Vancouver, BC – A night after the Alberta Golden Bears won its seventh consecutive season opening game; the UBC Thunderbird's men's hockey team denied Alberta the sweep winning by a score of 5-2 on Saturday night at Father Bauer Arena.
 
A trio of unanswered goals highlighted the second period thanks to a pair of markers from Adam Rossignol and a goal by Nate Fleming after Alberta's Stephane Legault opened the scoring. Anthony Bardaro and Greg Fraser also got in on the action, both scoring in the third period, sealing the fate of the game in favour of UBC (1-1-0) before T.J. Foster scored for Alberta late.
 
"The guys in the room have worked really hard and it's good that they're getting rewarded," said first-year UBC head coach Tyler Kuntz, who collected his first win at the helm tonight. "We were really excited to start the season off against Alberta to see where we stand against the best in the country."
 
The Golden Bears opened the scoring at 14:20 of the opening frame as former Edmonton Oil King Stephane Legault went bar down from the doorstep for his first career Canada West goal beating a sprawling Matt Hewitt, who got the start in net for UBC. On Friday night, Legault collected his first conference point on the games winning goal. With the conversion, Alberta finished the period 1-for-3 on the man advantage.
 
From that point on, Hewitt was a beast in net, stopping all but one shot sent his way including a great poke check in the third period denying Alberta (1-1-0) of any sort of comeback, a feat Alberta pulled off in game one.
 
"Matt's been phenomenal to start the season, he came into this year with a completely new outlook, and he's settled into his role," iterated Kuntz on his goaltender's performance. "From day one in practice until now, he's been great for us."
 
Just as the Golden Bears did for the entirety of the 2013-2014 season, Luke Siemens got the start in the latter half of a weekend series as the duo of Siemens and Kurtis Mucha continue to split two-game matchups. 
 
Following a stretch of little action in the first few minutes of the second period, Siemens was beaten twice within a two minute span, first by Fleming at 9:38 and again by Rossignol at 11:27 of the second period, both players first goals of the season. Fleming beat Siemens blocker side after a quick pass into the slot from Rossignol, who collected his first career CIS point with the tally.
 
After Anthony Bardaro was sprung on a partial break and stopped by Siemens, Rossignol finished the play bouncing on the rebound and making no mistake giving the T-Birds the go-ahead goal. Captain Ben Schmidt collected the second assist on the play, his first point of the season. Matching roughing minors succeeded both the T-Bird goals as the penalty minutes continued to pile up between the two teams.
 
The Thunderbirds continued the scoring barrage as Rossignol collected his second of the night, only minutes after recording his first goal, as the former Portland Winterhawk got his stick on the puck through traffic and snuck one past Siemens. When all was done, the Alberta 'tender made just nine saves on 12 shots in the middle frame as the Thunderbirds went to the dressing room with a 3-1 advantage with 20 minutes to play.
 
Bardaro was next in line scoring for the Thunderbirds, as the veteran forward snapped one past Siemens.  This was shortly after Alberta's Joel Ostman wired a shot off the crossbar, a break the Thunderbirds won't complain about.
 
Greg Fraser wrapped up scoring for the blue and gold giving the Thunderbirds a four-goal advantage, and a 5-1 lead, before Alberta narrowed the deficit thanks to soft wrister by Foster that fooled Hewitt.

Alberta's two-goal performance is just the second time since February 8, 2013 that Alberta has been held to two goals, or less, in a regular season game. Historically, the Thunderbirds had not won a regular season game against the Golden Bears since January 28, 2012.
 
"We need to accept the fact that we're going to go through ups and downs all year and for us it's a process," added Kuntz, commenting on the bounce back from last night.
 
Siemens finished the game with a 5.00 GAA and a .783 save percentage, the first time in his CIS career that the goaltender finished with a save percentage below .790 in a game. Hewitt turned aside 21 of 23 shots while each team finished with one power play goal, with Alberta going 1-for-6 and UBC 1-for-5
 
UBC flies to Saskatoon next weekend to face-off against the Saskatchewan Huskies. The last time the two teams met in Canada West quarter-final, the Thunderbirds eliminated the Huskies in game best-of-three series. Meanwhile, Alberta hosts the winless Lethbridge Pronghorns for a two-game stint.