Battle of the sexes tonight at McConnell Arena

By Earl Zukerman

MONTREAL – The No.1-ranked McGill women’s hockey team will be put to a test Wednesday (Jan. 28) when they play host to Deux Rives, a boys midget AA squad from the Pierrefonds-Ile-Bizard region of suburban Montreal. Faceoff is slated for 7 p.m. at McConnell Arena.

It will be the second time in as many years that the Martlets, who will put a 16-game win streak on the line, are taking on a boys team in non-conference play. In preparation for this contest, the Martlets defeated a boys AA team in a shortened scrimmage last week.

McGill, which owns a 40-game win streak against CIS opponents, has a 25-2-0 record overall this season.

Last season, the women battled the Lac St. Louis Tigers, a midget espoirs club, to a 3-3 draw on Oct. 5, 2007. The Tigers outshot McGill 32-26 but the Martlets had an ace in the hole with Canadian Olympian netminder Charline Labonté between the pipes.

Tonight, McGill will be without the services of Labonté, who is attending a national team training camp in Calgary this week with head coach Peter Smith.

The acting head coach will be Amey Doyle, a long-time assistant who has a career record of 20-1-1 when filling in for Smith behind the McGill bench. Doyle, a former Martlet goaltender who served as an understudy to Kim St-Pierre, has hinted that she will split the goaltending chores between a pair of seniors, Gabrielle Smith from Ottawa and Kalie Townsend of Sangudo, Alta.