For those who haven’t heard, UW will be hosting the 2025 U Sports Women’s National Hockey tournament. The tournament is set to begin Thursday, March 20, and the final games are set to take place Sunday, March 23. All games are being played at Woolwich Memorial Center in Elmira, Ontario.
The U Sports National Hockey tournament is set up in such a way that features the top eight teams from across the nation. U-Sports is broken up into four major divisions: Atlantic University Sport (AUS), Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ), Ontario University Athletics (OUA) and Canada West (CANWST). Each division winner is guaranteed a spot in the national tournament alongside the host team. Due to an OUA team hosting this year’s tournament, the three remaining spots are considered to be at large and are assigned to either RSEQ, CANWST, or AUS teams.
Each team is seeded 1 to 8 and initial matchups are based on their ranking coming into the tournament.
The number one seed in this year’s tournament is the University of Alberta (UofA) Golden Pandas. UofA is coming off a dominant season where they finished 24-4 and defeated the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds two games to none to capture the Canada West title. They are considered to be the favourites to win.
The number two seed was given to the University of Toronto’s Varsity Blues. The Varsity Blues are coming off an impressive season finishing 17-9. They finally got their redemption against our Warriors as they were able to come out victorious 3-2 in a single-game OUA championship game this past weekend. As a result, they received favourable seeding as the number two team.
The number three seed in this tournament is sort of a Cinderella story in its own right. The Bishop’s University Gaiters struggled in the regular season finishing 10-11, a whole 10 games behind first-place Concordia Stingers. Regardless, they got hot when it mattered, knocking off the Stingers in the RSEQ final to be crowned champions, earning them the third seed in the national tournament.
The fourth seed for the U-Sports national tournament was awarded to the St. Francis Xavier University (STFX) X-Women. The X-Women are coming off an impressive season where they finished 18-10 and wrapped up their season in perfect fashion, knocking off the University of New Brunswick Reds two games to none to be crowned AUS champions.
The fifth and highest seed awarded to a non-conference champion goes to the University of Concordia Stingers coming out of the RSEQ. The Stingers are the reigning U-Sports national tournament champions and will be looking to go back-to-back. Statistically, they had the best win percentage in the country, going 20-1 in the regular season.
The sixth seed was given to the runner-up for the CANWST championship, the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds. UBC finished the regular season in impressive fashion 25-3 top of Canada West, but got knocked off by U Of A in the finals.
The seventh seed was awarded to AUS runner-up University of New Brunswick Reds. UNB had a very strong regular season finishing 21-7 at the top of the AUS. They came up short in back-to-back losses against STFX in the AUS championships.
Last but certainly not least, our very own Warriors were seeded eighth in the national tournament. The defending McCaw Cup champions from 2024 came up short in the 2025 OUA finals, resulting in them receiving an unfavourable position entering this national tournament. Regardless, being the host team, they have the advantage of home ice and a home crowd on their side.
Although this is a tournament setup, it is not round-robin or single elimination. Each team is guaranteed the opportunity to play two games, but you are eliminated from gold medal contention upon losing your first game.
The only pre-scheduled matchups are considered to be “quarter-finals.” Thursday, March 20, #5 Concordia is matched up against #4 STFX at 1 p.m. The #8 Waterloo is set to take on #1 Alberta at 7 p.m. that same day. The winners of both these matchups will then advance to take on each other on Saturday, with the losers also set to take on each other on Saturday as consolation matchups.
Friday, March 21 is also a day that is slated for quarter-finals. At 1 p.m., #6 UBC is set to take on #3 Bishop’s. At 7 p.m., #7 New Brunswick is set to take on #2 Toronto. Identical to what was discussed above, on Saturday, winners from these two matchups will play each other and losers will play each other.
For clarity, let’s look at what the Warriors need to do to advance to the gold medal game: 7 p.m. Thursday: win against #1 Alberta and 4 p.m. Saturday: win against either #5 Concordia or #4 STFX. With these two wins, they will earn themselves an opportunity to compete for the gold on Sunday, March 23 at 6 p.m. To gain a visual understanding of how the tournament is set up, click here.
