With the post-season quickly approaching, the Carleton Ravens women’s hockey team surrendered a 6-1 loss to the McGill Martlets Feb. 11 before rebounding with a shutout victory over the Concordia Stingers the following day.
The Ravens entered the weekend with a playoff berth already secured — the team is guaranteed third place in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ).
Despite the loss, the game against McGill provided the team with some insight into what they need to work on with two games remaining in the regular season.
“Our focus is being relentless, that was our team focus as a whole and just playing the whole 60 minutes, going from start to finish,” said Kristen MacDonald, a fourth-year forward.
Head coach Shelley Coolidge agreed.
“It’s an old cliché in the sport but we didn’t do a great job of that [Saturday],” she said.
Coolidge said the Ravens gave the Martlets “way too much time and space” with the puck and focused too much on offence.
MacDonald also stressed the importance of having the right mindset going into any given game.
“No matter who we play, we have to go into it wanting to win, thinking we can do it,” she said. “So we’ll prepare the exact same way and come out start to finish hopefully.”
Despite the team’s rough patch in the second period, where McGill scored five goals, Coolidge said the Ravens came back aggressively in the third period and kept the Martlets at bay.
This also reflected positively on some of the team’s veterans.
“For our graduating players . . . over their five year period, I thought that the third period was a good character building for the team,” Coolidge said.
The Ravens returned to the ice Feb. 12 with a 3-0 road victory over the Stingers.
With a playoff position already secured, the Ravens visit the fourth-place University of Gee-Gees Feb. 18 before hosting the Université de Montréal Carabins the following afternoon at the Ice House. The Ravens and Carabins will meet again in the first round of the playoffs the following week.
“It’s really exciting and this year we’re in a really good position,” said fifth-year forward Claudia Bergeron. “We just need to make sure we can maintain that and we know we’re in a good spot for playoffs and maybe we have a chance to go to nationals this year.”
