The 2024 U Sports University Cup was the 62nd edition of the U Sports men's ice hockey championship, held between March 14 and 17 in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Ontario, to determine a national champion for the 2023–24 U Sports men's ice hockey season. The UNB Reds defeated the UQTR Patriotes 4–0 to claim their 10th National Championship. This marked UNB's second title defence they also won back-to-back championships in 2016 and 2017. Similarly, this was UNB's second consecutive

shutout In team sports, a shutout (North American English, US) or clean sheet (Commonwealth English, UK) is a game in which the losing team fails to score. While possible in most major sports, they are highly improbable in some sports, such as basketba ...

posted in the finals (defeated

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

3–0 in 2023) and their fourth shutout in a final overall (2011, 2013, 2023 and 2024). UNB became the first ever U Sports team to concede no goals at the U Cup and completed the first undefeated season in Canadian collegiate hockey since 1962, going 43–0 (30–0, 5–0, 3–0 plus 5–0 in exhibition play). McMaster Marlins are the only other undefeated championship team, going 12–0–0 on their way to a U Cup title (10–0, 2–0).

Milestones

* With 9 under his tenure, UNB head coach Gardiner MacDougall tied Tom Watt for the most U Cup Championship titles. * This was Coach MacDougall's 17th appearance at the tournament, setting a new U Cup record. * This was Coach MacDougall's 12th appearance at the tournament finals, setting a new U Cup record. * With three games coached at this year's event, Coach MacDougall's set a new tournament record for games coached at 45, surpassing Clare Drake (Alberta) who had 42 games. * Coach MacDougall extended his career games won at U Cup with 36. Clare Drake (Alberta) and Tom Watt (Toronto) are tied for second with 30 wins each. * UNB became the first team in the 8-team/3-game tournament format to win all three games via

Host

The tournament was played at the

Mattamy Athletic Centre Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was originally constructed in 1931 as an indoor arena to host ice hockey games. Consider ...

in the former

Maple Leaf Gardens Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church and Wellesley, Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was originally constructed in 1931 as an indoor arena to host ice hoc ...

and was hosted by

Toronto Metropolitan University Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, or Toronto Met), formerly Ryerson University, is a Public university, public research university located in Toronto, Canada. The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District, Toronto, Gar ...

(TMU). This was the first time that TMU hosted the tournament, but was the 15th time that the championship was played in

. The finals were played 27 years to the day of the last University Cup finals played at Maple Leaf Gardens: Guelph Gryphons (OUA Queen's Cup Champions) won 4–3 over the UNB Varsity Reds (AUAA Champions) on March 17, 1997.

Qualification

AUS playoffs

Source: Note: * denotes overtime period(s)

OUA playoffs

Source: Note: * denotes overtime period(s)
Note 1: The Queen's Cup championship game must be held in Ontario (part of the arrangement when the RSEQ hockey league merged with the OUA). When a Quebec-based OUA-East representative is the higher seed and should 'host' the game the game shall be hosted by the OUA-West team instead, but the OUA-East team shall be the 'home' team and have last change. This rule was applied this season as UQTR had a better record than TMU thus, TMU would host the game but UQTR would be the 'home' team. Note 2: The OUA 'Host' rule mentioned in Note 1 now, as of 2019–20, also applies to the bronze medal game. This rule was also applied this season as McGill had a better record than Brock thus, Brock hosted the game but McGill was the 'home' team.

Canada West playoffs

Source: Note: * denotes overtime period(s)

University Cup Tournament

The eight teams advancing to the tournament are listed below. The three (3) conference champions must be seeded 1–3 followed by the OUA runner-up (seed #4). The remaining four seeds are for the AUS Finalist, Canada West Finalist, OUA Third-place and host respectively. Their seedings are based on the pre-tournament rankings. Since TMU would advance as the OUA Runner-up, the loser from the OUA Bronze Medal game (Brock) would represent the host.

Participating teams and seeding

Bracket

Note: * denotes overtime period(s)

Results

Championship final

Awards

The Major W.J. 'Danny' McLeod Award for U Sports University Cup MVP was awarded to UNB forward Brady Gilmour whom finished the tournament tied for first in points with 7 (1G + 6A) along with Simon Lafrance (2G + 5A) of UQTR. His lone goal was the game winner in the Championship Final. Tournament all-star team were:
Forward: Brady Gilmour (UNB Reds)
Forward: Simon Lafrance (UQTR Patriotes)
Forward: Austen Keating (UNB Reds)
Defenceman: Kale McCallum (UNB Reds)
Defenceman: Scott Walford (McGill Redbirds)
Goaltender: Samuel Richard (UNB Reds)

Media

Television

All games were broadcast live in English by crews consisting of Damian Smith and Griffin Butler, and Curtis Coleman and Matthew Smith on CBCSports.ca, the

CBC Sports CBC Sports is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for English-language sports broadcasting. The CBC's sports programming primarily airs on CBC Television, CBCSports.ca, and CBC Radio One. (The CBC's French-languag ...

app, the CBC Sports YouTube channel and the

CBC Gem CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

streaming service. It was broadcast in French by David Brosseau (PxP) and Dylan Baker (Colour) on

Radio-Canada Radio-Canada may refer to: * CBC/Radio-Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation *Ici Radio-Canada Télé, the CBC's main French-language television network *Ici Radio-Canada Première Ici Radio-Canada Première (formerly Première Chaîne) i ...

and Ici TOU.TV, while the finals also aired on

TVA Sports TVA Sports is a Canadian French-language sports specialty channel owned by the Groupe TVA, a publicly traded subsidiary of Quebecor Media. The channel is a general-interest sports network, and the first major competitor to RDS, the only other F ...

Entertainment

The McGill Fight Band came to support the McGill Redbirds at their three games, providing musical performances in the arena.

References

External links

Tournament Web Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:2024 U Sports Men's Ice Hockey Championship University Cup tournaments Ice hockey competitions in Toronto Ice Hockey Championship, men University Cup, 2024 U Sports University Cup