Turnaround season

Women Panthers look to build on three-game win streak

The UPEI Panthers women’s hockey team can match their win total from last season with a victory tonight in Halifax.

“They’ll be ready to go,” head coach Bruce Donaldson said Wednesday.

The Panthers are 6-4-1 this season, a year after dropping a number of one-goal games to finish 7-10-7 in Atlantic University Sport action.

They started this season 3-1-0 before losing three straight games. They are now riding a three-game win streak after a 3-2 shootout win over Moncton on Nov. 7, a 3-2 overtime win at St. FX on Nov. 9 and a 2-1 win at Saint Mary’s on Saturday.

It has the Panthers in fifth place in the eight-team conference, seven points back of firstplace St. Thomas with a game in hand.

“We just have to focus on ourselves and be ready for each game,” said Donaldson, noting how tight the conference is. “You can’t take a night off, you can’t take a period off because if you do there’s a lot of one-goal games going on and you won’t be happy with the end results.”

The Panthers play the Dalhousie Tigers (4-7-2) tonight at 7 p.m. at the Halifax Forum.

“We were very happy with going into that building last weekend and getting the two points from

Saint Mary’s. The objective is not to give it back,” he said. “You want to be chasing those in front of you and you don’t want to be giving points back to those that are chasing you.”

UPEI concludes the weekend by hosting St. FX (8-3-2) Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Cavendish Farms Wellness Centre in Montague. The Panthers are encouraging as many young hockey players to come out and cheer them on.

After beating the X-Women in Antigonish, N.S., Donaldson said they will be ready to go when the puck drops.

“We’re going to have to match their intensity.”