The Mount Royal men’s hockey team had tried for 13 long, futile years to advance to a Canada West final -- and all that hard work finally paid off on Sunday.
The Cougars took the third and final game 4-2 in their semi-final series against the University of Alberta Golden Bears and advanced.
Justin Lies' game-winning goal at 8:44 of the third period was enough to lift the Cougars to the Canada West final against the University of Saskatchewan this weekend.
“To come out with a win in that one obviously means so much to myself but also the whole program,” said Lies.
“Taking that next step and moving onto the finals and a berth in the National Championship means a lot to us and it was just an amazing win.”
On to Saskatchewan
Taking on the Huskies figures to be a tough series. They finished first overall in the league with a 23-5 record. The Cougars were first in the West with a 22-6 record.
These two teams don’t like each other much and rookie forward Teague Patton is expecting a hard fought series.
“I think they’re going to come out hard, it’s in their rink as well so they’re going to have that extra little energy,” he said.
“For us I think it’s just stick to our game,” he added.
“We know what we need to do and we know who we are as a team and we know who we have in there, so I think we’ve just got to stick to our game plan.”
🎟️🏒TICKET PUNCHED!!!🏒🎟️@mrumhockey has punched their ticket to the Canada West Men's Hockey Finals and U SPORTS University Cup FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PROGRAM HISTORY!#WeAreTheCougars #OnTheHunt pic.twitter.com/7Q8vwfW20m
— Cougars Men's Hockey (@MRUmhockey) March 4, 2025
Berth in the national championship
By winning the semi-final over Alberta, the Cougars have also booked a ticket to the U Sports National Championship which will be held in Ottawa starting on March 20th.
Josh Tarzwell, who had a pair of goals in Game 3 against the Golden Bears says they’re not thinking about that just yet.
“We really haven’t talked much about the U Sports National Championship,” he said.
“We knew how to get there and how we had to play to get there,” he added, “but we’re really focused on going into Saskatchewan and taking care of it.”
THE COUGARS ARE GOING TO THE FINALS!!
— Cougars Men's Hockey (@MRUmhockey) March 3, 2025
The Cougs win game 3 vs UofA and advance to the finals!
They will face off against the UofS Huskies next weekend!
The win also secures a spot in the @USPORTSca National Championship tournament for the first time in program history! pic.twitter.com/OpTbCT9X10
The goal for the Cougars Men’s team is to join the women’s hockey team and have their own banner hanging at Flames Community Arena.
Cougars head coach Bert Gilling says that would mean everything.
“We haven’t hung anything up yet,” he said.
“There’s no banner for getting in first place and there’s no banners for winning semi-finals. You get a banner when you win the playoff championship and I hold that in high regard.”
All games in the Canada West final will be played in Saskatoon. Game 1 is Friday night. Game 2 goes Saturday night and if necessary they’ll play Game 3 on Sunday night.
