VANCOUVER – The ninth-ranked UBC Thunderbirds men's hockey team will host a top-10 matchup at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre when the No. 4-ranked Alberta Golden Bears pay a visit to Vancouver this weekend.
 
The Friday-Saturday doubleheader will have a 7 p.m. puck drop on both nights.
 
UBC (7-2-3) broke a three-game losing streak, which including an overtime defeat, on Saturday in Saskatoon with a 4-3 triumph over the league-leading Saskatchewan Huskies. A goal by Austin Vetterl (Surrey, B.C.) at 14:16 of the third period gave the Thunderbirds the win after the Huskies scored three straight goals to tie the game.
 
The Golden Bears (8-3-1) have won four of their last five games, including two last weekend – 6-1 and 1-0 in overtime – against the Calgary Dinos in Edmonton.
 
UBC and Alberta have the same number of points (17) in the Canada West standings, behind only Saskatchewan, which has 20 points.

"They play fast. They are very talented," said UBC head coach Adam Shell about the Alberta team. "We have to be very wary of their defencemen on the rush. You can't give them chances. Their hockey sense as a group is very high. The key thing is we can't give them any freebies."
 
The Thunderbirds struggled on Friday against the Huskies with Neil Manning (Nanaimo, B.C.) netting the only goal for his team. The Huskies scored four times for their 10th win of the season.
"We weren't mentally where we needed to be," said Shell in an interview Wednesday. "We didn't have enough grit or will in our games. Beforehand, we did was necessary."
 
Saturday saw a near reversal of the previous match as UBC slotted three straight goals in the first against Huskies netminder Jordan Cooke. Luke Lockhart (Burnaby, B.C.), Adam Rossignol (Surrey, B.C.) and Chase Clayton (Abbotsford, B.C.) all scored in the opening frame.
 
The Huskies came back strong in the second with two goals and then tied the game in the last period. The stalemate was broken by rookie Vetterl (Surrey B.C.) who buried the cross-ice pass from Manraj Hayer (Vancouver) with a one-timer.
 
This weekend, the three best goaltenders in the league – in terms of goals-against average – will be on the ice. In first place is Alberta's Jordan Siemens, who has played all 12 games and owns a 1.71 GAA. UBC's Matt Hewitt (New Westminster, B.C.), with a 2.14 GAA, and Eric Williams (Langley, B.C.), who holds a 2.41 GAA, are second and third, respectively.  Shell believes strongly in a two-goalie system so he switches between Hewitt and Williams each weekend, allowing both men to play one game.
 
The UBC goalies will face an offence led by three players – Jordan Hickmott, Kruise Reddick and Levko Koper – who are in the top 15 in Canada West scoring.
 
Forward Anthony Bardaro (Delta, B.C.) is sixth in the league in points with 14 in 10 regular season games, while Lockhart is 17th with 10 points. He had a goal and an assist last weekend at Saskatchewan.