VANCOUVER – The heat is turning up in the race toward the Canada West playoffs as the No. 3 ranked UBC Thunderbirds host the Alberta Pandas this Friday and Saturday, February 2 and 3 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre in a meeting of the top two teams in the conference.
Just two points separate the perennial contending programs with the 'Birds (20-1-3) holding the slight edge for first place over their rivals from Edmonton.
Adding to the pressure on both teams this weekend are the Mount Royal Cougars and Saskatchewan Huskies who are both just five points back of the Pandas (19-2-3), all with four games remaining in the regular season making for an intriguing final two weeks of the schedule.
"I'm actually really excited about our schedule," said UBC head coach
Graham Thomas. "This year it lines up great, you have two teams in the top three, the defending national champions coming up and Alberta who we had some great games against but haven't seen since the start of the year. These are playoff preview type games with that level of competition."
Closing out the season next weekend against Mount Royal in Calgary, the 'Birds will first be focussed on their own task at hand this week while there's another key battle going down out of town with MRU facing Saskatchewan.
The T-Birds have already locked down a home playoff berth but the results of this final home series of the season could very well determine who can clinch a top two seed – and a first round playoff bye.
UBC hasn't faced Alberta since the opening weekend of the regular season in Edmonton where the 'Birds picked up three out of four points with a win and an overtime loss – one of just four games all year UBC has failed to secure a victory.
"They're always tough to score against," said Thomas of the Pandas who boast the conference's leading defence, allowing less than a goal against per game. "They're a motivated group, they're fast, they got depth so it'll be a good challenge. Like us, they believe in their offensive abilities. We're coming in as a high performing offensive group against another good offensive team but they also have the lowest goals against, so for us that will be a challenge, mentally, to overcome that battle. But we're excited to play some fast paced, good hockey."
In addition to the key battle for playoff positioning, the 'Birds will also take time prior to Saturday's final home game to honour their three graduating seniors: captain
Rylind MacKinnon, forward
Joelle Fiala and goaltender
Reese Hiddleston.
"With all our seniors this year, we've kind of talked about dealing with the emotional side of it at the end of the season and I think we're all on the same page. We're trying to approach it as another weekend but it will naturally be more emotional because of the on ice presentation and our last regular season game on home ice. But, our focus is that this isn't our last game. We're getting excited and fired up for the playoffs."
Puck drop Friday is set for 7:00 p.m. at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre with Saturday's regular season home finale getting underway at 3:00 p.m.
Tickets for both are available now and both will be streamed online at
Canada West TV.
