TORONTO, ON – As they approach the 2024 U CUP Men’s Hockey Championships, the eighth-seed Brock Badgers are in good form, riding good vibes, and will need their absolute best in their quarterfinal matchup against the UNB Reds.
The Badgers were one of the strongest teams during the 2023-24 season, opening up their campaign with seven wins in their first eight games, putting the rest of U SPORTS on notice.
Throughout the regular season, they were dominant on home ice and drew a raucous 1500-capacity crowd for Game 3 of the OUA West Final against the TMU Bold. As a result of that strong support, the Badgers only lost two games on home ice. On the flip side, the road was where they struggled most, finishing with a record of 9-7-0.
The Badgers were a bit slow out of the gate when the second half rolled around, starting with three consecutive road losses, but once they got back home against Guelph, they strung off five wins before their next loss – which again was on the road – this time to the Windsor Lancers.
They are a mean, physical team that provides a balanced attack while also being able to shut down the team’s best player, as they showed in the OUA Queen’s Cup Playoffs, which ended in a semifinal loss to the Bold.
The Badgers limited Bold star forward Kyle Bollers to only two points through the three games series, and those points were collected in game two, which saw the Bold stave off elimination with a 5-1 win.
Getting to know the U CUP 8th seed
This was head coach TJ Manastersky’s second year behind the Badgers bench, and it wasn’t a disappointing one for him, winning the OUA West Coach of the Year Award, building on a rookie season behind the bench where he coached the Badgers to the same OUA West Final, then falling to Windsor.
The Badgers have only gotten better since that elimination game against the Lancers.
In 2023-24, they clinched the first seed and home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs in the OUA West, with the strong regular season finishing 7-3-0-0 in their last 10 games before facing the Windsor Lancers in the first round of the playoffs.
The 15 wins on home ice were unprecedented in Badgers history. The most we’ve seen the Badgers have was 12 wins, accomplished in 2017-18. They love playing on home ice, and who wouldn’t? With the University Cup so close to home, that might help them, even if they’ve not had the most success on the TMU rink.
Part of the reason for their shortcomings on the road is their powerplay, which converted at a 12.7% rate during the regular season—ranking seventh in the OUA West—finding the back of the net just seven times in 55 road power play opportunities.
The Badgers’ bright side was that their penalty kill was fantastic on the road when called upon. During the regular season, they finished with the second-best penalty kill in the OUA West at 84.2%.
When mentioning how they have played in the playoffs, the powerplay has improved, and the penalty kill has continued to succeed. The Badgers powerplay is currently at 25.0% on the road, while the penalty kill is converting at an 88.9% rate heading into the U SPORTS tournament.
The penalty kill was especially evident during the series against TMU as the Badgers didn’t allow the Bold to generate many top-tier scoring chances and if they did, standout goalie Connor Ungar was there to shut the attack down.
That was a Bold team that finished the regular season with the second-best power play in the OUA West. It was definitely not an easy task to defend.
Another bright spot for the Badgers is their offence, led by Jacob Roach and his back-to-back 30+ point seasons. He led the Badgers in total scoring this season with 16 goals, 24 assists, and 40 points.
He has continued that success into the playoffs, leading the Badgers in scoring. He had four points in game one against the Lancers in the first-round series and improved his play during the series against the Bold, where he had an assist on the game-winning goal in Game 1 and opened up the scoring in Game 3.
After dropping a heartbreaking Game 3 loss to the Bold, the Badgers lost the OUA bronze medal game to the McGill Redbirds, securing their spot as the eighth seed at the U SPORTS men’s hockey championship.
Meanwhile, the Bold find themselves seeded fourth after losing the Queen’s Cup Final to the 2022 U SPORTS Champion UQTR Patriotes, who won their third straight OUA banner.
An upset isn’t out of the picture
It will be tough for the Badgers to win the U CUP, especially given their opening draw against the UNB Reds. Yet, with six players scoring over 20 points in the regular season and one of, if not the best, goaltenders in the country, it’s a possibility.
Ungar is the key, and he made his name known this season. It always helps to recruit a goalie who finished his junior career with a .925 save percentage and a 2.58 GAA.
Those numbers didn’t dip in his first U SPORTS season. He earned a nod as the Goaltender of the Year in the OUA West and was named to the December U SPORTS All-Star team that faced the Team Canada World Junior Championship hopefuls.
He posted a .932 SV% and a 2.15 GAA with three shutouts, establishing himself as a premier backstop in one of the most dominant Brock goaltender seasons since alumnus, now Stanley Cup champion with the Vegas Golden Knights Logan Thompson.
If Brock is to beat UNB, it will likely start with an outstanding performance from Ungar, one he’s proven capable of.
At the same time, Jacob Roach has been on a tear, but it’s not just him. Tyler Burnie, Jared Marino, Zach Taylor, and Jonah Boria are pitching in from the back end, both of them having 20+ point seasons.
The Badgers have had two blowouts in the playoffs—one in each series. They are a very strong team when it comes to playing close games during the playoffs, with a record of 2-1-0.
The star players against Windsor left their mark in the quarterfinal series, mainly in GAME 2. Still, the Badgers tightened up their defence and limited the Bold’s top line of Bollers, Daniil Grigorev, and Kevin Gursoy—which saw them combine for 93 points during the regular season to only six points, with a chunk of them coming in Game 2.
If they can get past the Reds, it’s a wide-open run for the Badgers, with anything possible. They don’t even have to look back far for eighth-seed upsets, either, only to last year, when the UPEI Panthers knocked off the Calgary Dinos in Charlottetown, PEI.