Photos by Husain Dhooma/The Griff

The Griffins and the Golden Bears.

Every sports team has the same goal. Whether it’s T-ball, college football, or the NHL, your goal as a unit is to win games, make whatever your version of playoffs is, and ideally, win your championship. It’s a simple formula. Contrary to what some people might say, sometimes it isn’t all about playoff runs and championship titles. There can be moral victories in sports. There can especially be moral victories in Canadian collegiate athletics, and especially especially when your tiny, brutalist school in the middle of downtown smokes those pretentious assholes across the river in the only sport most people here care about.

The Griffins men’s hockey team’s “first season” in the league (2020-21) was cancelled due to COVID-19. They finished out of a playoff spot in each of the next two years, before finally making the dance for the first time as members of Canada West in 2023-24, losing to the Mount Royal Cougars in the first round. History was made in 2024-25, as the Griffins would again make the playoffs and win their first playoff game, 3-2 in OT vs. UBC, before the Thunderbirds ultimately took the series. This season, the Griffins not only made the playoffs, but they did well enough in the regular season to earn home ice advantage — they were hosting a playoff series. Despite that series ending without a win for the good guys, it was a historic mark for a program that continues to improve. As for how it was accomplished, a better script couldn’t have been written.

Feb. 14, 2026. Last home game of the regular season. The University of Alberta Golden Bears had crossed the river for what would end up as a rivalry game for the ages. It was never close. 6-2 MacEwan was the final score. The Griffins were hosting a playoff series. 

MacEwan didn’t exactly sweep the Golden Bears this season. Far from it. They lost two games against the Bears in September by a combined score of 10-3. They lost another two in October by a combined score of 9-2. Their first win over the Bears of the season came on Dec. 5, when they won 4-3 in overtime before dropping the next day’s game 5-4 in a shootout. The day after the home-ice-clinching 6-2 win, the Griffins went to the UofA for their final game of the season and lost 5-3. The following playoff series ended quickly for MacEwan. 

Maybe MacEwan is an afterthought in the already underappreciated world of Canadian collegiate athletics. Maybe they just caught lightning in a bottle this year — two MacEwan players appear on the top-20 scoring leaders list for this Canada West season; Kadyn Chabot, who tied Saskatchewan’s Chantz Petruic for the most goals (18), and Sam Simard, who tied Josh Williams and Reilley Kotai, both from UBC, for 16th place with 12. Maybe the U of A lost a step when a chunk of their players left for NCAA hockey in the United States after a rule was passed allowing former CHL players to do so. Maybe they just need to recover from that, and in a year or so, they’ll be back to the top of Canada West, and everyone will have forgotten the home ice advantage, the program record breakers, and all the success they got to enjoy, however brief. Or maybe this will be the season we look back on as where the Griffins really started taking off, in the future, when we’re celebrating our third national championship in a row and praising all our players who’ve left for the NHL. We don’t know any of that yet. But right now, in this year, with this team, none of that matters.