July 14, 2022
OUA announces men's hockey schedule for the 2022-23 season
Burlington, Ont. - The rinks will once again be rocking when the puck drops on the upcoming 2022-23 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) season, as teams prepare to get the latest men's hockey campaign officially underway on October 13th.
2022-23 OUA Men's Hockey Schedule | FULL
After seeing the divisional breakdown transition to smaller groups of four during the 2021-22 season, the upcoming year will return to the two-division set up, featuring nine teams in the East and 10 teams in the West. There will once again be no interlock, which will keep all of the regular season's 26 or 27 games, depending on the division, housed within the East and West groups, respectively.
It will be a pair of East Division teams who first face off as part of the 2022-23 schedule, with the Ottawa Gee-Gees, Queen's Cup finalists from 2020, welcoming the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks to the nation's capital on October 13th.
Not far removed from a Queen's Cup of their own, McGill is among those opening their seasons the following night. The 2018 champions, who almost earned another chance to add to their trophy case this past season by making a run to the East final as the division's No. 8 seed, will open up against the RMC Paladins on October 14th, and will do so alongside a number of stirring matchups.
Among those also taking the ice are the top respective regular season teams from 2021-22 - the Windsor Lancers and Queen's Gaels, with the former hosting the Lakehead Thunderwolves and the latter travelling to take on the defending champion UQTR Patriotes. In addition to the champions skating into their new season, the reigning finalists will do so as well, as the Brock Badgers head to Waterloo to take on the Warriors.
While these initial meetings will help get the season underway, they will not be the only time that these teams will meet over the course of the campaign. Instead, these will be the first of multiple head-to-head contests between the divisional rivals, with teams set to play each other either three or four times throughout the regular season, including plenty of additional entries during the eight weeks of the fall schedule.
The first semester slate will wrap up with a trio of games - Guelph at Brock, Ottawa at Concordia, Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) at Windsor - on December 4th, before a pair of contests kick off the latter half of the season on January 5th. TMU, who capped off their 2021-22 season with an OUA bronze medal and a trip to the national championships, will also be a part of those initial 2023 games, as they welcome Western in a rematch of their double-overtime playoff thriller from a season ago. The other January 5th tilt will see a rematch of the aforementioned East Division final, pitting the Redbirds and Patriotes against each other early in the second half playoff push.
After coming together for a pair of November meetings, meanwhile, the Paladins and Gaels will get re-acquainted again on February 2nd, with the pair of Kingston clubs clashing in the historic Carr-Harris Cup for the first time since 2020.
That marquee matchup will take place in the regular season's penultimate week, with the final push for the postseason happening just days later. The Paladins and Patriotes will open up the final week's games on February 8th - their first of two meetings that week - while other matchups that feature Windsor at Western, Nipissing at Carleton, and Guelph at York will help set up what should be another sensational second season.
Like on the women's side, the men's playoff structure will revert back to best-of-three series throughout the first three rounds of competition, beginning with the initial in-division matchups from February 15th to 19th. During this stretch, each division's No. 6 seed will take on the No. 3 seed, while the fifth-ranked squads battles the fourth-ranked teams. The winner of the former will take on their division's top-ranked team thereafter and the latter will play the No. 2 seed the following round from February 22nd to 25th. From there, the semifinalists will play for a spot in the finale, with those penultimate series hitting the ice from March 1st to 5th.
The remaining contenders will then go on to play for the 111th Queen's Cup in a single-game championship on March 11th.
2022-23 OUA Men's Hockey Schedule | FULL
After seeing the divisional breakdown transition to smaller groups of four during the 2021-22 season, the upcoming year will return to the two-division set up, featuring nine teams in the East and 10 teams in the West. There will once again be no interlock, which will keep all of the regular season's 26 or 27 games, depending on the division, housed within the East and West groups, respectively.
It will be a pair of East Division teams who first face off as part of the 2022-23 schedule, with the Ottawa Gee-Gees, Queen's Cup finalists from 2020, welcoming the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks to the nation's capital on October 13th.
Not far removed from a Queen's Cup of their own, McGill is among those opening their seasons the following night. The 2018 champions, who almost earned another chance to add to their trophy case this past season by making a run to the East final as the division's No. 8 seed, will open up against the RMC Paladins on October 14th, and will do so alongside a number of stirring matchups.
Among those also taking the ice are the top respective regular season teams from 2021-22 - the Windsor Lancers and Queen's Gaels, with the former hosting the Lakehead Thunderwolves and the latter travelling to take on the defending champion UQTR Patriotes. In addition to the champions skating into their new season, the reigning finalists will do so as well, as the Brock Badgers head to Waterloo to take on the Warriors.
While these initial meetings will help get the season underway, they will not be the only time that these teams will meet over the course of the campaign. Instead, these will be the first of multiple head-to-head contests between the divisional rivals, with teams set to play each other either three or four times throughout the regular season, including plenty of additional entries during the eight weeks of the fall schedule.
The first semester slate will wrap up with a trio of games - Guelph at Brock, Ottawa at Concordia, Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) at Windsor - on December 4th, before a pair of contests kick off the latter half of the season on January 5th. TMU, who capped off their 2021-22 season with an OUA bronze medal and a trip to the national championships, will also be a part of those initial 2023 games, as they welcome Western in a rematch of their double-overtime playoff thriller from a season ago. The other January 5th tilt will see a rematch of the aforementioned East Division final, pitting the Redbirds and Patriotes against each other early in the second half playoff push.
After coming together for a pair of November meetings, meanwhile, the Paladins and Gaels will get re-acquainted again on February 2nd, with the pair of Kingston clubs clashing in the historic Carr-Harris Cup for the first time since 2020.
That marquee matchup will take place in the regular season's penultimate week, with the final push for the postseason happening just days later. The Paladins and Patriotes will open up the final week's games on February 8th - their first of two meetings that week - while other matchups that feature Windsor at Western, Nipissing at Carleton, and Guelph at York will help set up what should be another sensational second season.
Like on the women's side, the men's playoff structure will revert back to best-of-three series throughout the first three rounds of competition, beginning with the initial in-division matchups from February 15th to 19th. During this stretch, each division's No. 6 seed will take on the No. 3 seed, while the fifth-ranked squads battles the fourth-ranked teams. The winner of the former will take on their division's top-ranked team thereafter and the latter will play the No. 2 seed the following round from February 22nd to 25th. From there, the semifinalists will play for a spot in the finale, with those penultimate series hitting the ice from March 1st to 5th.
The remaining contenders will then go on to play for the 111th Queen's Cup in a single-game championship on March 11th.
