‘We can win, so that’s what we're going to do this year’: STU women’s hockey looking forward to AUS playoffs

The Tommies women's hockey team have won seven of their last ten games. (Credit: STU Athletics)

The St. Thomas University (STU) women’s hockey team have clinched a playoff spot with under a month left in the regular season. 

The Tommies are in third place overall in the Atlantic University Sport standings with a 15-7-0-2 record.

After a shaky start to the season, Head Coach Peter Murphy said that a shootout win against St. Mary’s University in late October was the catalyst for the team’s success so far. 

“It was kind of from then on that we noticed a difference in focus and trying to really sort of see how we're playing our systems, like the girls kind of really started to buy in,” he said. “And then as we went forward, I think we lost the next two games, but then after that, we went on a bit of a tear.”

He thinks that the team’s strong power play and penalty kill have been a major factor in their recent dominance. So far this season, STU has placed second in the league for power-play goals with 15. 

Last year, they were knocked out of the semi-finals by the St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) X-Women for the second year in a row. The Tommies were short two power-play goals during the series. 

“With a lot of the games being one-goal games, that could have been the difference, or just even scoring a goal changes the whole tempo of the game too,” he said. “So it's something we really focused on this year.” 

Along with special teams, Murphy said that good goaltending will be another factor in the playoffs. Tommie Katie Sweeney currently leads the league with a .960 save percentage.

Fourth-year forward and Captain Jordan Chaulk agrees that their play in the second part of the season has positioned them well for the playoffs.

She said that the team's commitment to practicing and focusing on “mental fitness” have been paying off on the ice. 

The team doesn’t want to dwell on the past. She said that they may have put too much pressure on themselves last year and may have overthought being in the same position against StFX in back-to-back playoffs. 

“I think we definitely could have just kind of [come] back to our roots last year and just realized that we're a really good team and that it's not the same as the year before,” she said. “We can win, so that's what we're going to do this year.”

Both she and Murphy said that commitment from everybody and balanced scoring will be needed to win the championship.

He said that some lines will need to step up in games where they may not normally, scoring goals that can be difference makers.

 “I think, like buying in and realizing that, this is our year to do this and to win and that we've put in the work and we're continuing to put in the work— just trusting the process,” said Chaulk.

“I think everybody just needs to kind of buy into the fact that we've worked so hard to be here and that this is where we're supposed to be.”