CALGARY - The participants of the ACAC semifinal have been decided, and the Dinos women's hockey team will get another shot at besting the MacEwan College Griffins. Last season these teams met in the ACAC final, where MacEwan bested the Dinos in four games to take home gold.
This season the Dinos have been a powerhouse, finishing the season with a 17-5-0 record and 34 points. Their final placement was on the line all the way up to their final game, however, with a loss to SAIT relegating them to second place in the conference.
Fourth-ranked MacEwan has just completed a sweep of the fifth ranked NAIT Ooks with 2-0 and 4-1 victories. Their final record in the regular season was 10-9-3.
On the other side of the league the sixth-ranked Mount Royal College Cougars swept the third ranked Red Deer College Queens in a stunning upset. This sets up the other semifinal series between Mount Royal and the first ranked SAIT Trojans.
The ACAC announced its all-conference teams for women's hockey, with a significant recognition for the University of Calgary squad. The first team is populated by three Dinos including goaltender Katie Urness, forward Elana Lovell, and defenceman Melissa Zubick. The second team has a single Dino among its ranks with forward Shelby Davey being named to that team. Lastly, Danielle Goyette, the Dinos' head coach, was named coach of the year for ACAC women's hockey.
Katie Urness wins her place on the all-conference team for the second year in a row with some impressive statistics. She has played and won more games than any ACAC goalie this year chalking up 19 games played and 16 wins. Additionally, Urness holds the lowest goals against average in the league with 1.20; her save percentage is ranked second at 93.1%. Katie also achieved a league-high six shutouts, which is double all of the other goalies in the ACAC combined. All told, Urness broke three ACAC records this season with her shutouts, wins and goals against average being the best ever in ACAC women's hockey.
One of the stories of this year has been the achievement of the rookies on the Dinos roster and this is further reinforced by the all-conference selections. Elana Lovell, Melissa Zubick and Shelby Davey are all first year players who posted great contributions and statistics all season long resulting in this achievement.
Danielle Goyette earns the honor of coach of the year after two seasons in the ACAC. In the past two seasons Goyette has coached the Dinos into the ACAC final in 2007-08 and now leads her team into the playoffs with the second place spot, the best regular season ranking ever for a Dinos women's hockey team.
The season series between MacEwan and the Dinos has weighed heavily to the advantage of the Calgary side after sweeping all four of the meetings between these teams (4-3, 2-0, 2-1 and 2-1). These matchups have been close affairs, a typical outcome whenever these teams meet, which will continue through this semifinal.
On the special teams the Dinos hold a slight advantage with the regular season penalty kill statistics favoring the Dinos in a large way killing off 88.7 per cent of their disadvantages while MacEwan finished with 84.4 per cent. On the powerplay the regular season favors MacEwan who converted on 17.8 per cent of their chances versus the Dinos' 16.7 per cent.
Kristen Sugiyama, MacEwan's starting goaltender has posted impressive statistics ranking her fourth in the ACAC. Sugiyama has faced 351 shots in 14 games the second most shots in the league and has maintained a 2.33 GAA throughout. Her save percentage is .914 and she has a 5-6-3 record on the regular season.
The series kicks off on Friday, Feb. 27 at the Olympic Oval with a 7 p.m. start. The series heads back to Edmonton Saturday night for a 7 p.m. start at Servus Place. If the series is tied after Saturday night a tiebreaker will take place on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. at the Olympic Oval.
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