VANCOUVER – For the first time in 53 years the UBC Thunderbirds are Canada West Men's Hockey Champions.
Trailing 1-0 early, the 'Birds rattled off four straight goals and held off a third period Dinos surge, sealing the victory with a
Chris Douglas empty netter to secure the third conference banner in program history.
"It's pretty surreal right now," said UBC head coach
Sven Butenschon following the historic victory. "It's relief. When you're the top seed and you're kind of expected to win and you're supposed to win, that's a lot of pressure and the group seemed to really thrive under pressure. I'm so proud of them, just so proud of the guys."
"You dream of moments like this as a kid," said UBC captain
Chris Douglas who led the way with a pair of goals in the championship clinching game. "You want to play for a championship and I haven't been able to play for a championship in seven or eight years since I was in my teenage years. I'm just so proud of every single guy. I hope guys can look back and be like 'I was a part of this', the guys that aren't here right now that are alumni. I'm so happy right now, it's unexplainable what I'm feeling right now."
As euphoric as the end result was for the T-Birds, the start of the game was anything but with the Dinos opening scoring on their first chance of the game, Riley Stotts converting on a two-on-one with Colson Gengenbach just 88 seconds in.
Despite the less than ideal opening few minutes for the T-Birds, they quickly gained traction and tied it up midway through the period when
Ryan Pouliot joined an odd-man rush up ice and made good on
Liam Kindree feed across the slot. While not credited with an assist, a key
Cole Schwebius save at the other end just moments earlier directly led to a quick transition the other way and the tying marker.
With exactly five minutes remaining in the period, a costly Dinos turnover saw the puck bank off Douglas and into the net to give UBC their first lead of the game. While initially waived off, an officials' conference overturned the call, much to the delight of the boisterous Doug Mitchell crowd.
The second saw the T-Birds continue to wear down the Dinos at both ends of the ice and two quick strikes within a 37 second span staked out a three goal UBC lead.
Tian Rask popped home a rebound on the power play for his first of the playoffs with
Jake Kryski keeping the crowd on its feet wristing the puck past Carl Tetachuck's blocker side.
Down three goals heading to the third, Calgary got exactly what they needed early in the final frame, cutting UBC's lead to 4-2 with Jadon Joseph's second of the post-season.
Less than five minutes later and the T-Birds' lead was down to a single goal when Arjun Atwal deflected a Connor Gutenberg shot from the half boards.
The Dinos pushed back but weren't able to get any closer with Douglas hitting the empty net with 14 seconds on the clock, erasing any doubt about the outcome.
"Another test, another big test," said Butenschon of what his group went through in the third period. "You knew they were going to push, they have some really high end scorers there, they don't need much of a chance and they bury it. It would have been nice to lock it down and play a little more conservative through the neutral zone and make them come through five, but you got to win any way you can."
The meaningfulness of this championship win was evident in the eyes and emotions of the dozens of alumni in attendance Sunday night, representing decades of Thunderbirds past.
"Over my time here at UBC you get to meet all kinds of alumni, all kinds of generational alumni," Butenschon said. "Getting together at the end of the season with some of the older guys and just hearing their stories, I think about all that stuff in these kind of moments."
The T-Birds will savour the Canada West win but will quickly shift focus to an even bigger prize with the University Cup National Championship set to begin in 10 days' time.
UBC men's hockey has now ended a long conference title drought but the biggest prize of all is now firmly in their sights – one never before accomplished.
