Hoping to pick up right where they left off on a red hot start to the season, the UBC Thunderbirds (5-1) are back in action this Friday and Saturday, October 31 and November 1, hosting the Regina Cougars (0-6) at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.

One of the hottest teams in the country riding a five game win streak, the T-Birds got a chance to rest up during last week's bye from conference play.

Now as the No. 4 ranked 'Birds get set to begin six consecutive weeks before the December break, the challenge is to not lose a step, or at the very least, shake the rust off early.



"The bye week came at a perfect time, school was getting pretty heavy for the guys, a bit of fatigue setting in and sickness, so we tried to use the time to recover, reset, recharge," said UBC head coach, Sven Butenschon, whose squad remains tied with Alberta atop the west division despite also holding a pair of games in hand on the Bears. "If you have the right mindset, you're coming to work this week with more sense of urgency. We need to keep the train on the tracks because we've been playing really well. It's human nature to maybe take your foot off the gas a bit. It's a veteran group, they've been through this before with me, it's never easy coming out of the bye week so you just have to have a professional mindset."

Off to one of the best starts to a season in program history, the T-Birds have been superb at both ends of the ice, boasting a +16 goal differential along with a Canada West leading power play at 29.6 per cent.

Fourth-year winger Sasha Mutala has burst out of the gate for a team-leading ten points through six games, surpassing the 100-point Canada West career plateau against the Golden Bears two weeks ago. A total of eight UBC skaters are at a point-per-game pace or better.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by UBC Men's Hockey (@ubcmhky)

Defensively, the 'Birds are equally as impressive with a conference-low 12 goals against. Both Cole Schwebius and Brett Mirwald have been terrific between the pipes for UBC, the latter sitting second in conference save percentage (.946) and goals against average (1.33).

"I think you got to throw in Nick Jones too who comes to work every day and pushes the players and the other goalies to be better. He's a big part of our goaltending crew, I just love what I'm seeing from the three of them," Butenschon said of his netminders who have made the current platoon system work just fine. "I've always been open to any scenario. I think with a three o'clock Saturday start time, it's really hard for the same guy to go twice in those situations. But if there's (two seven o'clock games) and if one of the goalies is showing us and the group that he's fully capable of stealing games then I'm fine with that."

While the T-Birds have been at the top of their game early this season, the same cannot be said for the Cougars who are still in search of their first win of 2025-26.

Coming off a rough home-and-home series with Saskatchewan that saw the Huskies earn the sweep by a combined 13-2 margin, the Cougars already find themselves eight points back of third place in the east division making for a desperate squad heading to Vancouver.



"They're going to be hungry, they're going to come out hard. They have a new coach so they're trying to impress their new coach. But in saying that, we only play 28 games ourselves so every game is as important for us as it is for them, so we need to have that desperation in our game to match theirs."

Part of that desperation for UBC is finding sustained consistency, man to man, game to game.

"It is a long season, it's a marathon, we're going to need everybody once the games get real tough after Christmas. That's kind of when I'm expecting a blend of young energy at times combined with veteran experience and swagger. Not playing down to your opponent, always pushing yourself to be better and to take another step in your own development as well.

Puck drop Friday, October 31 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre is 7:00 p.m. with Saturday's rematch set for 3:00 p.m. Tickets are available online and both games will be streamed live on Canada West TV.