VANCOUVER – For the second straight season, the UBC Thunderbirds have the chance to claim Canada West supremacy on home ice as the defending conference champions host the Mount Royal Cougars for a best-of-three final series starting Friday, March 3 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
Advancing to the Canada West Final by downing the Saskatchewan Huskies in last weekend's semis, the T-Birds already know they'll be competing at a second straight National Championship later this month in Montreal. But earning a fifth conference title for the program would go a long way to not only improving their seeding for the upcoming national tournament, but also confidence and pride having battled for arguably the toughest regional banner in the country.
"We're really focussed on just continuing to build on our game and make improvements and be consistent, but at the same time knowing what's on the line," said UBC head coach
Graham Thomas who enters his fifth conference title series. "We love earning banners and there's so many reasons to be motivated to do well and win and go in to help with our seeding at nationals and just the feeling and accomplishment. This is a very hard league to win in so we can't take that for granted, we got to live in the moment and keep that in perspective."
While the T-Birds battle in their fifth conference title series this weekend, it marks the second Canada West Final appearance for the Cougars who last competed in 2020 when they fell to the Alberta Pandas.
MRU got a measure of long-term revenge last weekend when they defeated the Pandas in the third and deciding game of their conference semifinal.
"They're going to be motivated, they're a veteran group," said Thomas of the Cougars. "We haven't really seen each other very much the last two years. We're looking forward to it, they're very talented, they're solid from goaltending out and it's going to be a really good series. Two really good teams, both are motivated, it's going to be an entertaining and intense series."
The 'Birds and Cougars met just twice this past regular season, splitting a weekend series in Calgary back in November. As rarely as the two have met in recent years in regular season play, this weekend marks just the second post-season matchup between them with UBC earning a quarter-final sweep in 2018, both wins coming in overtime.
This Canada West Final pits the two highest scoring regular season teams against each other. While UBC scored 21 more times than Cougars, goals in the post-season are often harder to come by, as evidenced last weekend where the T-Birds were held to just four goals in three games against the Huskies, including a shutout loss in game two.
Adding to the difficulty of scoring for both teams is the fact this series sees the top two playoff goaltenders going head-to-head. UBC's
Elise Hugens posted shutouts in both her wins last weekend and heads into this series with a .962 playoff save percentage and a 0.68 goals against average. Mount Royal's Kaitlyn Ross isn't far behind with a .958 save percentage and a 0.83 goals against average.
"After the game Sunday it was a big step forward," said Thomas, referencing UBC's bounceback 3-0 game three win. "When you're having such a successful year you don't have as much adversity and as many losses and you can learn a lot from losses. When we are faced with some adversity it's great that we do learn from it and push through it. We were really happy with our response and being able to find a way through that. Honestly, we were relating it to how we felt last year at nationals, the things we learned as a group. It was a good reminder of when we go into a game too tight then we aren't able to execute at the level that we need to."
Game one of the 2023 Canada West Final gets underway at 7:00 p.m. PT on Friday, March 3 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Game two is set for 7:00 p.m. Saturday with game three – if necessary – scheduled for 3:00 p.m. on Sunday.
Tickets are available now and the series will also be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
