Alberta Pandas

The Pandas will be looking to redeem themselves after a massive flop in last year’s semifinals. Despite finishing with the best record in Canada West at 20-5-3, the Pandas were upset at home by the fifth-placed Regina Cougars, who finished the regular season with just 11 wins. The Pandas will be facing their provincial rivals, the Calgary Dinos. The Pandas won their season series with the Dinos 3-1 by a combined score of 10-5. The key for the Pandas will be goaltender Lindsey Post maintaining her regular season success, during which she posted 10 shutouts and a goals against average of just 1.18.

UBC Thunderbirds

The Thunderbirds head into the Canada West Final Four as the hottest team in the conference. After losing five straight games heading into winter break, UBC went 10-2 to finish the season, putting them just three points behind Alberta for first place. Despite that, the Birds will be in tough as they have to go up against the Manitoba Bisons who finished with a 19-9 record. The Birds and Bisons split their four meetings this season, with both teams winning the two games they hosted. That certainly bodes well for UBC, as they’re hosting the three game series against a Manitoba team that went just 8-6 away from home.

Manitoba Bisons

Like the Pandas, the Bisons also fell victim to the Regina Cougars’ Cinderella playoff run last year. The Bisons will be looking to redeem themselves, but will be in tough playing UBC, one of the hottest teams in the conference. The Bisons’ biggest strength is the fact they boast two of the league’s top five point scorers and the league’s second best goalie, Rachel Dyck, who finished the season with an impressive 1.70 goals against average. Regardless, the Bisons will be in tough as they lost both of the games they played at Thunderbird Stadium this season and UBC is hosting their playoff series.

Calgary Dinos

After sweeping last year’s Canada West and CIS Champions the Saskatchewan Huskies, the Dinos will travel to Clare Drake Arena to face their provincial rivals. After a strong start to the season, the Dinos limped into the playoffs, losing five of their final six games, likely because their best player, Canadian Olympic Gold Medalist Hayley Wickenheiser, missed the second half of the season. On top of that, the Dinos lost three of four games to the Pandas during the regular season, and they will also have home ice advantage and three weeks of rest heading into their series.

Prediction

Judging by the upsets that happened in last year’s playoffs, it’s really tough to predict the way this Final Four is going to shake out. It’s easy to say the Pandas and Birds will win their respective series and square off in the finals, but it was also easy to say Regina was going to be knocked out in the first round last year, and look at what happened. Despite winning 11 games during the regular season, they came within one win of being Canada West champions. Based on the way their season series went down, the Pandas and Birds are strong bets to square off in the finals.