VANCOUVER –
Manraj Hayer (Vancouver) scored the game-winning goal, and his second of the night, early in overtime to give the UBC Thunderbirds a 4-3 regular season-opening victory over the Mount Royal Cougars Friday in Vancouver.
The triumph was historic on two fronts. It was UBC's 500th Canada West conference victory and the very first for new head coach
Adam Shell.
In their 53rd season as members of Canada West hockey, the Thunderbirds' all-time record in league play is 500-728-59 (.411), having scored 4,662 goals while allowing
5,339.
Win No. 500 was made possible by Hayer, who walked in around the defence and fired the puck short side on Mt. Royal goaltender Cam Lanigan. He tried to catch the puck between his stick-side arm and his body, but it squeezed through, ending the tense contest.
In addition to Hayer's two goals, UBC also had scoring from newcomer
Josh Connolly (Prince George, B.C.) and
Luke Lockhart (Burnaby, B.C.). For the Cougars, Matthew Brown matched Hayer with two goals while Tanner Olstad added the other.
In a hard-fought 60 minutes, the T-Birds lost a two-goal lead in the third period, and were out-shot 30-22.
"It wasn't easy," said Shell. "They were probably the better team or the second part of that game," he admitted.
Connolly opened the scoring with his first-ever goal at the university level, just 3:48 into the game.
Anthony Bardaro (Delta, B.C.) corralled a loose puck at the left faceoff circle and backhanded a pass out of traffic to Connolly at the right point. The rookie defenceman placed his slapshot just inside the left post through several players who acted as screens in front of Lanigan.
MRU responded late in the same period. At 15:03, Brown got a pass at the UBC blueline from Bill Marshall and cut towards the middle at the right faceoff dot and fired a wrist shot over the shoulder of UBC goaltender
Eric Williams (Langley, B.C.).
However, Hayer scored with less than a second left in the first, going on from his own blue to nearly the Lethbridge goal line before firing a shot short side over Lanigan's shoulder to put UBC back up 2-1, setting up an entertaining and exciting third frame and overtime.
Lockhart scored shorthanded 46 seconds into the third to make it 3-1. Newcomer
Chase Clayton (Abbotsford, B.C.) forced a turnover at the centre boards, spun around and flipped a pass into the MRU zone. Lockhart got to the puck first and finished off the breakaway with a wrist shot that beat Lanigan.
However, the visitors didn't give up. MRU sent the game to extra time thanks to two third-period goals.
Less than two minutes after Lockhart found the net, the Cougars got to within one as Olstad popped home a rebound in front of Williams.
Then Brown made it 3-3 on a great individual effort. He got the puck inside his own zone, skated across the UBC blue line, faked inside and then went outside and around a UBC defenceman before cutting back towards the net to score on his forehand at 7:30 of the final period.
Williams stopped 27 of the 30 shots he faced for the win, while Lanigan made 18 stops in a losing cause.
The second game of the weekend series between the Thunderbirds and Cougars will go at 6 p.m. PT in Vancouver.
Â
