KINGSTON, Ont. -- The McGill University women's hockey team is slated to open the Queen's Invitational Tournament on Friday (Sept. 18) with a 4 p.m. match-up against the Montreal Carabins at the Invista Centre in Kingston. The tourney will feature six contests over three days, with live stats available for each game.
The Martlets are 0-1 in preseason play after a 3-0 setback to the visiting Guelph Gryphons last week, while the Carabins are 1-0 after defeating Guelph 7-4. McGill leads the all-time series against the Carabins with a 37-11-0 record since they first crossed paths in 2009 but Montreal has won 10 of the last 20. The bitter rivals crossed paths eight times last season, with McGill winning five of them, including a 7-2 victory in Game 3 of the RSEQ conference best-of-three final to capture the Dr. Ed Enos Trophy as Quebec champions.
In their second game of the tournament, McGill will face the Queen's Gaels, with puck drop set for 4 p.m. on Saturday. At the Queen's tournament last year, the Gaels earned a 3-2 overtime victory against McGill, who entered the tourney as the defending CIS champions. Fiona Lester of Peterborough, Ont., buried the overtime winner for Queen's at 2:32 of the sudden-death period. The Martlets are 12-6-1 against Queen's since the CIS women's hockey championship was initiated in 1997.
In their final game on Sunday morning, the Martlets will cross paths for the first time ever with the UBC Thunderbirds in an early 9 a.m. start.
The Queen's Invitational will arguably be the highest calibre tourney prior to CIS Nationals as all four teams finished last season ranked in the national Top 10 poll, with UBC listed at No.7, the Gaels at No.6, Montreal at No.2 and McGill at No.1. The Martlets claimed silver at the 2015 CIS championships in Calgary with a 5-0 loss to Western in the final. The Carabins won bronze, defeating St. Francis Xavier 2-1. UBC lost 2-1 to Manitoba in the Canada West best-of-three semifinals, while Queen's was swept by Laurier in the OUA best-of-three quarter-finals.
2015 Queen's Invitational Tournament Schedule
Friday, Sept. 18
4:00 pm – Montreal vs McGill
7:30 pm - Queen's vs. UBC
Saturday, Sept. 19
4:00 pm - Queen's vs. McGill
7:30 pm - Montreal vs. UBC
Sunday, Sept. 20
9:00 am - UBC vs. McGill
12 noon - Queen's vs. MontrealSOURCE:
Earl ZukermanCommunications Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012 (Tel.)m.athletics.mcgill.ca (mobile website)www.mcgill athletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca@EarlZukerman (twitter) SEE COMPLETE McGILL VARSITY SCHEDULE ONLINE AT:
www.mcgillathletics.ca/calendar.aspx
