by ACAC Sports Writer Curtis J. Phillips

Last year in the 2016-2017 Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) Men's Hockey Championships, the best-of-three series pitting the MacEwan Griffins against the NAIT Ooks went in favour of the Griffins 2-1 with two overtime victories 3-2 an 4-3 while the Ooks sole win was a convincing 4-1 final.

All the wins were on the opposing team's home ice.

Fast forward to 2017-2018 and the ACAC Men's Hockey Championships the best-of-three series features the same two teams.

And once again the final results are basically the same, the Griffins defending their crown by taking the series 2-1 behind a Friday night 7-3 and Sunday night 4-1 victory. The Ooks sole win was a 3-2 decision Saturday.

Once again all the wins were on the opposing team's home ice.

NAIT has claimed 16 ACAC men's hockey banners while Griffins has now managed three.

MacEwan quotes are from interviews with Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics.

Sunday March 18, 2018

NAIT Arena

Championship Photo by Len Joudrey

MacEwan 4 NAIT 1

A pair of goals from Ryan Baskerville (1st period, 11:55 and 2nd period 19:16) along with third period goals by Brett Smythe on a power play at 9:28 and Ryan Benn at 19:46 on an empty net, netted the Griffins their third ever ACAC men's hockey banner.

It's unbelievable," said MacEwan captain Ryan Benn. "I owe it all to these guys. Just the character. That's how we won. NAIT – man to man, they're talented. They're probably more talented than us. We know that. But our character and the love for one another is so strong.

"Everybody wanted to do it for the guy next to him. It sounds cliché, but that's how you win championships is character and heart. Nobody in this room cares who gets the credit. It's all about the collective and the common goal. We've always been like that. That's the culture here."

Marc-Olivier Daigle was the victorious goalie as the Griffins were outshot by the Ooks 40-31.

Ooks lone goal was by Jordan Davies at 4:10 of the second.

"We did not generate a lot of offense and we did not have out whole team show up," said Ooks coach Tim Fragle. "If you do not have two or three guys pulling their weight, it does not equate to a good result in the end."

Of being in the gold medal series for the seventh consecutive year, Fragle said: "We will continue to be knocking at the door. This is two tough losses in back-to-back years. We had 13 new players, so it was a relatively new group. The expectation was to win but we came up short."

Saturday March 17 2018

Downtown Community Arena

NAIT 3 MacEwan 2

Two early second period goals by Brett Magee (2:09) and Issac Farrah (3:18) gave the Ooks a 2-0 lead with a Tanner Younghans score at 17:09 allowing the visitors to go up 2-0.

A power play goal by Stefan Danielson at 4:44 of the final frame put the Griffins on the scoreboard with a Ryan Benn goal at 10:31 rounding out the score.

"We bounced back from Friday night," said Fragle. "Today it was the last 10 minutes where they pushed us and we did well."

NAIT outshot the Griffins 43-36 with Nathan Park earning the win.

"We just need to come out hard like we did in Game 1 against them," said Griffins forward Cameron Gotaas. "That's what we did tonight and it was 0-0 (after the first period). Then we just took our foot off the gas in the second. They had some bounces. We didn't get as many bounces. But we gave them some great chances and they capitalized. We had some that we didn't capitalize on, but we earned those two goals at the end. It looked like we were going to come back."

Friday March 16 2018

NAIT Arena

MacEwan 7 NAIT 3

Tyler Morrison's two second period goals (8:25 and 10:24) led a balanced Griffins attack with singles coming from the sticks of Sean MacTavish, 1st period power play, 4:21; Brett Njaa, 2nd period, 6:24; Stefan Danielson, 2nd period, 10:57 with third period markers by Cameron Gotaas and Nolan Yaremchuk at 12:20 and 17:00 respectively.

"That's one of the great things about this team is we have so many different weapons in the chest that we can go to," said Ringrose in an interview. "We can play that hard, heavy physical game and you saw that in the defensive zone from us tonight. We can play with speed and pace and you saw that through the neutral zone in the second period."

Ooks' goals came from Tanner Younghans, Tyler Kunz and Stefan Danielson.

Marc-Olivier Daigle earned the win in net making 37 saves.