State of hockey at the University of Alberta

When University of Alberta Golden Bears hockey head coach, Ian Herbers, said “they gave us all we could handle this weekend,” he probably didn’t mean literally.

Alas the Bears’ three game, round one win over the Calgary Dinos proved to be their last playoff spectacle of the 2024–25 season. Aside from a 6-0 shutout for Tyler Palmer in round two, who carried over his round one performance as the most valuable player on that roster.

“Calgary has a couple big guys up front, and they have some smart net front players. They know when to cut across vision, when to move, when to stand there. So they were really difficult to play against,” Palmer explained.

Maybe a little too difficult for a team with five rookies on the bench at any given moment.

“We were a little jittery, maybe nervous being such a young team,” Herbers added.

No excuses though. The Bears, who forced game three against the best power play unit in the league (Mount Royal), lost one series too soon, effectively ending their season in the last year where recruitment favoured the historically best Golden Bears.

Now, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, (NCAA) has, and will, take some top recruits from the Bears, forcing them down other avenues for at least the next few years.

“Now, with the rules with the NCAA, it’s going to change things, and I’m not sure how that’s going to change U Sports hockey,” Edmonton Oilers head coach, Kris Knoblauch, told The Gateway.

“It’s good, but it’s going to change the landscape of that program. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but things are going to change.”

We could speculate all we want, but Knoblauch said it himself — “I’m not sure what the answer is.”

So far it’s a lot of question marks, generally pointing towards Junior A and the ECHL, with the potential to add new stars and needed depth to a lineup that looks as unclear as ever.

“We’ve got more to give,” Connor McClennon added during playoffs.

It’ll just be from a new team.

Pandas hockey faces huge upset at nationals

At least the Pandas can say they made it farther than the Bears, because well, they did. Just not by much.

The number one seeded Pandas, having claimed the Canada West championship on March 7, fell to the Waterloo Warriors — yes, the host team — exactly two weeks later, in shutout fashion (0–3).

For some, this might seem surprising, because it was. But Pandas head coach, Howie Draper, has been saying the same thing throughout the whole post-season — “it has to improve.”

Whether it be the power play, puck possesion, or a net front pressence, “it has to get better.”

“I just felt like they were playing on their toes. The pressure was stronger. We had a difficult time breaking out of our zone. So maybe we weren’t quite as focused as we needed to be and quick in our puck movement. Decision-making wasn’t great,” Draper said.

“They’re all good when you get to nationals, when you get to that level, because they’re the top teams. So it’ll be a challenge regardless of which team or which conference we see first.”

Yes, but again, the host team?

If it helps, the New Brunswick Reds men’s hockey team — an absolute power house in U Sports with three national titles in four years — also fell to their respective home team, the Ottawa Gee-Gees in overtime. Though, the Gee-Gees did go on to win the national title, while the Warriors lost in the championship game.

In other words, the Pandas, who ended the season with a 24-4-0 conference record, did claim a conference title, but fell short of a quarterfinal win despite being the number one ranked team in the country.

Their “shining light” over the next few years, as Draper would put it, comes down to goalie Grace Glover, who still has two to three years left with the Pandas, and plenty of time to get the title that matters most.