Women’s field hockey are CanWest champions… again

Remember when you used to have an iPod and the first song that would play was Vampire Weekend’s “A-Punk”? Remember how it got so repetitive and tiring?

That’s probably how the UBC Thunderbirds women’s field hockey team feels after being crowned Canada West champions for a record 25th time. If anything, Queen’s “We Are The Champions” is probably the song that every player on the team is sick of at this point.

That said, this past weekend’s Canada West crowning was the first time the ’Birds have won two Canada West titles in a row since 2013 when their eight year title streak was ended by the University of Victoria Vikes. The ’Birds actually already won the title last week when they beat the University of Victoria Vikes twice in a weekend double header — they didn’t even have to play their final homestand of the season against the University of Calgary Dinos to raise the Canada West trophy.

That didn’t stop UBC from having another dominating weekend, taking both Saturday’s and Sunday’s games against the Dinos.

Saturday’s game was the bigger battle of the two match ups, with both teams braving the cold, wet conditions at Wright Field. Calgary — who went into Saturday morning’s game with an 0-5 record — have not won a game since October 22, 2011. It didn’t seem like that though, as the Dinos found a way past UBC goalie Gabriella Switzer in the third minute off a penalty corner.

The T-Birds fought back and equalized just before the end of the first half after forward Margaret Pham beat Dinos goalie Madison Arbuckle. Jordyn Faiczak and Sophie Jones would add two more UBC goals in the 49th and 62nd minute respectively to complete the comeback in dominating fashion.

The sun cleared for Sunday’s game and it was under those golden conditions that the Thunderbirds gave a worthy, golden performance — a 6-0 blowout. The game started a bit slower, with only one goal scored in the first half by UBC’s Emily Martin. The second half saw the ’Birds go on a scoring spree, putting five past Arbuckle in the span of just 16 minutes courtesy of Sara Goodman, Hannah Eborall, Margaret Pham and a pair from Meghan Hayden.

UBC will end their season on a bye-week as they prepare to face off with the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) champion on November 3 at Wright Field for the U Sports national championships. The ’Birds will be looking to win their seventh straight U Sports national title.

To put that into perspective, UBC’s fifth year athletes will have the chance to hold a national championship medal from every single year they’ve been a Thunderbird.

Talk about history making.

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