The Bishop’s University Gaiters are the 2025 USports Women’s national champions after shutting out host University of Waterloo Warriors in the gold medal game Sunday night in Elmira.
In front of a packed crowd at the Woolwich Memorial Centre, neither team managed to score in the first period.
Bishop’s captain Gabrielle Santerre got the Gaiters on the board first, scoring her third goal of the tournament at the 11:29 mark into the second period.
“A lot of joy, but I was staying locked in, I was staying focused, there was a lot of minutes left. We just stuck together, and I think it was a really good team effort right there,” Santerre said after the game.
The Warriors started to put more pressure on Bishop’s following the opening goal but ran into penalty trouble near the end of the second frame.
In the third, Waterloo’s Leah Herrfort took a roughing penalty just 19 seconds into the final period. That penalty put the Gaiters on a 5 on 3 powerplay. However, Waterloo goalie Kara Mark and the penalty killing unit managed to hold Bishop’s off for the entire two-man advantage.
With less than five minutes to go in the game, Bishop’s Gabrielle Rousseau was called for a slashing penalty. However, the Warriors were stopped on all three shots they took during the powerplay.
When Rousseau returned to the ice following her penalty, she was sprung on a breakout pass and ripped a goal top shelf just nine seconds after her penalty ended.
The Warriors tried to push back, but with less than two minutes left in the game Bishop’s Maude Pepin scored an insurance goal on Waterloo’s empty net. The Gaiters held on for the 3-0 win.
“I’ve never felt this great in my life. It’s the best story,” Santerre said.
Bishop’s entered the championship as the third seed in ranking. Santerre is in her second year with the Gaiters and said she knew her team was strong but wasn’t fully expecting to win the tournament.
“Maybe not that soon. I know that this program had a lot of potential, but to do that in only two years, that’s just incredible,” Santerre said.
Bishop’s goalie Éricka Gagnon stopped all 27 shots she faced from Waterloo.
“Amazing, there’s no way to describe how I’m feeling right now,” Gagnon said. “I wasn’t expecting anything, it happened and I’m happy it happened, and we end up with a championship.”
Waterloo entered the tournament as the lowest ranked team in the championship, but knocked off top ranked University of Alberta, and fifth seed Concordia University to get to the gold medal game. Waterloo goalie Kara Mark plans to return to the team for her fourth year. Mark said she has a lot of mixed emotions but is happy with what her team accomplished this season.
“We didn’t get the result we wanted, which is okay. But I got to do it with all of my best friends, which is unreal,” Mark said.
The Warriors will host the national finals tournament in Elmira again in 2026 and automatically have a spot in next years tournament.
“It’s exciting to be able to get the opportunity again. It’s honestly an honour and a privilege to be able to do it in front of the whole community. The whole community really bonded behind us and supported us. All the seats were filled tonight, which was absolutely insane, especially for women’s hockey,” Mark said.
Head coach of the Warriors, Shaun Reagan, said he was emotionally drained following the four-day tournament.
“We had a great effort. As a coach, you kind of look back and go ‘hey what could we have done different,’ and things like that. So those are things that go through your head. The other thing is just how proud we are of the group that’s in our room, and how they rallied a community around our team,” Reagan said.
Reagan said knowing they will be back next year will feel good in a week or so, but the team is also losing some players and will refocus when the time is right.
“We’re graduating two players, two of our leaders, Leah Herrfort and Madison Pritchard. So you definitely feel for them, but as they said in the dressing room, ‘once a Warrior, always a Warrior.’ Now they’re alumni,” Reagan said. “But we have a great group coming back, so it’s something that in the coming weeks we’ll start to retool for next season. But I think it’s kind of just reflecting on our season, and how great our season was, even though we finished our last game with a loss here.”
Ontario University Athletics champions University of Toronto defeated Concordia University in the bronze medal match earlier on Sunday.
“It was an incredible tournament, we were very fortunate to have the backing of the entire Elmira Township,” Ari Grossman, associate director of business operations for athletics and recreation for University of Waterloo said.
Grossman said knowing they will host the tournament again next year the school will continue to try and expand its outreach to the public to attract even more fans in 2026.
“We need to continue the outreach that we had in order to make sure the student athlete experience is special,” Grossman said.
