By: Lance Doucet, Dinos Communications
CALGARY – With six wins aside in three seasons shared in the Canada West, the No. 4 University of Calgary Dinos and upstart No. 9 Mount Royal University Cougars will bring their inner city rivalry to the playoffs in the conference semi-finals.
The Dinos enter the semi-finals aiming for their fourth trip to the Canada West Finals in five seasons. Last season Calgary advances past the Manitoba Bisons with an exciting overtime win in Game 3 before falling to the eventual national champion Alberta Golden Bears. Mount Royal will be entering unfamiliar territory for their CIS history. On Sunday, the team defeated the Saskatchewan Huskies in Game 3 of their quarterfinal series, marking their first playoff series win in any sport since joining the conference in 2012.
"It is pretty unique, it is the first time in Canada West that city rivals have played in the playoffs – so it is exciting in that sense. They have had a really good year and have played us hard," said Dinos bench boss Mark Howell. "Our guys are motivated to have a really good series with a lot at stake."
"After what happened in the Crowchild Classic there is a lot on the line in this series," shared Calgary forward Chris Collins. "They are a hard-working team so we have to make sure we show up and give a 100 percent because those kind of teams are the hardest to play against."
The winner of the series will not only advance to play the winner of the other semi-final between the Golden Bears and the UBC Thunderbirds – they will also clinch a spot at the CIS National Championships in Halifax. The Dinos are looking to return to the University Cup for the first time since 2011 in Fredericton, while a trip in 2015 would be the first by the Cougars.
Calgary (20-8-0) finished the regular season in second place and have not played a game since beating the Regina Cougars in overtime back on January 30. With all its parts back from Granada, Spain, the Dinos have been hard at work and are hoping to build off a strong finish to the regular season that saw them win seven of their last eight games.
"It has been four weeks [since the Dinos last played], but the last week of practices have been really hard trying to be physical to try and mimic a game as best as possible," explained Howell. "How we start off the game on Friday is going to be really important because [Mount Royal] has three games under their belt."
Elgin Pearce finished the season as the top point-getter on the Dinos with 17 goals and 25 assists for 31 points. Calgary ended the year with just one win less than a year ago and managed to do so while scoring 33 less goals. While the team did lose some important offensive pieces from last year, the Dinos also had to work without sniper Walker Wintoneak who didn't make his regular season debut in 2015 until the final two weeks. Without a doubt – the back bone of the Dinos has been defence and goaltending – led by Jacob DeSerres and Kris Lazaruk. The netminding duo combined for the best numbers in the conference and held the opposition to two goals or less in 18 of 28 games.
Under the leadership of first-year head coach Bert Gillings, the Cougars program has risen to new heights in 2014-15. Mount Royal (17-10-1) began the year by winning seven of their first eight games, including a pair against Calgary. While foes around the conference waited to see whether or not their success could last, the Cougars made a name for themselves by outworking their opponent nearly every night and fought their way into the CIS Top 10 ranking on a number of weeks. A win over the Dinos at the Scotiabank Saddledome in January even gave the Cougars a shot at a first round bye before a pair of late season losses saw them settle into third place.
"They have great pace to their game, they are fast, get in your face and press you really hard. They do a lot of things really well," noted Howell.
Nearly countering the conference's top scorers out of Alberta, Cody Cartier (14g, 25a) and Tyler Fiddler (8g, 23a) put up superb numbers for Mount Royal with 39 and 31 points respectively during the regular season. Join by Matthew Brown (13g, 10a), the trio has given the Cougars one of the most potent units in the league. Between the pipes, Mount Royal has also seen impressive work from their netminders Dalyn Flette and Cam Lanigan. While Flette was one of three goaltenders named to Team Canada at the Winter Universiade, Lanigan made all three starts for the Cougars in the opening round of the playoffs and is likely to get the nod again this weekend.
The best-of-three series will take place at the Father David Bauer Arena starting on February 27 and stretching to March 1 if necessary. Games 1 and 2 are scheduled for 7:00pm puck drops, while a potential series-deciding Game 3 would begin at 6:00pm on Sunday. The entire series will be available to stream on CanadaWest.tv.
"With a best of three series, you cannot have a slow start. These last few practices have been focused on making sure we don't have any rust," said Collins.