Following a frustrating weekend suffering a pair of rare home ice losses, the UBC Thunderbirds begin a home-and-home series with their cross-town rival Trinity Western Spartans Friday, October 18 in Langley.
Dropping both halves of last weekend's home opening series with the Mount Royal Cougars, the T-Birds (2-2) find themselves in an odd position: looking up at two different teams in the West division of the conference.
"We just got to get back to the basics for us. The adversity is going to be good for this group, it's forcing us to really look at things," said UBC head coach
Graham Thomas. "This week with Trinity, we just want to see consistent team play."
Last year's Canada West championship T-Birds team not only led the conference in regular season scoring with 112 goals, the blue and gold also boasted the second best team defence, having allowed just 34 against.
Through the first two weeks of the 2023-24 season, UBC is averaging a respectable 2.75 goals for, but their 11 combined goals against is the highest total in the conference.
"We got to get ourselves engaged in these games, the mental mistakes we're making are so uncharacteristic of our team and of the individuals making them," Thomas added. "We need to play inspired hockey. Right now we're too casual, too inconsistent. Teams are outcompeting us and outwilling us and winning battles and at the end of the day that's what it comes down to."
The positive for the T-Birds is they know they have the talent and the ability to get back to their championship form that saw the team claim each of the last three conference titles. The team has been creating plenty of offensive opportunities, it's just the finishing touch that appears to be a bit elusive. Last weekend the 'Birds outshot MRU by a combined 63-42 margin yet suffered a 2-0 shutout loss Friday night followed by a 4-3 defeat Saturday.
"For a lot of these players, winning three years in a row and having lost just a handful of games, naturally a little bit of complacency sets in. There's a feeling that it should just happen. That's just the wrong mentality to have. We need people to take initiative. We need to figure it out soon if we want to achieve the goals we have because it's just going to make it harder for us down the line if we don't start stringing some wins together and just start playing better hockey."
That opportunity to re-establish the T-Birds' successful brand begins Friday night at the Langley Events Centre where they face the 0-2 Spartans for the first of six meetings on the season. TWU has plenty of concerns of their own, having failed to score a goal in each of their first two games. Coming off a bye week, the Spartans have had plenty of time to assess and prepare for their regional rival.
Puck drop Friday is 7:30 p.m. Saturday's rematch at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre is scheduled for 3:00 p.m.
Tickets for the second half of the home-and-home are available now and both games will be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
