New territory for No. 10-ranked Birds
UBC squad adapting to life with target on back following its remarkable turnaround last year
Graham Thomas is speaking in jest, because he knows the best motivational speeches are always unscripted and delivered straight from the heart.
Yet there is no doubt that beneath the shiny, reinvented veneer it now so suddenly wears, a fundamental question is being asked of the UBC Thunderbirds women’s hockey team, one that consists of just a few simple words.
It goes something like this: Ladies, how hungry are you, really?
“I might have to go to my Rolodex of speeches,” jokes head coach Thomas, who, in his first year with the ’Birds last season, inherited a sad-sack 1-21-2 team and oversaw its complete re-invention to that of a 17-7-4 team which advanced to the CIS national tournament.
“I think I threw everything and the kitchen sink at them last year.”
So now, in what 12 months ago would have been an absolute nonevent on the Point Grey campus, the Thunderbirds are set to open the home portion of their 2013-14 Canada West conference season on Friday (7 p.m.) and Saturday (2 p.m.) at the Doug Mitchell Arena by hosting the all-powerful Calgary Dinos.
For the first time ever, UBC is nationally ranked to start the season, sitting at No. 10 while Calgary sits at No. 7. And with that, two things seem apparent: Casual interest has been replaced by heightened expectation, and blue-and-gold is no longer the colour scheme of underdogs.
“This program, never in its existence, has it had to defend a championship with a target,” explains Thomas, whose team will officially mint its status as defending Canada West conference champs by holding a banner-raising ceremony Saturday prior to facing the same Dinos team it dethroned of the honour last March.
“Last year, it wasn’t our goal to win the conference and go to nationals. It was to change how we competed and trained, and take things weekend to weekend. Last year, it was a challenge to double our win total or to get to four wins. This is a different dynamic. It’s something we’re learning. But we can’t get too hungry to get to March. We have to put the work in now.”
Yet the team that finished the regular season a year ago on a 10-0-1 streak, a precursor to a magical post-season run that ended with fifth place at the nationals, got the first sign of its mortality last weekend when the conference schedule opened in Lethbridge.
Last Friday, UBC fell behind 4-1 against the Pronghorns but scored three unanswered power play goals in the third period to force overtime, eventually winning 5-4 in a shootout with the deciding goal coming from fifth-year captain Christi Capozzi. Would the magic ever end? The next night, UBC led 2-0 but lost 3-2.
“For us, it’s all about trying to be our best all of the time,” Capozzi said before practice on Thursday.
“Human nature is to take the easy way out. And that is why we have to keep coming back to the little things, holding ourselves accountable and not only keeping an eye on the end goal, but in the process it takes to get there.”
For his part, Thomas made sure he spent a part of the offseason reading and seeking personal counsel on all topics pertaining to team building.
“But all summer long, the one person I didn’t get a chance to sit down and talk with was Doug,” Thomas says of UBC women’s volleyball coach Doug Reimer, who has led his program to six straight CIS national titles and counting.
“I will make sure I do, and when I do, I will ask him about how he keeps developing leadership within his group, how he sustains a winning program when everyone wants to take it down.
“How do you take all of that and not be afraid of it?” Thomas continues.
“Last Saturday, when Lethbridge came back to beat us, it was like they just won a championship. Ten minutes after the game, I could still hear them screaming down the hallway. So we really are just trying to be at our best all of the time.”
They are indeed lofty goals, but to a former 1-21-2 team, respect has come. Through the dressing room doors, Thomas could hear it loud and clear.