BOX SCORE

EDMONTON – Just three years into their return to CIS women's hockey, the University of Calgary Dinos will play for the national championship Sunday night.

The Dinos booked their ticket to the final with their 17th consecutive victory, a 4-2 triumph over the seven-time CIS champion – and tournament host – Alberta Pandas Saturday at Clare Drake Arena. Calgary will take on the Montreal Carabins, another program just three years into CIS competition, Sunday night for the national title. Puck drop is at 6 p.m., with live streaming on SSNCanada.ca.

Calgary rode a two-goal effort by Elana Lovell, who was playing just her second game after missing six weeks with a knee injury, while defenceman Stephanie Ramsay potted a pretty goal along with two assists to earn player-of-the-game honours.

Ramsay's power play goal at the 2:35 of the third period killed any momentum the Pandas had gained after a late second-period goal cut Calgary's lead to just one goal. Keeping the puck in at the blue line, Ramsay made a great move around a defender on the left wing and wristed a shot over the glove of Kaitlyn Chapman for the third of the Dinos' three power play goals on the night.

Just 17 seconds later, Lovell's second of the night right off the face-off sealed the win for the Dinos, who finished pool play with a perfect 2-0 record after defeating defending national champion McGill 1-0 Thursday night.

“Stephanie has so much talent, and in the last month she's really stepped up her game,” said Dinos head coach Danielle Goyette. “She scored a big goal – the pressure was on our team, they were stressed, and a goal like that gave them more legs to finish the game. Steph was a leader and led by example. And you couldn't ask for a better effort by Elana, who came back after missing so much time.

“Just to come to nationals was a big thing for the program,” Goyette went on. “It means a lot to beat McGill and now UofA, but just getting to the final isn't enough. It's going to mean something tomorrow if we win that game and go home with a gold medal. I think we caused some surprise here – we came in as an underdog, but we showed that if we work as a team and not just one or two players, we have a chance to be successful.”

The Dinos weathered an early Alberta storm and got on the board first at 6:43 of the first when Hayley Wickenheiser took a nice feed from Iya Gavrilova and snapped a shot top shelf over Chapman on a five-on-three situation. Then, with just 18 seconds remaining in the first, Elana Lovell scored to give the Dinos a 2-0 lead heading into the second.

The middle period was the Dinos outshoot the Pandas 6-4, but it felt much more one-sided in Alberta's favour. The Dinos did a good job keeping pucks away from the danger area, and Amanda Tapp was solid between the pipes. But after withstanding the Pandas siege for most of the period, Tapp's shutout streak of 178:14 – dating back to the second period of Game 1 of the Canada West final – was finally snapped when Meg Omand got the Pandas on the board at 19:19 of the second, sending the big Clare Drake crowd into a frenzy into the second intermission.

A frenzy that Ramsay silenced and Lovell iced with their two goals 17 seconds apart in the third minute of the final frame. Nicole Pratt got one more for the Pandas with just over two minutes to play, but the Dinos held on for the win.

“It's always nice to get a victory,” said Ramsay, who was MVP of the national tournament while playing with Alberta in 2009-10. “As a team that's what we were focused on, and as a team we really executed tonight. The Pandas are a great team, they're never going to give up and they proved that tonight. I was proud that we worked well as a team and countered their effort.”

Calgary finished 3-for-6 on the power play, while Alberta went 0-for-6, including a lengthy five-on-three of their own in the second period. The Dinos outshot Alberta 19-16 on the night.

After knocking off the two most storied programs in CIS women's hockey history, the Dinos now face another upstart in the Montreal Carabins, with both teams in search of their first ever national championship. Montreal upset No. 1-seeded Wilfrid Laurier 6-5 in the tournament opener Thursday, then defeated UPEI 4-1 earlier Saturday to win Pool A and qualify for the final.

The bronze medal game will feature the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in Laurier and McGill at 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon, while the Pandas will face UPEI in the fifth-place game at 11 a.m.

NOTES: The win was the sixth over Alberta by the Dinos this season … the Dinos took three of four in the regular season, two in the playoffs, and one at the CIS championship … Calgary was seeded No. 3 for the tournament, while Montreal was the lowest seed at No. 6 … Sunday's final will be the first meeting between the two programs in their history …

-UC-