The Kings and Queens Hockey Teams are ACAC Champions

The Red Deer Polytechnic Queens win in overtime and become back-to-back champions in women’s hockey as they swept the Ooks in the best-of-five-game series with a 2-1 victory. After the Ooks dominated the majority of the period, the Queens would strike first with 46 seconds to go in the opening frame. On a two-on-two rush, forward Brenna Reid (Bachelor of Kinesiology) slid the puck over to her teammate Natalie Buttle (Bachelor of Kinesiology), who would wrist it past the NAIT goaltender for their third straight opening goal of the series.

At the end of the first 20 minutes, the Ooks outshot the Queens 10-4 as once again goaltender Tanya Disotell-Dunsmore (Bachelor of Science in Pre-Opt) was helping her team out in the pack of the net. The Ooks would tie it up at one after a misplayed puck in the Queens end landed on the stick of forward Jessica Engelbrecht (Bachelor of Business Administration) who would wrist it over the blocker of Disotell-Dunsmore.

The Ooks continued to dominate the game as they held the Polytechnic to six shots in the middle frame and put up 12 more to give them a total of 22 shots in the 40 minutes played.

This game would need overtime, but it sure did not take long for the Queens to become back-to-back champions as forward Avery Lajeunnesse (Bachelor of Education) wrapped the puck around and snuck it between the pad and the post to defeat the Ooks 2-1, 45 seconds into the overtime period. It was a delayed call, but the Polytechnic is now back-to-back champions.

Queens goaltender Tanya Disotell-Dunsmore stopped 30 of 31 shots on her way to being named the player of the game as they clinched the gold medal in the 2022/2023 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference Women’s Hockey Season.

What a way to end the 2022/2023 RDP Athletics schedule with the Kings also winning the championship on Friday night.

The Red Deer Polytechnic Kings swept the NAIT Ooks in the best-of-five-game championship series and win their first championship since the 1993/1994 season.

The first period went uneventful for the second straight game. But the Kings were surely making Ooks goaltender Ryley Osland (Business Administration) sweat a little as they fired 17 shots on goal in the first 20 minutes. NAIT, on the other hand, had just three shots and would start the second period on the penalty kill. But the Ooks would kill it off and moments later would open up the scoring of Game 3. Off a faceoff, in their own zone, the Kings could not clear the puck as the Ooks were forechecking. This led to the puck landing on the stick of forward Dylan Stewart (Open Studies), who would rifle it past Kings goaltender Arik Weersink (Bachelor of Business Administration) for the early lead.

The Kings would return the favour with under two minutes to go. Defenseman Layne Toder (Management Certificate Skywing) sauced over a pass to forward Holden Knights (Bachelor of Education), who finished it off with a highlight reel goal as he backhanded the puck over the glove of Osland into the top corner of the net to tie it up at one.

After the second period, the Kings still were outshooting the Ooks 24-19 but NAIT controlled the pace of the game in the middle frame as they made Weersink work for all 14 saves in the 20 minutes and just held the
Polytechnic to seven shots.

Under two minutes into the final period, forward Erik Miller (Business Administration) would walk into the Ooks zone beat a diving defenseman and sneak one past Osland for their first lead of the hockey game. This would ultimately be the series-clinching and game-winning goal as the Kings defeated the Ooks 2-1. At the end of the game, the Polytechnic outshot NAIT 28-24.

As he stopped 26 of 28 shots, Ryley Osland was named the player of the game with the Kings goaltender Arik Weersink also being honored with the player of the game award.

This would end the RDP Athletics schedule for the 2022/2023 season with the Awards Banquet happening on Wednesday, April 5 to recap all the amazing moments that happened across all the sports teams and recognize all the student-athletes who contributed to an incredible year at the Polytechnic.