V-Reds hockey squad regains top ranking in CIS weekly poll

The University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds are back on the top of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport men's hockey mountain.

After two weeks out of top spot, the V-Reds regained the number one ranking in the weekly media poll, garnering 11 of 17 first place votes and 163 points to finish atop the poll entering the playoffs for the fifth straight season.

McGill Redmen of Montreal, the team the V-Reds beat in the final of last year's CIS tournament, are number two in the pol with 150 points, collecting the other six available first place votes in the poll, with the Western University Mustangs, the number one team last week, slipping to number three in the rankings.

The Varsity Reds finished the season with three wins in the last four days of the season, winning the Atlantic University Sport Men's Hockey Conference pennant with a 20-5-3 record for 43 points, the sixth straight season the V-Reds have cracked the 20-win mark. V-Reds, of course, earned a bye into the AUS semifinals as a result. Saint Mary's Huskies of Halifax, which finished second in the AUS with an 18-7-3 mark for 39 points, also earned a bye to the semis. The Huskies are listed sixth in the final pre-playoff pool.

Two AUS teams which begin quarter-final play later this week are also listed among the top 10. The Universite de Moncton Aigles Bleus, which host the St. Francis Xavier X-Men of Antigonish, N.S. in the first game of the best-of-three quarterfinal series beginning Thursday, are eighth in the top 10 rankings, while the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers, who open the best-of-three quarter-final against the Acadia Axemen Friday night in Charlottetown, are ninth in the top 10.