It was a good start to the season's second half of the Canada West Hockey season for the University of British Columbia as the Thunderbirds earned their first two conference wins with a road sweep of the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns. UBC leapfrogged over the Pronghorns into third place and the final playoff position in the conference's Mountain Division with 3-0 and 5-2 wins on Friday-Saturday, January 7th-8th. The victories ended an 18-game winless streak that had seen the Thunderbirds go 0-14-4 from October 8th to December 4th. UBC's last victory was a 4-1 non-conference win over Lethbridge at the Golden Bears-Brick Invitational tournament on October 2nd.
In other Canada West Hockey series on the weekend, the University of Manitoba Bisons and University of Alberta Golden Bears earned three of four points in their series with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies and the University of Calgary Dinos, respectively. Non-conference play saw the University of Regina Cougars sweep the Concordia College Thunder of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) 8-1 and 5-4.
In a head-to-head match-up of the top two teams in the Great Plains Division, Paul Deniset scored six points to lead Manitoba to a 6-0 win and 3-3 tie with the Huskies. The three points moved the Bisons to within five points of the first place Huskies. At Calgary, the Golden Bears extended their undefeated streak against the Dinos to 44 games with a 6-1 win and a 3-3 tie. Alberta is 38-0-6 against Calgary since February 5, 1999.
Newcomers Kyle Bruce and Doug Groenestege were instrumental in leading UBC to its sweep of Lethbridge. Bruce scored a shorthanded goal, which proved to be the game-winning goal, on his very first CIS shift and Groenestege made 18 saves to register a shutout in his first collegiate start in Friday's 3-0 win. Bruce would score twice more and add an assist in Saturday's 5-2 victory. Groenestege's shutout was the first by UBC in 220 games dating back to Matt Wealick's 4-0 blanking of the University of Toronto Varsity Blues at the UBC Valor Cup tournament on December 29, 1998. It also was the first UBC shutout in Canada West Hockey play since Jon Sikkema defeated Lethbridge 4-0 on October 24, 1998.
Manitoba's Paul Deniset was the offensive catalyst in the Bisons series with Saskatchewan. The Bisons assistant captain scored four points, including his second hat trick of the season, in Friday's 6-0 win and then added a fourth goal and an assist in Saturday's tie. Deniset's linemate, Kevin Saurette, who was last week's Canada West Hockey Player-of-the-Week, had five assists in the series, including three on Friday. Besides Deniset's and Saurette's offensive play, the Bisons were backed by the goaltending of Krister Toews. The freshman netminder made 23 saves to register his second shutout of the season on Friday and then made 32 more saves in the tie on Saturday.
The Bisons came only two seconds away from a sweep of Saskatchewan as Dean Beuker scored at 19:58 of the third period to tie the game at 3-3 on Saturday. For Beuker, who also had an assist in the game, the two points gives the Saskatchewan forward the conference scoring lead with 10-20-30.
At Calgary, Steve Shrum scored 1-2-3 and captain Gavin McLeod netted 1-1-2 to lead Alberta to its series opening 6-1 win on Friday. Dustin Schwartz made 24 saves in the Golden Bears goal for the win. Lonny Tetley's third period goal was the only shot to beat Schwartz and prevent the Alberta netminder from registering his sixth shutout. Alberta jumped into a 3-0 lead after two periods on Saturday on goals by Ben Kilgour, Justin Wallin and Perry Johnson, but the Dinos rallied with three goals of their own in the third period to earn the tie.
Alex Lalonde began the Calgary comeback only 42 seconds into the final period and Drew Campbell brought the Dinos to within a goal at 1:23. The goals 41 seconds apart set the stage for Wes Reid's game-tying goal at