N.B. news: UNB Reds have a perfect regular season

The University of New Brunswick ‘Reds’ men’s hockey team has done something never seen before in university hockey: posting a perfect season with 30 wins.

A win on Saturday night against the University of Prince Edward Island solidified the record, something that hasn’t been done in Canadian university hockey history.

“You could feel a special type of energy in the air and it’s just a special night all around,” said player Cade Landry.

Other Canadian university teams have posted perfect seasons before, but their seasons had fewer games.

“One of our slogans is the strength of the team as the team. This is my fourth year at UNB. It’s truly special, seeing the amazing things you can accomplish when you unify together and you have about love in your group,” said Landry.

The players point to head coach Gardiner MacDougall as the reason behind the success.

MacDougall has etched his name into the hockey record books too, achieving his 489th career win last week.

That milestone makes him the U Sports coach with the most wins in men’s hockey history. Of course, he credits the players.

“My mom says you got to smell the roses. And I tell my mom, it’s not the time of year to smell roses yet,” he said. “So we just got to continue to get better. But certainly it speaks for the people that we’ve had here at UNB. And most importantly, we’ve had a lot of great players and a lot of great teams, and they get full credit for everything achieved here.”

The team now heads straight to the Atlantic University Sport semi-finals, which happens in under two weeks. But that doesn’t mean practice lets up; they were back at it on Monday.

“We use a little motto here: JPG. It’s three letters is ‘just getting started,’” he said. “And, you know, the playoffs are coming and we know we have to be better and we’re looking forward.”

The ultimate hope is to head to nationals, where the team looks to grasp their 10th national win, another chapter in their historic book.