2023 U Sports University Cup

Tournament details
Country	Canada
Venue(s)	Eastlink Centre Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Dates	March 16–19, 2023 (2023-03-16 – 2023-03-19)
Teams	8
Final positions
Champions	UNB Reds (9th title)
Runner-up	Alberta Golden Bears
Third place	UQTR Patriotes
Tournament statistics
Games played	8
MVP	Samuel Richard
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The 2023 U Sports Men's Hockey Championship was the 61st edition of the U Sports men's ice hockey championship, a postseason tournament to determine the national champion of the 2023 U Sports men's ice hockey season. The tournament started on March 16 and ended with the bronze-medal and championship games being played on March 19 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.^[1]

The third-seeded UNB Reds defeated the fifth-seeded Alberta Golden Bears by a score of 3–0 to win the program's ninth national championship.^[2] In the win, UNB Reds's Coach MacDougall ties Tom Watt for the most championship game appearances, with 11, and ties Clare Drake for the most tournament games coached, with 42.^[3]

This is the third shutout in the past 12 years. The previous two shutouts were in 2011 (4-0 UNB over McGill) and 2013 (2-0 UNB over St. Mary's). Prior to that, in 2003, UQTR shutout St. FX 3-0 followed by a 30 year gap to 1973 when Toronto shutout St. Mary's 5-0.

Host

The tournament was held at the Eastlink Centre, on the grounds of University of Prince Edward Island.^[4] UPEI was originally scheduled to host the 2021 U Sports University Cup, but that tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.^[5][6] This was the second time that UPEI hosted the tournament, having first hosted in the school's inaugural year in 1970.^[7]

Qualification

AUS playoffs

With UPEI eliminated in the first round and not advancing to the AUS Finals, a third place team was not required as a replacement 'host' so there was no third-place series.

OUA playoffs

Note 1: The Queen's Cup championship game must be held in Ontario (part of the arrangement when the RSEQ hockey league merged with the OUA). When a Quebec-based OUA-East representative is the higher seed and should 'host' the game - the game shall be hosted by the OUA-West team instead, but the OUA-East team shall be the 'home' team and have last change. In this case - Windsor hosted UQTR for the Queen's Cup with UQTR as the 'home' team.

Note 2: The OUA 'Host' rule mentioned in Note 1 now, as of 2019-20, also applies to the bronze medal game. In this case Lakehead was the higher seed and the 'natural' host.

Note 3: OUA Playoffs re-seed teams in each round such that the highest advancing seed plays the lowest advancing seed within their divisional bracket.

Canada West playoffs

This was Calgary's first Canada West title since 1996.

Participating teams

^[8][9]

Bracket

Results

Championship final

Awards

Samuel Richard, a goaltender from the UNB Reds, was selected as the Major W.J. 'Danny' McLeod Award for U Sports University Cup MVP. Richard played all three games for UNB and finished the tournament with a GAA of 1.33 and Save Percentage of 0.920 as well as a shutout in the championship final.

Tournament all-star team were:^[10]
Forward: Matt Fonteyne (Alberta Golden Bears)
Forward: Jason Willms (UNB Reds)
Forward: Michael Petizian (UNB Reds)
Defenseman: Ross MacDougall (UNB Reds)
Defenseman: Justin Bergeron (UQTR Patriotes )