The best women’s university hockey teams in the country are in Elmira competing for the USports National title this week.
The waterloo warriors are hosting the 2025 USports Women’s Hockey Championship at the Woolwich Memorial Centre, featuring eight teams from across the country.
“Happy to be here. I’m happy it’s finally started. It’s been a long wait,” Dollee Meigs, Associate Coach for the Waterloo Warriors said.
The University of Toronto is the only other Ontario University Athletics school in the competition. Bishop’s University and Concordia University represent the teams from the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec. St. Francis Xavier University and University of New Brunswick represent the two teams from Atlantic University Sport. Western Canada is represented by the University of Alberta and University of British Columbia.
“[We] came from Antigonish, Nova Scotia, so a long way,” Erin McPherson, a fan of the St. Francis Xavier University’s X-Women team said.
“I left at 5 a.m. this morning and I just arrived,” Sylvain Boyer, a Concordia Stingers Fan said. “The ambience is getting great. People are coming in. We’re ready for the action.”
There is no round robin in the tournament, so teams must win every game to continue playing in the championship.
Waterloo enters as the eighth seed and plays top seeded University of Alberta in the quarter finals at 7 p.m. Thursday night.
“Lots of confidence in our program. That’s why we bid,” Roly Webster, Director of Athletics and Recreation for the University of Waterloo, said.
The Warriors hope the support from a hometown crowd will make a difference.
“We feel the emotion from the community and the fans and everybody. I think we’re going to have a really good showing tonight. I know there are people coming from Owen Sound. We do a lot of minor hockey work there too, so we do have a big support around us. And the girls feel it. The girls are pumped about it. The girls are happy,” Meigs said.
Not only are the Warriors hosting the tournament this year, but they’ll also be hosting the tournament next year in Elmira. Which means they already have an automatic berth into next year’s championship tournament.
“We don’t always do two years in a row. Waterloo expressed a real interest in that, the time that they bid initially. In this case, we saw that it was a community that we believe had the ability to build and build momentum and to really give a great experience for the student athletes that are going to be here in back-to-back years,” Pierre Arsenault, CEO of USports, said.
“Elmira is a beautiful town. When we arrived here, we went for a little tour. The rink is awesome. Lots energy here today. We’re happy,” McPherson said.
USports said with fans coming from across the country, these events always carry a big economic impact for the community as well.
“Even if you look at kind of the hotels that have been impacted and the noise in the building today already,” Arsenault said.
The tournament runs through the weekend with the championship game set for Sunday night.
