TORONTO, ON – Since the U SPORTS Men’s Hockey Championship switched to an eight-team bracket format in 2015, the OUA has never been the dominant conference.
While the Canada West Alberta Golden Bears’ 16 U CUP titles mark the most ever, and the AUS’ UNB Reds have formed a modern dynasty with nine championships since 1997, both have won in the post-2015 era, while the OUA Toronto Varsity Blues and their historic second-best 10 titles haven’t won since 1984.
With weekly rankings often favouring teams from Canada West and the AUS, and the U CUP tournament usually having no OUA team advance to the final, it has taken a while for the conference to earn legitimacy and respect among Canadian university hockey circles.
Since the switch to the current format, UQTR’s 2022 win stands alone for the OUA.
Yet, for the first time since the tournament expanded to eight teams from six and added the seeded bracket in 2015, three of the final four teams hail from the OUA, with one of the UQTR Patriotes or McGill Redbirds bound for the final.
In the single-OUA team semifinal, the host TMU Bold will face the heavily favoured UNB, a team they beat before at the 2022 U CUP, which the OUA Queen’s Cup champion Patriotes went on to win.
As McGill closed out the quarterfinal round and stepped off the ice after triumphing over the Canada West champion UBC Thunderbirds on Thursday, the 147-year-old program ensured a watershed year for OUA hockey.
Earlier, the Bold eliminated the Canada West silver medalist Calgary Dinos before the UQTR Patriotes knocked off the AUS runner-up Moncton Aigles Bleus.
“It means a lot. It validates to our league that our league is very deep and that there is a lot of very good, high-end competition within our conference,” McGill defenceman Scott Walford said. The Canada West teams and AUS teams here are all great competition, but three OUA teams got the better of them, and that’s a huge compliment to us.”
Although OUA teams have won once and been to a single final since the tournament switched to its current format, at least two teams from either Canada West or the AUS have always been in the final four, with few OUA programs able to contend regularly.
Even in the previous format, which ran two three-team pools in a six-team tournament from 1998 to 2014, just four OUA teams won, and eight made the final.
While several reasons surround the OUA’s inability to put three teams into the national semifinal, this year’s difference was the addition of a fourth team for the first time in the format, with the top three playoff finishers complimented by a host berth.
At the same time, the OUA features 19 teams, with the top Ontario and Quebec recruits spread throughout, making it effectively two conferences, while the AUS also tempts many. The OUA also places more stringent limits on scholarship offerings, which has historically capped the financial benefits available through Athletic Financial Awards.
“It’s something that’s on our minds, but we don’t think about it that much,” McGill head coach Dave Urquhart said. “But as I was going to [the quarterfinal], I was thinking if we win, then it’s a pretty good chance for the OUA to win a national championship.”
With a history-making effort through the quarterfinals at the 2024 U SPORTS Men’s Hockey tournament, the TMU Bold will attempt to upset the UNB Reds and secure the first all-OUA U CUP Final since 2012 when McGill beat the Western Mustangs’ for the program’s lone U CUP title.
Stats courtesy of Steve Knowles, Wikipedia, Hockey Hall of Fame