THIS WEEKEND: Regina at UBC, Fri. & Sat., Oct. 29 & 30, 7:00 p.m., Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre
A LOOK AT THE T-BIRDS
The UBC Thunderbirds bring a .500 record back to Vancouver for this weekend's home openers with the Regina Cougars. The T-Birds managed wins over two of Canada West's top clubs, the Alberta Pandas and Calgary Dinos, as they began their season with back-to-back weekends on the road.
The pattern in each of the first two weekends for the 'Birds has been to grind out a hard-fought victory on Friday, only to come up far short on Saturday. The Blue and Gold will need to come out strong once again to earn a win against a Regina team on a three-game winning streak.
Forward
Kaitlin Imai leads the Thunderbirds with four points in four games, including a pair of goals.
Lisa Bonang and
Chelsea Laing also have two goals each, and will be go-to players against a hot Cougars squad.
As has often been the case through her previous four seasons at UBC, goaltender
Melinda Choy has been a huge part of the T-Birds' success. Choy came up with 39 saves to earn a win last Friday against the Dinos, who sport the conference's leading scorer in Hayley Wickenheiser. Choy will be tested this weekend against the Cougars and one of Canada West's most effective scoring lines.
A LOOK AT THE COUGARS
Regina stumbled out of the gate, dropping their first game of the regular season against a very tough Calgary team. But the Cougars have been on fire ever since, winning each of their last three games.
Goaltender Lisa Urban has been one of the conference's best net minders since her first season in 2007-08, when she was named to the Canada West all-rookie team. This year she sports a stingy 2.26 goals against average and a save percentage of .929.
Urban in net makes the Cougars a difficult team to score on, but Regina's best weapon by far is their top line. Forward Rianne Wight is Canada West's top goal-scorer with eight goals in 2010-11 in only four games. That means Wight is averaging an astonishing two goals per game on the young season.
Wight's linemate, Kelcie McCutcheon led the Cougars in goals and points last season, and has nine points in four games so far this year. Her two goals and seven assists have her tied with Wight for second place among the conference's scoring leaders. Paige Wheeler rounds out the line with six points.
COACH WILSON ON...
The importance of wins in a tight-knit conference:
“Canada West is so close that every game is important. Regina is off to a great start. We've been playing well, but not as consistent. We're heading into this weekend and we want to play 60 minutes of hockey two nights in a row. That's where we've been failing a little bit is in our consistency from Friday to Saturday night. If we're working hard and skating well we should be successful against Regina.”
Preparing for the Cougars:
“Their big line of Wight, McCutcheon, and Wheeler move the puck well and get lots of pucks to the net. But I think that if you look line-for-line we stack up pretty evenly across the team, so I think it's going to be a good competition his weekend. We've scouted them a lot, and we know what their strengths are and we think we might be able to capitalize on some of their weaknesses.”
Contending with Regina's big line:
“With McCutcheon you have a fairly senior player, and that first line are bigger players, so we want to match them up with our bigger players who can skate. It'll be nice having last change this weekend, so we'll try to put some of our speed and bigger players with that line and hopefully keep them off the scoreboard.”
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