Sometimes the unexpected just happens.

There were three hockey tournaments played last weekend, and all of them featured what could only be termed upsets.

The Cavendish University Cup Canadian university hockey championship in Moncton not only featured an unexpected ending, but lots of other surprises along the way.

The host Moncton Aigles Bleus, the number-one ranked team in the country, looked going in like a team that would be difficult to beat - a talented, well-rounded group that seemed to have been built for a championship, and was playing at home besides.

They started off on the right foot with a 5-3 win over St F.X., but a red flag should probably have gone up when they needed double overtime to edge Laurier 5-4.

Meanwhile, UNB, the second-place team in the AUHC regular season and conference finalist, playing in the other pool, was skating just under the radar, opening with a 2-1 win over Saskatchewan.

The Varsity Reds, also a veteran squad with a lot of talent then served notice they were a team to watch by shutting out Trois-Rivieres 6-0.

This put pressure on Moncton, which deserved credit for coming back to beat Laurier but ended up a tired team in a final against a rested one.

For that reason, UNB's 3-2 overtime victory, while it would have to be termed an upset, probably wasn't as big a surprise as many might have thought a day or two earlier.



Sixth over first

At the NSSAF Division 2 hockey provincials in Barrington, top-ranked Central Kings was the odds-on favorite to win, followed by Western Region runner-up Barrington, which had the added advantage of playing at home.

No one really gave much of a chance to the NKEC Titans, the sixth and final seed, who had lost out to C.K. in the regular season and to Barrington in regional semifinal action.

NKEC, though, started off with a 5-4 win over the host team. Again, it probably wasn't a huge surprise - after all, both of Barrington's wins in the regional semifinal had come in overtime - but the Barons did have the advantage of experience and playing in front of a sold-out home crowd.

A 4-0 win over SAERC and a 4-2 victory over Eastern Shore advanced the Titans to the provincial final, with Barrington once again the opposition after the Barons rebounded to defeat Central Kings 6-2, effectively eliminating the Gators.

In the final, all the stars and planets aligned for NKEC, which eked out a 1-0 win for its second provincial title in three years, getting solid goaltending and scoring the game's lone goal with just 1:55 on the clock.



Peewee bronze a surprise

The Atlantic Peewee AAA tournament last weekend in Wolfville, featuring the provincial champions from all four Atlantic provinces at the highest level of Peewee hockey, seemed to be equally cut-and-dried.

One might not have been able to predict which team would win, but it was likely a good bet it wouldn't be the host Acadia Junior Axemen, a competitive team but probably not in the same class with the four provincial champs.

As might have been expected, Acadia opened with a 4-2 loss to Newfoundland and took an 8-1 thumping at the hands of Sherwood, P.E.I. - which had in turn been defeated 7-1 by the Nova Scotia champs from Sackville.

The Axemen players and their coaches deserve full credit for hanging in there. Acadia defeated New Brunswick 7-2 in their third game, then played the talented Sackville squad to a 2-2 tie to finish the round robin tied for third with a 1-2-1 record.

This qualified Acadia for the bronze medal game against P.E.I., in which the Axemen shrugged off their earlier defeat, playing to a 2-2 tie in regulation time and winning the game - and the bronze medal - on John Deacon's goal at 2:39 of triple overtime.

All in all, it was a great weekend for the underdog.