U Sports women's ice hockey championship

The Golden Path Trophy is a national collegiate sports award, presented annually to the women's ice hockey champions of U Sports, Canada's governing body for university sports. The trophy was donated by Katherine Cartwright in 1998, which is when the championship was first contested. Cartwright was the first head coach of the Queen's Gaels women’s hockey program in 1971 and led the movement to reinstate women's hockey at the collegiate level in 1960.^[1]

History

The championship has been competed for in U Sports since 1998, when the sport was established in what was then known as the Canadian Interuniversity Athletics Union. Prior to that, only teams from Ontario would compete for a women's ice hockey championship.

With the completion of the 2017 championship, 12 different teams have played in the national championship final. Eight different teams have won the national championship.

With the completion of the 2018 championship, the Alberta Pandas have won the most national championships, with eight wins in 10 appearances, followed by the McGill Martlets, with four wins in nine appearances. The Concordia Stingers and Montreal Carabins are next with two national championship wins, followed by five teams with one win each.

The Alberta Pandas hold the record of three consecutive championships, from 2002 through 2004.

Champions

Year	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Host
1998	Concordia Stingers	4–1	Toronto Lady Blues	Concordia Stingers
1999	Concordia Stingers	2–0	Alberta Pandas	Toronto Lady Blues
2000	Alberta Pandas	2–0	McGill Martlets	Concordia Stingers
2001	Toronto Lady Blues	4–3	Regina Cougars	Calgary Dinos
2002	Alberta Pandas	5–2	Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks	Regina Cougars
2003	Alberta Pandas	5–4 (OT)	Toronto Lady Blues	Regina Cougars
2004	Alberta Pandas	2–0	Ottawa Gee-Gees	McGill Martlets
2005	Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks	4–1	Alberta Pandas	McGill Martlets
2006	Alberta Pandas	2–1	Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks	St. Francis Xavier X-Women
2007	Alberta Pandas	4–0	McGill Martlets	Ottawa Gee-Gees
2008	McGill Martlets	2–0	Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks	Ottawa Gee-Gees
2009	McGill Martlets	3–1[2]	Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks	St. Francis Xavier X-Women
2010	Alberta Pandas	2–0[3]	McGill Martlets	St. Francis Xavier X-Women
2011	McGill Martlets	5–2	St. Francis Xavier X-Women	Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks
2012	Calgary Dinos	5–1[4][5]	Montreal Carabins	Alberta Pandas
2013	Montreal Carabins	3–2	Calgary Dinos	Toronto Lady Blues
2014	McGill Martlets	4–3 (2OT)[6][7]	Montreal Carabins	St. Thomas Tommies
2015	Western Mustangs	5–0 [8][9]	McGill Martlets	Calgary Dinos
2016	Montreal Carabins	8–0[10]	UBC Thunderbirds	Calgary Dinos
2017	Alberta Pandas	2–1 (2OT)[11]	McGill Martlets	Queen's Gaels
2018	Manitoba Bisons	2–0	Western Mustangs	Western Mustangs
2019				UPEI Panthers
2020				UPEI Panthers

^[12]

Championship appearances

Previous champions

Previously, the most important Canadian university women's ice hockey championship was the one from the Women's Intercollegiate Athletic Union (WIAU) (from 1921 till 1971), along with that of the Ontario Women's Interuniversity Athletic Association (OWIAA) (from 1972 till 1997) which awarded the Dr. Judy McCaw trophy to the team champion:

WIAU

1921–22 University of Toronto

1922–23 University of Toronto

1923–24 University of Toronto

1924–25 University of Toronto

1925–26 Queen's University

1926–27 University of Toronto

1927–28 University of Toronto

1928–29 University of Toronto

1929–30 University of Toronto

1930–31 Queen's University

1931–32 University of Toronto

1932–33 University of Toronto

1933–34 University of Toronto

1934–35 University of Toronto

1935–36 University of Toronto

1936 at 1948 No official competition-

1948–49 University of Toronto

1949–50 University of Toronto

1950–51 University of Toronto

1951 to 1960 No official competition-

1960–61 University of Toronto

1961–62 University of Toronto

1962–63 University of Toronto / Queen's University

1963–64 University of Toronto

1964–65 University of Toronto

1965–66 University of Toronto

1966–67 University of Guelph

1967–68 University of Guelph

1968–69 University of Guelph

1969–70 University of Guelph

1970–71 McMaster University

OWIAA

1971–72 University of Guelph

1972–73 Queen's University

1973–74 University of Guelph

1974–75 Queen's University

1975–76 McMaster University

1976–77 Queen's University

1977–78 McMaster University

1978–79 Queen's University

1979–80 University of Toronto

1980–81 University of Toronto

1981–82 University of Toronto

1982–83 York University

1983–84 University of Toronto

1984–85 University of Toronto

1985–86 University of Toronto

1986–87 York University

1987–88 University of Toronto

1988–89 University of Toronto

1989–90 University of Toronto

1990–91 University of Toronto

1991–92 University of Toronto

1992–93 University of Toronto

1993–94 Université de Toronto

1994–95 University of Guelph

1995–96 University of Toronto

1996–97 York University

Reference^[13]

References

External links

• U Sports Women's Hockey Championship