By Ashton Chugh
The Dinos men’s hockey team faced off against the University of Alberta Golden Bears in back-to-back games on Nov. 23–24. Spurred on by a crowd of 531 raucous Calgary fans, the Dinos shutout the Golden Bears 2–0 in game one, handing the top-ranked team in the nation their first loss of the season.
“We’ve been waiting for this weekend for a while and everyone was pretty pumped up,” said Dinos goalie Jacob DeSerres. “It feels pretty good to beat those guys.”
The first two periods were tightly contested and yielded no score. Both goaltenders were required to be in top form in order to keep their respective teams in the game. By the end of two periods, the Bears had outshot the Dinos 24–16.
The Dinos came out in the third period fired up. Dinos forward Kevin King managed to break the tie early in the period by crashing the net and pocketing a loose rebound for his third goal of the year.
“I got my legs under me as the game progressed,” said King. “I had really good play by my linemates, and I just had to put myself in a good position. Those guys are excellent players and I just kind of picked the corner there.”
Dinos head coach Mark Howell thought that his team showed what they are made of in the third period against the Bears.
“The third period we told our guys — all year we believe in what we do and we’ve got to get back to doing it., said Howell. “I thought we looked good in the third. We created a lot of turnovers and because of that we created two chances and scored.”
DeSerres, who was named first star of the game, made 32 saves for his third shutout of the season.
“Bounces were going my way and I was making the saves that I needed to make,” said DeSerres. “At the same time we were working pretty hard to get those rebounds out. I think everybody on the ice wanted to win that game. It was one of the most intense games I have been apart of and it was fun.”
The huge turnout of Dinos fans really gave the home team an advantage on Friday night.
“Another thanks goes out to the fans today, it was unbelievable that so many people came out to support us,” said King. “It gave us that little extra jump.”
During game two in Edmonton, the Dinos went down in a classic double-overtime battle worthy of two division titans.
Continuing with their momentum from game one, forward Walker Wintoneak scored his sixth goal of the season at 4:28 in the first period, putting the Dinos up 1–0. The Dinos then went up 2–0 30 seconds later on a goal by Chris Collins, who notched his Canada West-leading 11th goal of the season.
DeSerres’s 93-minute shutout of the Golden Bears would come to an end at the 6:58 point of the second period on a goal by Bears forward Jordan Hickmott, cutting the Dinos’s lead to one.
In the third period, the Dinos almost snuck out of Edmonton with a win, but it was Golden Bears defenceman Jordan Rowley who scored the game-tying goal with a minute to go in the third period.
The first overtime yielded no goals for either side. In the second overtime, Alberta got a big break when two Dinos got tangled up in the neutral zone, allowing Golden Bears defenceman Ian Barteaux to get the puck to a streaking Kruise Reddick for the game-winning goal.
The Dinos now sit at 13–0–1, which is good for 27 points and first place in the Canada West Division.