As the college and university school year winds down, so does post-secondary sports with titles to be won and celebrations to be had.

Yellowknife's Emma Carey is one of those students who is heading toward final exams. Before that, though, there was the wee job of trying to win the Atlantic Collegiate Hockey Association women's hockey crown with Charlottetown's Holland College.

Consider it mission accomplished.

The first-year kinesiology major and her Hurricanes emerged victorious on March 9 thanks to a 5-1 win over Acadia University in the championship game. The win wrapped up a perfect weekend for the Hurricanes in the ACHA playoff tournament with three wins out of three.

Carey said it was an amazing feeling after the final buzzer went.

"It felt really good, really exciting," she said. "I had such a great opportunity this season and I'm so happy we were able to win it."

The playoff tournament featured Holland College, Acadia and Cape Breton University lock horns in Sydney, N.S., on March 8 and 9 with the round-robin kicking things off. The Hurricanes had their first meeting against Acadia and threw down the gauntlet on the opening shift - eight seconds into the contest, to be exact - and ran out to a 3-0 lead after the first period. They would eventually run out 5-1 winners.

Cape Breton was up next and it was a much tighter contest that ended in favour of the Hurricanes, 2-0, which gave them a bye to the final where they awaited the winner of Acadia and Cape Breton in the semifinal, which ended up being Acadia.

"Acadia was the one team we knew would be tough," said Carey. "All of our games against them were close this season."

The final between Holland and Acadia started off with a scoreless first period, though both teams had some decent scoring chances. The Hurricanes would draw first blood in the second period to take a 1-0 lead before getting a five-minute power play after an Acadia player was given a major and a game misconduct for a hit from behind.

That's where the Hurricanes did the damage as they scored three times to go out in front, 4-0. Carey was one of those goal scorers during that brace.

Acadia got one back early in the third period, but another five-minute power play gave the Hurricanes some relief after an Acadia player was given a match penalty (intent to injure) and a game misconduct for kicking a Hurricanes player. Holland would score once more to make it 5-1 and seal the deal.

The victory gave the Hurricanes their third consecutive ACHA title and Carey said it all came down to who wanted it more in the end.

"We put in the work down the stretch and we shut them down when they were pushing us in the third period," she said.

Joining a team as a rookie is never easy, but Carey said everyone made it easy to jump right in and be a part of the team.

"It was a whole new coaching staff for this season and they talked to us about what the goals were for this season," she said. "It took a while for us to get going, but we pushed hard all season. I've never heard of these players before and I've never played on a team in the south, but it's definitely one of the best teams I've ever played with. The veterans were all welcoming and it was such an easy transition from the start."