Your 2025 Crowchild Classic primer
By Maggie Hsu and Imonitie Omosun, January 25 2025—
The ultimate crosstown rivalry returns for its 12th year. On Jan. 31, your Dinos’ women’s and men’s hockey teams will battle it out against their rivals from down the street, MRU Cougars on the city’s highest profile rink: Scotiabank Saddledome. This annual meeting promises high octane hockey, the ultimate showing of school spirit and the most hilarious chirps that has ever existed in U SPORTS hockey. As a great source of pride for both schools, Dinos fans will gather to see their teams defend their historic record.
If you’re new… What is the Crowchild Classic?
While the penultimate hockey game is best known as the ‘Crowchild Classic’, it better serves as the finale of the Cougars vs Dinos season-long schedule, Starting in 2012, when the Cougars entered the Canada West Conference, the Crowchild Classic takes place in multiple sports venues across Calgary throughout the U SPORTS season. But the game we all know and love at the heart of hockey in Southern Alberta, Saddledome, has also captured the hearts of students and alumni who now recognize this event as part of the lore of UCalgary. This event also draws the attention of any supporter of Calgary sports who gather to witness the spectacle of our two schools gathering to show the NCAA that we can show up for our athletes too.
It isn’t simply pride on the line for both teams too—even though that is what truly matters to students at the end of the day who, especially U of C students who will hold this over MRU’s head for the rest of their lives—The school that wins the most games in the series is awarded ‘The Medal’ aka a 68-kilogram cast iron City of Calgary manhole cover for the year, donated by Trojan Industries put in by Crowchild Trail, to represent the road linking the two universities. It shows great pride for the schools, all in the fun rowdiness that amps up the energy for the games.
Additionally, the Saddledome game often sets the attendance records for games between two U SPORTS opponents with the 2016 edition featuring 12,859 fans who showed up to cheer on their fellow students battling it out on the ice.
What are our chances?
Again, at the end of the day, it’s all about bragging rights and in typical U of C fashion, we need the numbers to back it up and pull up on our phones whenever we encounter an MRU student or alumni to prove which of our sports programs are better (even though it’s painfully obvious it’s the Dinos). Amazingly, in its 13 years since conception, this rivalry has become engrained in the culture of both schools with sports fans and non-sports fans on campus alike looking forward to the game every year.
So how does it all work? How do we win? How have we been winning over the past few years? And most importantly, how have we been doing this season?
The best way to look at it is every game the Dinos play against the Cougars including hockey, soccer, basketball and volleyball, counts towards the overall Crowchil Classic count—The team with the most wins at the end of the season, wins the manhole cover!
With the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, the Dinos have had 123 all-time wins compared to the Cougars’ 87 with 13 ties. The Dinos have won seven of the 11 series and two ties with MRU having recently won the past two seasons. As of the writing of this article, the Dinos are down 7-9 in the series with the four hockey games left in the season including the big game at the ‘Dome.
The women are scheduled with the first puck drop at 4:30 p.m. They currently hold a 5-14-1 record and sit at the bottom of the Canada West West Division and a 1-3 season record against the Cougars. After losing their most recent weekend series to the Trinity Western Spartans, the Dinos still hope to head into the Crowchild Classic strong. Despite their losses, the squad played well with good puck control and hard battles on the boards but slow starts offensively and holes in their defense allowed the Spartans to come out on top. With this weekend’s losses, the Dinos will desperately need some wins in their last six games of the season to keep their playoff hopes alive.
“Moving into next weekend it’s all about our pride and playing for this team and the program and going to work every day. We’ll come ready and push that pace to be ready to go,” said Dinos head coach Josh Gosling in an interview with the Dinos.
The men’s team will then take the ice at 7:30 p.m. Currently hovering around the .500 win percentage, the Dinos find themselves in third place in the CW West Division and have clinched a playoff spot. They have yet to come out with a win against the Cougars this season but head into the Saddledome game with the momentum after a weekend sweep over the Trinity Western Spartans. The occasion was capped off by the much anticipated return of top scorer Colson Gengenbach and head coach Mark Howell who return to the squad from winning gold for Team Canada at the 2025 FISU Winter World University Games in Torino, Italy.
Why should you go?
“But I don’t like hockey… I don’t even like sports. Why should I go?”
That’s fair and I can respect your lack of interest in hockey. It’s cold, it’s kind of smelly and you can barely see the puck on the ice. But at the end of the night, it’s the cheapest ticket into the Saddledome ever at just $5 for some high-caliber hockey. And even if you don’t enjoy what’s happening on the ice, the atmosphere is something you won’t want to miss. Not only is the crowd guaranteed to be electric, but the signs and the banter between UCalgary and MRU students will give you laughs that last a lifetime. On top of that, one student in attendance from either school will walk away with $5000 worth of tuition!
The Crowchild Classic has evolved over the years into the most iconic event of our campus culture. With other pillars of our campus life being removed from Thursden to Bermuda Shorts Day, the Classic is one of the few events where we can gather as students with a common interest: fighting MRU students.
So what do you have to lose? It’s a Friday night so come out and help cheer on your Dinos and help them beat Mount Royal. For more information about tickets and transportation, check out the Dinos’ website. All proceeds from ticket sales will return to both campuses for mental health initiatives.