Midway through Day 2 at the Canadian University Hockey Championship, everything I (and most experts) predicted has been turned on its head.  Since this is primarily a UWO blog, let’s play out the scenario the Mustangs need to play out for a shot at the University Cup.

Pool B Results:
Saint Mary’s 4 – McGill 1
McGill 4 – Western 3
Saturday: Western vs. Saint Mary’s

Looking at tomorrow’s game, the Mustangs need to win to have a chance of making it to the finals. After McGill’s surprising win today, the Mustangs have to find an extra step to have a hope against the high-octane offense put up by the Huskies. The Mustangs were inconsistent today. They got off to a great start before letting McGill control the end of the first and beginning of the second. The ‘Stangs showed life for the better part of the second to take the lead but when McGill tied it up, they played dead again.

So what does Western need to do to make it to the finals? If they win, the first tiebreaker is goal differential. Going into Saturday, McGill is -2 and is out. Western is -1 while Saint Mary’s is a +3. Western needs to win by at least 2 to have a chance. The second tiebreaker is “Goal Differential Average.” It’s a made up statistic calculated by taking the goal differential and dividing by goals against. If both teams have the same goal differential (+1 being the only number they can tie on), Saint Mary’s will move on using this tiebreaker because Western will have one more goal against.

So how does Western get to the finals? Win on Saturday by at least 3 goals.

Meanwhile, Pool A is already going against the grain (or at least against my predictions). Last night, both teams had to know that the winner between UNB and Alberta would go to the finals (Lakehead doesn’t have a hope in hell against either). Unfortunately for the CanWest crowd, only UNB realized that fact and they ran up five in the first period to trounce the Alberta Golden Bears by a final score of 6-3. This was also a measure of revenge for the Varsity Reds after last year’s finals. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold and nowhere is colder than the wilderness of Northern Ontario. And don’t ask for a tiebreaker scenario here. It’s not to be worse than goal differential. Not that it’ll get that far.

CIS Rule Book (Tiebreakers on page 5)

The Lowdown’s CIS Hockey Championship Coverage:
March 25th: Preview
March 27th: Update
March 28th: Update
March 29th: Update
March 29th: Live Blog
March 29th: Finals Recap