Dal women’s hockey likely to skate at SMU

Dal’s women’s hockey team hopes celebrations like this one will be commonplace at Alumni Arena next season. (Photo by Richard Lafortune)

The travelling road show that the Dalhousie’s women’s hockey team became this season is expected to make its next stop at Saint Mary’s University this fall.

Preliminary discussions to host Dal’s home games at Saint Mary’s on-campus rink are encouraging, says SMU’s athletic director David Murphy.

“The time is available, it’s been offered and it’s just a matter of getting the memorandum of understanding signed,” he says.

Dal’s director of varsity athletics, Karen Moore, added that while some of her school’s players are not enthusiastic about Alumni Arena, it’s preferable to the team lacing up outside Halifax for its ‘home’ games.

“I understand they don’t necessarily want to play on someone else’s campus, which is not the nicest rink in town, but to be honest, I was quite happy to have secured some ice time that’s only a 10-minute walk away.”

The Tigers have struggled to find home ice since their campus rink was torn down last summer. When the Halifax Metro Centre was ruled out, the team scrambled for whatever HRM venue they could find until Truro’s new rink was built. When that arena fell behind schedule, Dal planned to drop the puck in New Glasgow for the second semester, about two hours away from Halifax, but the team’s hazing suspension put those plans on hold.

The metro universities could have formed a similar agreement to play at Alumni Arena a year ago, but Moore explained circumstances were not the same.

“The personnel was different at the time and the answer [we got] was no,” she says.

Murphy became the interim athletic director at SMU last August. He previously held the post for five years in the 2000s.

Dal will continue to practice at the Halifax Forum next season.