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Credit Steve Brooks
Credit Steve Brooks
March 23, 2025

Gaiters get ‘er done! Bishop’s shuts out Waterloo to win women’s hockey national championship

Recap Box Score
ELMIRA, Ont. (U SPORTS) - A 27-save shutout by Ericka Gagnon and a three-point night by Gabrielle Santerre led the Bishop's Gaiters to a 3-0 win over the Waterloo Warriors in the championship game of the 2025 Miller Waste U SPORTS Women's Hockey Championship at the Woolwich Memorial Centre. The two sophomores combined to lead the squad from Lennoxville, Quebec to the program's first Golden Path Trophy, in just its fourth year of existence. 
 
The sellout crowd of 1,482, heavily favouring the host Warriors saw a defensive struggle, where scoring chances were hard to come by, and both Gagnon in the Gaiters net and Kara Mark for Waterloo stood tall to keep the game scoreless through the first period and more than halfway into the second. Both goaltenders earned player-of-the-game honours. Mark made 28 saves for the Warriors.
 
Santerre, the Gaiters' captain, broke the deadlock on a slap shot from between the faceoff circles that foiled Mark in the top corner at 11:29 of the second period. Waterloo had several good chances to tie the game later in the period, but Gagnon was equal to the task.
 
The third period saw more pressure directed at the Gaiters net and the Warriors threatened to tie the game several times. The outcome was in doubt 2:45 remained, when Santerre picked up the puck in her own zone and – while she was being checked – sent a long lead pass up to Gabrielle Rousseau, who fired the puck top shelf and gave the Gaiters badly-needed insurance – much to the delight of the approximately 200 boisterous purple-clad fans who made the trip from the Lennoxville campus and elsewhere.
 
After the Gaiters went up 2-0, Waterloo pulled Mark and pressed again to break the shutout. However, Maude Pépin, the second-team All-Canadian who has been with the Gaiters since they joined U SPORTS in 2021, put the game to bed with an empty net goal.
 
Bishop's outshot Waterloo 29-27 and both teams went 0-for-3 on the power-play.
 
For Waterloo (27-6-6, 18-2-6 OUA), the silver medal is their first medal in U SPORTS women's hockey, and improves on their fourth place finish at last year's championship.
 
The win for the Gaiters (21-9-3, 10-8-3 RSEQ) is the university's first national championship since their men's basketball team took a CIAU banner in 1998, and is only the fourth CIAU / U SPORTS banner in school history.
 
TOURNAMENT ALL-STAR TEAM
Tournament All-Stars
G: Ericka Gagnon, Bishop's
D: Lynsey Acheson, Waterloo
D: Regan Garreau, Bishop's
F: Gabrielle Santerre, Bishop's
F: Jessymaude Drapeau, Concordia
F: Kassidy McCarthy, Waterloo
Tournament MVP:
Gabrielle Santerre, Bishop's