Plenty up for grabs in St. F.X. – Manitoba tilt

Even before this afternoon’s Queen’s versus McGill game, the Pool A seeding picture was pretty simple: The winner between the Gaels and Martlets played for gold on Sunday, while the loser played for bronze.

Pool B, however is a different story.

Coming into tonight’s game between the St. F.X. X-Women and the Manitoba Bisons, which is the final match-up of round robin action, any of the pool’s three teams — St. F.X., Laurier and Manitoba — can all still end up in any of the three final games on Sunday: gold, bronze or fifth-place.

There are a number of scenarios that involve 8-0 wins, 3-0 wins and overtime, that bring up a a variety of tie-breakers that could be picked apart all day. However, the X-Women can make things really simple for themselves: Win and they’re in.

A St. F.X. win in regulation or overtime means they will play in the gold medal game on Sunday and most likely, Laurier would play for bronze, Manitoba for fifth.

The Bisons meanwhile are most likely to help Laurier — who beat them 4-0 last night — with a win as they need to beat the X-Women by an improbable eight goals in order to play for gold. However, if Manitoba wins by less than eight, the hometown Hawks will play for gold, the Bisons for bronze, the X-Women for fifth.

There are more scenarios, but I’ll preserve everyone’s sanity.

Winning their way to the gold medal game looks pretty simple for the X-Women. If they play just as good as they did against the Hawks on Thursday, they should be looking at a victory. Though it wasn’t always pretty, the X-Women had the majority of the control in their 4-3 win over Laurier in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicated.

The Bisons meanwhile, ran into a desperate Laurier team in their tournament opener last night, and that combined with a sub-par performance from the Canada West champs led to a 4-0 loss.

It’s been three weeks since the Bisons won the Canada West conference title, however they will need to find their legs quickly if they want to play for anything more than fifth-place on Sunday.