Men’s hockey downed in pair of season openers

By Mike Smith

After the CIS ice hockey season kicked off this past weekend, the University of Calgary Dinos returned to Calgary with grim looks on their faces. They dropped both games to the University of Alberta Golden Bears.

In the eyes of head coach Mark Howell, the first game was disappointing as the Dinos weren’t able to match the effort and preparation level of the Golden Bears.

“We were out-played, out-worked and overall just not on the same level as the U of A,” said Howell.

In the season opener of the 2010/2011 campaign and game one of the two-game series, the Dinos posted just seven shots in the first period and only three in all of the second. They finished the game peppering Golden Bears goalie Real Cyr with 21 shots.

The U of A was up to the task, though, and dominated the Dinos by a final score of 5-2.

The Dinos came into the second game more energized and as a result got more shots on goal, but to no avail. The Golden Bears also came out more energized as they matched the effort of the Dinos.

In sports, you need luck, and unfortunately for the Dinos they didn’t have any. They made some mistakes and had some bad bounces that ended up in the back of the net. The final score was 4-1 in favour of the U of A.

Howell was much more impressed with his team’s effort in the second game of the weekend’s series. He felt the team was more prepared and gave a better effort, but unfortunately made some mistakes.

With the disappointing debut weekend past them, the Dinos are looking forward to a two week break that should give them more than enough time to prepare for the next match against the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns.

“We have two weeks, which is good,” said Howell. “We have three defensemen we need to get back from injury and just continue to work on the things we need to work on.”

It is still very early in the season and with some new guys coming in, the team needs time to gain chemistry, he said.

The coaching staff are happy with the rookies’ performance thus far. Howell thinks that their effort on and off the ice to adjust to the university hockey player’s life has been a good one. Once everyone gets settled in, the team will be better because of it.

The Dinos home opener is on Oct. 16 at Father David Bauer Arena, puck drop at 7 p.m.