Although the 2024-2025 women’s hockey season ended in quite heartbreaking fashion, it is worth looking into what was otherwise a truly outstanding season. To better understand what made this season, it’s worth looking back at the last.
The 2023-2024 season was another excellent season for the Warriors. They finished the regular season 18-10 and with a McCaw Cup Championship under their belt, they earned themselves a spot in the 2024 U Sports Nationals Finals tournament. The Warriors were able to go 1-2 in tournament play and finish as the fourth team in the nation.
Whenever a team gets that close to the pinnacle of women’s hockey in the nation, it’s easy to understand why many players would return to run it back the following season, especially with the Warriors having guaranteed themselves a spot in the final as the host team for the U Sports championship.
Coming into the 2024-2025 season, the Warriors returned 19 of the players who were a part of that McMaw Cup Championship team. To say the least, the Warriors were geared up for another deep playoff run.
For women’s hockey, due to the length of the season and the season spanning over both the fall and winter semesters, there is about a month break just over halfway through the regular season to give athletes the time to study for exams and celebrate the holidays. Due to this, the season can largely be broken into two parts: the 2024 portion and the 2025 portion.
The 2024 portion was nothing short of an outstanding success for the Warriors as they tallied an impressive 11 wins out of 14 games. Their longest win streak was five games spanning from Nov. 8 to 29. In the 2025 portion, on the other hand, the Warriors struggled a bit, winning only 7 of their 12 games. Regardless, the Warriors won the last four games of their regular season finishing with an 18-8 record and securing second place in the OUA West, only two games behind OUA leaders the University of Guelph Gryphons.
Finishing second in the OUA West gave the Warriors the advantage of a first-round playoff bye and an automatic place in the OUA quarter-finals. Their first matchup of the playoffs was a bitter rivalry, being matched up against cross-town rivals the Laurier Golden Hawks. The Warriors came out of this match-up leaving no doubt as to who was the better women’s hockey team in the city of Waterloo, sweeping the Golden Hawks two games to none on their way to advancing to the OUA semis.
In the semis, the Warriors had a tough matchup. The way OUA playoffs are set up, the semi-finals have a crossover game between the top-seeded team in the West and East and the lowest remaining seed for the West and East. As a result, the Warriors, being the 2-seed from the West, were matched up with top-seeded Nipissing Lakers from the OUA West division. Similar to their quarter-final matchup, the Warriors only needed two games to sweep the Lakers and earned themselves an opportunity to be crowned back-back McCaw Cup Champions.
The 2025 McCaw Cup Championship was identical to the 2024 McCaw Cup Championship, in that the Warriors took on the Toronto Varsity Blues. Unfortunately, this year the Warriors were not able to go back-to-back, as the Varsity Blues got their revenge on the Warriors, beating them 3-2 on the Warriors’ home ice. Regardless of the outcome of this game, since the Warriors were the host team for the 2025 U-Sports National Tournament finals, they had an automatic bid in the tournament.
In the nationals tournament, the Warriors received quite unfavourable seeding as they were given the eighth seed, posing the most challenging route to the championship. Nonetheless, the Warriors defied the odds and earned themselves an opportunity at gold by knocking off the 1-seed University of Alberta Pandas 3-0, following that up with another dominant win over the 5-seed University of Concordia Stingers 5-1, earning them a shot at gold.
Unfortunately, the Warriors were not able to finish the season in the win column as they came up short in the gold medal game to the 4-seed Bishop’s University Gaiters 3-0. Regardless of the final game’s outcome, the Warriors put on an outstanding performance against a packed Woolwich Memorial Centre crowd. Second place in the nation is nothing short of outstanding success and most definitely an improvement from the 2023-2024 season, where we finished fourth in the nation.
Alongside the team as a whole having outstanding success, some excellent individual performances are worth mentioning. Carly Orth had an excellent season as she led the Warriors team with 36 total points and 24 assists, finishing second on the team with 12 goals. Alongside her exceptional team accomplishments, she was recognized as OUA Player of the Year, selected to the First Team All-OUA team, and recognized as a First Team All-Canadian.
Kara Mark had an outstanding year between the pipes, finishing top five in all four of the major goaltending statistics: goals against average, save percentage, total saves, and win percentage. With these outstanding statistics, Mark was recognized as a First Team OUA All-Star and selected as the OUA Goaltender of the Year.
On the defensive side, Lyndsy Acheson was selected as a Second Team All-OUA All-Star, an outstanding accomplishment to wrap up her five-year career with the Warriors. Gracey Smith was selected to the OUA All-Rookie team, proving that she will be a focal point for the Warrior’s continued success in the future.
