Ruilin FuThe last thing anybody wants to do after they’ve been eliminated from a national tournament is wake up early the next morning and play in a consolation game.
Unfortunately for the Pandas hockey team, that’s exactly what they had to do after they dropped a tight quarterfinal match with the Montreal Carabins by a score of 4-3 at CIS nationals in Calgary on Friday. The Pandas then went on to drop their consolation game 4-1 to the Moncton Bleus, putting an end to their season.
Pandas head coach Howie Draper said he isn’t a fan of the consolation game format, and despite the disappointing finish, he was impressed by his team’s character after having their championship aspirations eliminated the night before.
“I’ll start by saying I’m not a real fan of continuing to play after you’ve been shut out of medal contention,” he said. “The reality is, you train all year to win a gold medal or to win a championship and when that goal is nullified it’s hard to bounce back and play at the top of your game.
“They really put everything they had into it, but it just wasn’t enough in the end.”
Draper said this year was a success because the team reached both of their goals: finishing the season with the best record in Canada West and winning the conference playoffs. While winning nationals is an obvious goal, Draper knew heading in that it was a steep hill to climb.
“I think everything would have needed to fall into place for us to win a national championship this weekend,” he said. “We have a very good team. We believed that we could win, but at no time did any of us feel that we were going to go in and knock everybody’s socks off.”
Draper said another important thing to gain from the team’s performance was the realization of just how much they’ve improved since last season.
“I really feel like we grew from last year and when you’re trying to help a program develop, you want to see those incremental improvements, and I think we’re better now than we were last year,” he said.
The Pandas are in fantastic shape heading into next season. Only one player is graduating, meaning next year’s roster will consist of a group with the experience of winning Canada West and playing in nationals.
“It’s going to be a very exciting year,” Draper said. “It’s going to be a different feel on our team. There’s going to be more competition, in practice and in games, which will help us play the game at a higher tempo on a more consistent basis.”
Draper also noted that with a good portion of the team heading into their final year of eligibility, the best from this current group is yet to come.
“It’s very common for a fifth-year player to bring their absolute best in their final year,” he said. “It’s all of the development and the maturity over the course of their careers, but they really want it.
“Given what I saw from our fourth year players last weekend, I think next year is going to be a really good year to win.”
