VANCOUVER – Adam Kydd scored the only goal of a shootout as the Calgary Dinos exacted some revenge with a 4-3 victory over the UBC Thunderbirds in the 2024-25 Canada West season opener Friday night in Vancouver.
It was a fitting way to end the rematch of last year's Canada West Final which went the distance, UBC celebrating their championship victory Friday night by raising the 2023-24 conference banner to the rafters of the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
Tied 2-2 after two, Dinos Captain Noah King scored on the power play to put the visitors in front by one at the 4:09 mark, a lead that would last less than four minutes before
Sasha Mutala sniped on the power play to tie the game up once again, eventually forcing overtime and then the shootout.
Carl Tetachuk stopped UBC's first shootout attempt before Kydd beat
Cole Schwebius for the eventual game deciding goal as the Dinos took the first of six meetings this season between last year's conference finalists.
"We were just a little bit off with everything," said UBC head coach
Sven Butenschon. "The first few shifts I thought we were crispy, maybe the first part of the first period. I don't know if it was the penalties, I don't know if it was the opening ceremony with the different kind of emotions you're trying to control but for whatever reason we couldn't really find our game."
The Dinos ended the game 2-for-7 on the power play while the T-Birds went 1-for-5 in what was a bit of a feisty affair.
Rookie forward
Carson Latimer got the 2000-plus strong crowd on their feet early with the game opening goal just 4:24 into the first, the former Red Deer Rebel's first career tally as a T-Bird.
After holding the slight edge in play in the opening frame, the 'Birds were on their heels to start the second with the Dinos managing to take the lead within a 30 second span.
44 seconds into the middle frame, Jake Poole scored the Dinos first goal of the season. Colson Gengenbach then scored the go-ahead goal on a power play off a one-timer pass from Zach Whytinck.
Before the period was out, second-year T-Bird
Jake Wright sniped a beauty, far side past Tetachuk for his first in the blue and gold, taking advantage of a
Liam Kindree takeaway in the neutral zone, setting up the entertaining final frame – and then some.
"Those were great goals and we have a lot of skill in that room but scoring off the rush without really sustaining pressure makes it harder to win," said Butenschon who wants to see more from his squad in Saturday's rematch. "We were still OK, Calgary's a hell of a team. I think they may be one of the top teams in Canada again, they're right there with the best so we'll just kind of quickly regroup and then tomorrow is just that much more important."
That rematch is set for 3:00 p.m. at the Doug Mitchel Thunderbird Sports Centre.
Tickets are available now and the game will also be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
