VANCOUVER – After a successful pair of games over in Alberta, the unblemished UBC Thunderbirds will be back in the familiar confines of Thunderbird Stadium this Friday and Saturday, September 26th and 27th, for a pair of 7:00 p.m. (PT) matches.
The 'Birds will certainly want to take advantage of this home series, as after this weekend only one of their final six regular season games will be at home! With the Victoria Vikes remaining within striking distance of the top spot should the T-Birds slip up at all (and the two teams set to play each other in a few weeks), every game remains crucial in the fight for playoff seeding.
"The goal is always to come first and get us that first weekend of playoff home games," said UBC head coach
Mike Mosher. "Playoff games are difficult whether it's home or away, but we'd rather be at home. The comforts of home and being at Thunderbird Stadium, it's good for us."
The Thunderbirds are well-balanced on both sides of the ball, sitting top three in Canada West in both goals for per game (2.63) and goals against (0.75).
Henri Godbout sits tied for fourth in the conference in goals (5), and is certainly heating up with goals in each of his last three games.
Luke Norman is tied for third on the Canada West leaderboard with four assists, and has a pair of goals as well including the opener in UBC's big road win over cross-division rivals Mount Royal this past Saturday.
Their opponents for this weekend are the Thompson Rivers WolfPack and the UBC Okanagan Heat, both of whom the T-Birds played away from home back at the end of August. Both of those games resulted in Thunderbirds wins, by scores of 3-0 in Kamloops and 4-1 in Kelowna.
Both of the visiting squads have struggled this season, and need to try and find a way to pull some sort of upset if they are to have a chance at fighting for one of the final playoff spots in the Pacific Division.
"Obviously TRU and UBCO have had a tough go of it so far, but we saw them a few weeks ago and we had some tough games with them," remarked Mosher. "We say all the time how many good teams there are in our conference and how well-organized they are. It's very cliché saying one game, one weekend at a time, but we just want to keep banging off three-point wins."
For the Thunderbirds, they have their eyes set on staying in front in their race for the top seed in the division and the right that comes with it to host each of the first two rounds of the conference playoffs.
As well, there's the chance to make a little bit of history – the last time that UBC started conference play with a 9-0 record? All the way back in 1986, when the T-Birds went 10-0 in the regular season before then winning both Canada West and U SPORTS titles.
"We knew we had a good group coming in," reflected Mosher. "Credit to the group and how hard they've worked. The intensity from day one has been really good, better than I could have imagined to this stage. Now hey, it's halfway, the biggest games are still to come. But the habits, the overall attitude and the group as a whole…there's lots to like of course at this stage."
You can get tickets for this weekend's games and all other UBC home events
HERE.
