women’s focus is on the four-day conference playoff tournament, which they will host beginning today at the Keating Millennium Centre in Antigonish.
"It was an honour to go undefeated and we took probably a couple minutes after our last regular-season game to recognize but that was it," Synishin, in his ninth season as St. F.X. bench boss, said in an interview Wednesday.
"The regular season is behind us now. Now the real season begins and everyone’s undefeated right now.
"It doesn’t matter really what you do through the regular season. You just have to look at last year’s AUS playoffs when SMU started playing their best hockey down the stretch and in the playoffs."
Synishin was referring to the Saint Mary’s Huskies’ surprising run to an Atlantic conference banner in 2010. SMU was the third-ranked team heading into the AUS tournament but knocked off the conference’s top two seeds — No. 2 St. F.X. and first-place Moncton — during the AUS playoffs en route to its first league title since 2004.
"Anything can happen," Synishin said. "But I think we have the team focused on that and we have moved on from the regular season and we can’t wait to get going tomorrow."
St. F.X. opens the round-robin this afternoon against the sixth-ranked Mount Allison Mounties at 3 p.m. Today’s other matchup features the No. 2 Moncton Aigles Bleues versus the fifth-seeded Huskies at 7 p.m.
The loser between St. F.X. and Mount A will face the No. 4 Dalhousie Tigers on Friday afternoon while the winner will play Dal on Saturday.
The loser of the Moncton-SMU contest will meet the No. 3 St. Thomas Tommies on Friday afternoon while the winner will play STU on Saturday.
The championship final is slated for Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.
Unlike the previous two seasons when two teams advanced to the CIS championship hosted by St. F.X., the road to nationals is a little tougher this year. Only the Atlantic champion will advance from the conference to the national tournament, Mar. 10-13 at Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo, Ont.
The X-Women have built a championship-calibre squad. Forwards Janelle Parent (44 points), Alex Normore (41) and Nicole Hansom (25) each finished in the top five in scoring this season. Suzanne Fenerty led all AUS blue-liners in scoring (22 points) and netminders Katie Greenway (1.09 goal against average) and Kristy Garrow (1.53) were 1-2 among the goaltending leaders.
But gaudy statistics aside, Synishin said it’s the team’s work ethic that sets them apart.
"Our work ethic has probably the best we have seen in the history of the program," Synishin said.
"We are much younger than people think," he added. "We added nine new faces, including seven first-year players. We added considerable amount of depth and every player has a real competitiveness in their personalities. They don’t like losing in practice let alone in games and I think that’s a very good trait to have as an athlete. They’ll do everything they can not to lose."