The reigning Canada West Champions begin their title defence against a relatively unfamiliar foe as the UBC Thunderbirds host the MacEwan Griffins for a best-of-three Canada West quarter-final series starting Friday, February 21 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
With the conference debuting its cross-division playoff structure for the first time, the T-Birds (18-8-2) who finished second in the West Division, will battle the East Division number three seeded Griffins (10-15-3) for the first time in program history.
"It's been a long season, we're six months in here and for the student-athletes it's demanding with lots of travel and lots of adversity this year," said UBC head coach
Sven Butenschon who last season guided the program to its first Canada West banner in 53 years. "We got to find another level because just the way we've been playing isn't good enough. I think the important thing for us this week is just starting fresh, put everything behind us. Even going back to last year's emotional Canada West championship, all that's gone. It's time to look forward and start another special run."
Following the Christmas break, the T-Birds were running hot with six straight wins until stumbling at the regular season finish line, dropping their last three in a row. But the veteran team replete with plenty of talent and one of the deepest rosters in the country knows, to a man, it's time to kick into that extra gear great teams have when it comes to the post-season.
"We got to be excited, we got to feel fresh, we got to feel energized, invigorated," Butenschon continued. "The power play hasn't been good of late but you're just looking for timely goals, you're looking for important situations where your power play's got to come through. We've done it before, we've had a great power play here for as long as I can remember so we're totally capable of doing it and in playoffs it's going to be about which team makes less mistakes, (along with) goaltending and special teams."
While the 'Birds are looking to earn back-to-back Canada West titles for the first time, the Griffins are searching for their first conference playoff victory having advanced to the post-season for just the second time in this, their fourth year competing in U SPORTS.
Last season saw MacEwan swept by the Mount Royal Cougars in the quarter-finals in a relatively tight series in which the Griffins won the special teams battle but ended up being outscored by a combined 10-5 margin.
The Griffins have proven themselves to be a plucky bunch, splitting their only regular season series with the T-Birds by way of a 5-1 win in Edmonton back in early November. MacEwan finished the 2024-25 campaign with a goal differential of -32 compared to UBC's +34, but the Griffins did boast a slightly better power play (18.7% vs 17.8%), proving themselves to be dangerously opportunistic.
"We know they're tight-checking, very disciplined, play the game the right way. They don't take chances, they don't really cheat on offence. They make you earn it. They're kind of built from goaltending and defence, that's the key for these guys and then they get timely scoring from the forwards, so it's going to be a tough challenge. They kind of played a playoff style of hockey during the regular season so it's not going to be easy for us, it's going to be a really tough matchup."
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A key to success for the underdog Griffins will be attempting to shut down UBC's potent offence – a challenge in itself since the 'Birds can throw out four solid lines. Led by third-year forward
Sasha Mutala's 27 points, UBC boasted four top 20 players in league scoring and a total of six with more than 20 points.
The Griffins' offence has been bolstered by a breakout season from Marc Pasemko's team-leading 24 points while defenceman Hunter Donohoe's 22 assists were good for third most among all Canada West blue liners.
"They've proven this year that they can beat anybody. They beat us, they beat Alberta, they beat Calgary. They seem to really know how to shut powerful teams down so we're expecting that and we're really excited about the challenge."
A win in this weekend's quarter-final would punch the T-Birds' ticket to a fifth consecutive semifinal series which will be hosted by the Saskatchewan Huskies – who led the Canada West regular season with a 23-5 record – the following weekend.
Puck drop for game one between the 'Birds and Griffins is 7:00 p.m. Friday, February 21. Game two is set for 7:00 p.m. Saturday with game three – if necessary – scheduled for Sunday, also with a 7:00 p.m. start.
Tickets for the first two games are available now and the entire series will also be streamed live on
Canada West TV.
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