Back-to-back
Varsity Reds repeat as University Cup champions
Cam Braes scored four goals to lead the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds to a 5-3 victory over the Saskatchewan Huskies on Sunday in Fredericton for the Canadian men’s university hockey championship
It was the second straight national title for the Varsity Reds, and seventh in the school’s history.
Mark Simpson also scored for New Brunswick and Philippe Maillet had four assists.
Connor Gay scored one goal and set up the other two for Saskatchewan. Jordan Fransoo and Kohl Bauml had the other goals.
Etienne Marcoux stopped 18 shots for the win. Jordan Cooke made 31 saves in the losing effort.
It was the veteran Braes’s last game in a UNB uniform.
“I wanted to leave my legacy on UNB’s program. I’m leaving with three titles in five years, and two university degrees,” he said.
“Every one of the championships was important. The first one was special. I had never won anything big, so it was a good one. The second was important for the program and for us as players. And this time, we are the first UNB team to win championships back-to-back.”
UNB head coach Gardiner MacDougall said he had a feeling things might go Braes’s way in the championship game.
“We are a confident group. The energy in the building really helped us,” he said. “We had the lead, gave up a goal, then got the lead back, and it was about then I thought the game was ours.
We had a dominant second period. And to have that fifth goal, scored by a fifth-year guy, well, that was perfect.”
Earlier Sunday, the Acadia Axemen downed the St. Francis Xavier X-Men 7-3 for bronze.
Daniel Pettersson led Acadia with two goals and two assists and Michael Clarke also scored twice.
The game was the ninth meeting of the season between the two teams, with St. F.X. winning both the season series 4-1 and the best-of-five Atlantic conference semifinal 3-0.
Acadia head coach Darren Burns said the bronze medal was a nice way to finish the season after coming into the tournament seeded eighth.
“This shows the passion of our players,” he said. “Guys played with integrity and character. It was tough to turn around after yesterday’s loss, but we had to pick up and battle on, and we did.”
At the women’s nationals in Napanee, Ont., UBC defeated Concordia 2-0 for third place and Saint Mary’s downed Queen’s 4-1 for fifth.
Alberta met McGill in the gold-medal game last night.