by Duncan Forbes

It wasn’t a great year for the Tigers women’s hockey team last year. Their young squad featured 15 first-year players and finished last in the league with a 6-15-3 record, though the team showed plenty of promise last season which just didn’t translate into wins.

“Although we didn’t have as many wins in the 2013-2014 season as we would have liked, we still had many successes on and off the ice,” says head coach Sean Fraser. “We have a great group of young players that are committed and hard-working and the future looks bright.”

With almost the entire team back for the 2014-2015 season, the chemistry is already there for the Tigers, who are still very young.

They had a rough 0-3 start to their pre-season with losses to Saint Mary’s and StFX, but they finished on a good note with a thrilling 4-3 overtime victory against the Huskies.

That win seems to have served as a turning point for the Tigers, who have been red-hot to start the season. They kicked things off on the road with a comeback victory over the Mount Allison Mounties. After getting down 2-0, the Tigers exploded with five unanswered goals. Jesse Rietveld had two goals and Lisa MacLean added three assists as the Tigers cruised to a 5-2 victory.

In their next game against the St. Thomas Tommies, who have been dominant thus far and sit in first in the AUS, the Tigers got down again, this time to the tune of 3-1 going into the final frame. The Tigers fired right back with two goals from Elizabeth MacArthur and Maggie Beaton. Unfortunately, the Tommies answered with one more of their own and the Tigers fell 4-3.

After another win on Wednesday night against the Huskies, the Tigers are now 2-1. Now, despite their strong showing thus far, keep in mind they’re only three games into a 24 game season. . In the AUS, the season is a marathon, not a sprint, and they will need to build on this start and stay consistent through the rest of the year.

The trio of Elizabeth MacArthur, Lisa MacLean and Maggie Beaton have led the charge for the Tigers in their hot start. The three second-year Nova Scotia natives are 1-2-3 in AUS scoring so far, with MacArthur leading the way with six points (3G, 4A) thus far and Beaton and MacLean each have five points.

Let’s compare those numbers to their stats from last year:

MacArthur: 18 GP, 1 G, 4 A, 5 PTS
MacLean: 24 GP, 4 G, 7 A, 11 PTS
Beaton: 24 GP, 4 G, 1 A, 5 PTS

Now, I’m no math major, but it’s safe to say that all three are bound for breakout years, considering that two of the three (MacArthur and Beaton) have already matched or bettered their totals from last year.

Now, with such a small sample size to analyze, we can’t say that a hot start for the Tigers will turn into an outstanding season, but it definitely bodes well for the Tigers. If this young team can improve and grow together, we could definitely be seeing a dangerous squad on the rise that could contend for AUS championships for years to come.