CW HOCKEY FINALS
Huskies prepare for UBC
Milan Dragicevic sent Dave Adolph’s memory racing back six years.
Dragicevic — former head coach of the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds and currently a coach for the Delta Hockey Academy — sent Adolph a friendly text on Tuesday to remind him of another time when the UBC T-birds pulled off a big upset in U Sports men’s hockey.
Tuesday’s text came after UBC shocked the U Sports world Sunday night by eliminating the University of Alberta Golden Bears in their Canada West semifinal. By doing so, the T-birds advance to the Canada West final against the Adolph-coached University of Saskatchewan Huskies this weekend in Saskatoon.
In 2014, the visiting UBC T-birds pulled off a shocking series win over the host U of S Huskies at then Credit Union Centre, where former Saskatoon Blades goalie Steven Stanford faced a whopping 61 shots yet backstopped his team to an upset 6-4 win in a deciding Game 3 with the help of four power play goals.
After seeing Sunday’s result, and living it in 2014, Adolph’s message to his team this year is simple.
“Make sure you’re ready,” stressed Adolph, whose Huskies host the UBC T-birds in a best-ofthree series Friday, Saturday and, if needed, Sunday at Merlis Belsher Place. (Game-time is 7 p.m. each night.)
“It’s that time of year. So, Milan Dragicevic texted me, saying, ‘Do you remember when?’ Yeah, I do remember. Upsets happen. He (Stanford) was real good that year (as was UBC goalie Rylan Toth, a Saskatoon product, this year). U of T (Toronto) was a top-five team all year and they’re out. Carleton’s out. So make sure you’re ready.”
Saskatchewan and UBC have already qualified for the upcoming University Cup national championship tournament in Halifax, N.S., where the Canada West champion will get one of the top four seeds in the eight-team tournament. They’ll be joined by three teams from the host Atlantic University Sport conference and three from Ontario University Sport.
After struggling out of the gate, the Hockey Dogs eventually went on a roll to become the hottest team in Canada West and U Sports hockey. Saskatchewan (22-4-2) has won 13 straight games.
“The whole focus, after that difficult start, was to see if you can find a different way, so you can get back into contention and host a semifinal,” said Adolph.
“I thought we did a real good job of doing that, to the point where we were tied with Alberta (in the final Canada West standings) As it worked out, we’re hosting both weekends. This (Merlis Belsher) is a real good rink to play in. Our guys are comfortable playing here, so it’s nice to be home.”
UBC saw its struggles this season and finished with a 9-14-5 record.
Saskatchewan swept the season series with UBC, winning all four games, but two of them were decided by only one goal.
“I liked them (T-birds) when they were here (Jan. 24-25),” noted Adolph. “And I remember (UBC coach) Sven (Butenschon) telling me it was the first time this year they were healthy when they came through here. They had a full complement of six D and four lines. It was a good weekend. It was wide open, maybe a little too much for my liking, but I thought they possessed way more offensive skill than I’ve seen for a long time. I know one of the comments, from another coach in our league, said that UBC’S skill may give Alberta a tough time.”
And, of course, it did.
Huskies captain Tanner Lishchynsky says he didn’t want to watch Sunday’s Ubc-alberta game.
“I said, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen, that we’ll play whoever we play,” explained Lishchynsky. “All of a sudden, my phone blew up and the boys are pretty excited now that they get to play at home (against UBC). That’s the biggest thing we’re happy about.”