New play-off format for AUS Women's hockey

At the recent annual meeting of AUS Athletic Directors the following proposal was accepted for Women's hockey.

The AUS women's hockey playoff format will now move to a 4-day championship
beginning next season and the format will be similar to that of the CIS Women's
Hockey Championship. The top six teams following regular season play will qualify and be separated into two pools of three teams. Each team will now play two round robin games with the top teams in each pool playing for the championship. The 2010 Subway AUS Women's Hockey Championship will be hosted by the Université de Moncton, Feb. 25-28, 2010. AUS Story

This move will see the play-off format move from a one game winner take all concept in the quarter and semi-finals to a format consistent with nationals. Ultimately the goal would be to have a best of three play-off series to determine the women's champion.

Tommies Coach Peter Murphy had this to say about the announcement.

We all agree it is better than a "one and done" scenario. It also prepares you a little for what you will face at Nationals. That being said, the playoff series format would be preferred. I do not know if it would pass through all schools though. I think that if we are going to really grow the Women's side of the AUS [hockey] and create a fan base for ourselves, we have to do a few things and one of them is to go to series. Our biggest impediment to that is we have to have our winner declared so early because Nationals are early in March. If they were pushed back we could easily move to series format.