University sport | Male and female hockey at the University of Sherbrooke

Rumor has been running for a long time already. Moreover, The project is now very real: the University of Sherbrooke will add two hockey teams to the Green & Or program. Furthermore, If everything goes as planned, male and female training will start their activities in the fall of 2027.

The Directorate of the Estien establishment made the announcement on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Serge Savard invitation. Furthermore, golf tournament organized each year by the former Canadian’s deepener whose profits are given to the University of Sherbrooke (UDS). Similarly, This initiative is mainly made possible by a donation of university sport | male female $ 6 million in philanthropic. For example, businessman Herbert Black, who himself contacted Mr. However, Savard.

On the male side. Furthermore, the creation of a team in Sherbrooke will allow, according to Serge Savard, to “remedy” the current situation in university hockey: the only three teams in the province (McGill, UQTR and Concordia), only one of which represents a French -speaking university, are forced to evolve in eastern Ontario, for lack of Quebec conference.

“Today is a big day,” said Savard, who has been promoting hockey for decades in a school setting. Meanwhile, He also recalled that he helped set up a college level league in the late 1970s. For example, which had to close boutique after a few seasons, for lack of funding.

The improvement of the university offer had been specifically put forward university sport | male female by the Quebec committee on the development of hockey. chaired by Marc Denis, whose report was submitted to the Government of Quebec in 2022.

Since then. Rouge et Or at Laval University has announced the creation of a female team that will join the Quebec Student Sport Network (CSR) in 2026-2027-The Quebec conference already exists in women. Sherbrooke followed out today.

Without being exclusive to the former LHJQ players, university hockey constitutes “a logical path” for its athletes, says Serge Savard.

Let us mention that this avenue is already university sport | male female existing; The LHJMQ puts scholarships for its players every year. However. only a handful of them can play hockey and study in French; Still according to the Quebec Committee on the Development of Hockey Committee, 84 scholarship holders played outside the province in 2022.

University sport | male female

From 2027

Now that the UDS has expressed its intentions. it must formalize them to the RSEQ by 1^is Next December so that his clubs are eligible to initiate their activities on time for the 2027-2028 season.

On the female side, the team would join division 1 – the only existing. On the male side. we would obviously join division 2, which already brings together UQAC, ETS, UQO as well as Concordia University, also represented in the Ontarian first division. On the side of Sherbrooke, we dream of university sport | male female the creation of a Quebec conference in good and due form.

In the short term. we want to hire supervisory staff in order to initiate the recruitment of students athletes from the winter of 2026. It will also be necessary to find a home for the two teams. since the UDS campus has no arena and that it would be “unrealistic” to build one, according to the rector Jean-Pierre Perreault.

The latter, visibly feverish, highlighted the impact that these new teams will have in the recruitment of students and students. He also rejoices in the contribution to “life on campus”. “happenings” that will result from it, while the hockey season is essentially synchronized with the university calendar.

“The donation of 6 million makes all the difference,” he noted. Before. we could always talk about it, but with the precarious financing of higher education, [cette somme] Allows us to make it concrete. We do it to have winning teams. »»

Hockey being an expensive sport, Mr. Perreault expects that once the teams will be in place. they are funded either by a corporation, as is the case in football, or by a permanent fund supplied by philanthropists at the source of the project or by other donors.

Green & Gold. whose flagship sports are football, athletics, university sport | male female soccer, swimming and volleyball, has already been represented in hockey in the 1960s and 1970s. A defeat in the 1974 championship final, however.