Concordia Stingers are U Sports women’s national hockey champions: ‘It’s unreal’

The Stingers beat the Toronto Varsity Blues 3-1 in the final of the U Sports women’s hockey championship on Sunday night at Merlis Belsher Place in Saskatoon.

The win marked the second time in three years that the Stingers have won the national title, making it the fourth in the teams history.

Head Coach Julie Chu said she is proud of her team and everything they have accomplished.

“It’s unreal. Getting a chance to come home,” she said. “We now have an opportunity to share with our community the excitement of what we got to experience in Saskatchewan and now to be back and to know that we had set a vision from actually, probably the end of last year and then into this season of what we wanted to accomplish and to be able to accomplish a lot of that has been really special for us.”

The Stingers entered the championship tournament as the number one seed after beating the Université de Montréal Carabins in a decisive game three during conference finals.

They went on defeat the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Waterloo before facing Toronto in the final.

Although the Stingers got an early lead in the championship game, Chu said she didn’t want to take any chances.

“You always want to have a good start. And I think that starting off strong in the first period, coming away with the 2-0 lead heading into the second is always a good way too. But we really make sure that we focus one period at a time.”

Jordyn Verbeek is the goalie on the Stingers team.

In Saskatoon, she gave up two goals in three games, earning a spot on the Nationals tournament all-star team as the top goalie.

“I was just trying to take everything, one save, one period at a time, not trying to think about what’s going to happen after the game,” explained Verbeek. “But just control what was happening in the moment and then hopefully the result would happen, and it did.”

The women’s hockey team finished their regular season with a perfect record.

Chu explained how she never imagined these results.

“I never really imagined that we’d be 25-0 in the regular season and have the success that we did. But I’m not also surprised because of what I saw our players and our staff do on a daily basis to try to be great and try to excel every single day.”

Five Concordia players were named to RSEQ All-Star teams in their conference and the U Sports tournament MVP was Concordia player Jessymaude Drapeau.

The third-year Stingers’ forward scored what would eventually be the game winner in the first period, when she put her team up 2-0.

“We had the chance to win three games in a row to get the championship, so it feels amazing,” said Drapeau. “And I wouldn’t do that with any other team.”