UBC’s men’s hockey team had a rollercoaster weekend against the University of Alberta Golden Bears at the Doug Mitchell Sports Centre. The T-Birds lost Friday’s match 5–3 but won Saturday’s game 4–1 with stellar performances by goalie Cole Schwebius and forward Ty Thorpe, ending Alberta’s seven-game win streak.
On Friday night, the opening goal was scored in the 10th minute by the Golden Bears' rookie Brett Hyland, who found and exploited a tiny gap in the UBC defence in the last seconds of power play. He was assisted by forward Ty Nash. Both teams had excellent shots on goal for the rest of the period but no points were scored.
There were more energetic exchanges between the teams in the second period. In the fourth minute, Thorpe scored the first goal for the T-Birds after receiving a long pass from forward Jake Wright. With UBC playing more offensively, the next goal came eight minutes afterward. Last season’s top scorer Sam Huo got a power play goal with an assist from Sasha Mutala to take the 2–1 lead.
But the Golden Bears dominated the third period. The team scored four times with the last goal coming in the last 20 seconds of the match into an empty UBC net. The T-Birds scored once in the 11th minute, again by Huo, but it wasn’t enough to recover from the deficit and the game ended 5–3.
Saturday afternoon saw an incredible performance from the Thunderbirds with the whole team at its best. Schwebius made 24 saves in total, and Thorpe scored two goals and one assist.
Forward Chris Douglas lit up the scoreboard first in the seventh minute after receiving a pass across the ice from forward Carson Latimer. He took an incredible shot between Alberta’s goalie Tyler Palmer and fellow T-Bird Tian Rask for a 1–0 lead.
The Golden Bears pushed hard, and their first and only goal of the game came in the second period with a great shot by forward Sean Tschigerl, assisted by Hyland. The Thunderbirds quickly regained the lead with Thorpe scoring in the 17th minute, assisted by defencemen Conner McDonald and Matthew Smith.
The third period featured great defensive plays from both teams, particularly UBC. The Golden Bears came close to scoring at one point, but the Thunderbirds quickly responded by scoring again — this time by Wright, who got a quick pass coming from Thorpe in the 13th minute.
The last goal of the match was a near replay of the previous game’s end: scored in the final 20 seconds with a shot into an empty net, this time by Thorpe to end the game in the T-Birds’ favour 4–1.
The Thunderbirds head coach Sven Butenschon was elated with the win, especially given it was against Alberta.
“We're trying to make it about us and when we play the right way and to our full potential, we can beat anybody,” he said. “So it does feel pretty good beating the Alberta Golden Bears just because they are a perennial powerhouse. But a win's a win, and we need points.”
He also said the team had a slow start to the season, expressing they “[are trying] to continue to grow and build.”
UBC’s next challenge will be on Friday in Edmonton against the MacEwan University Griffins.
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