This season, UBC Men’s Hockey has had an unorthodox problem. It’s not their record. They've been spectacular, only dropping five games up to this point in the season. It’s not their goaltending. The ‘Birds have been able to roll with the excellent pairing of Brett Mirwald and Cole Schwebius all year, who both rank in the top 10 nationally for goals-against-average. It’s not their offence. Each player in their top line of Sasha Mutala, Scott Atkinson and Chris Douglas is a top-25 point-scorer in Canada.
In fact, the problem isn’t anything they can control. The Thunderbirds have a competition problem. In Canada West play, the teams are split into two divisions, and the majority of the games a team will play — 18 of the 28 regular season games that UBC will suit up for this season — are against the other teams in their division, which, for UBC, is Alberta, MacEwan and Trinity Western. It hasn’t been a fair fight.
UBC currently holds a 14-point lead over the second-best team in the division. The next largest division or conference lead in Canada is five points. UBC has 16 wins. The other three teams — combined — have 20. Every team other than UBC in the CW West division has a losing record. Initially, this would seem to be a positive — and in some sense, it is. The ‘Birds are the first team in Canada West to clinch a playoff spot, largely because of their non-competitive division, and they’ve still got nearly 10 games to play. It’s an enviable position to be in.
Yet, by so easily securing a playoff spot, by beating up on subpar teams, what UBC gains in wins — it loses in credibility. At the end of the year, the only thing that matters is how you perform in the playoffs, and there are no cupcakes in the post-season. Without quality wins against tough competition going into the Canada West playoffs, the ‘Birds risk getting surprised by a more battle-tested team. This T-Birds team has looked very good all year, but it’s hard to know how good they actually are until they face real competition.
In the first few games of 2026, however, we have found out. Coming off of the winter break, the ‘Birds would face their largest test of the season, going against the two Calgary-based teams in Canada West, first, the Mount Royal Cougars at home, before heading to Alberta to play the University of Calgary Dinos on the road. Standing now at second and first place, respectively, in the CW East Division, these teams were the test that the T-Birds were looking for. In the first national rankings of the year, both teams were ranked inside the top 10 in the country. If UBC could beat Mount Royal and Calgary convincingly, they’d leave no doubt about their status as the team to beat countrywide.
They couldn’t. In their back-to-back against Mount Royal at home, the T-Birds fell flat, losing 4–2 in the first game before losing again in overtime, 3–2, dropping two games in a row for the first time all year. These weren’t pretty losses, either. In the first game, UBC gave up three goals in the span of a minute to give the game away in the first period, while in the second, the ‘Birds blew a two-goal lead. It seemed to be a confirmation that, despite all the winning, their second-ever Canada West title was still a ways away.
To make matters worse, of their two opening matchups, Mount Royal should have probably been the easier opponent. In comparison to the upcoming Dinos, Mount Royal was the lower seed — both in the national rankings and in the standings — and the T-Birds got them at home. They wouldn’t have that same luxury against Calgary. After the back-to-back with the Cougars, UBC fell from the No. 1 spot in the national rankings — for the first time since Nov. 24, 2025— to fourth, behind three other CW East teams. With a road trip to Southern Alberta on the horizon, the ‘Birds needed a win, if not for the standings, then for their reputation.
They got it. Convincingly. In one of their most complete performances of the season, on Friday night, the Thunderbirds dominated the second-ranked Dinos in a game that, from the opening puck drop, never felt that close. The 4–0 final score, if anything, was kind to Calgary. The ‘Birds killed the Dinos on the power play. They suffocated them on the penalty kill. They kept possession of the puck nearly the entire game. They got great goaltending from Mirwald. For UBC head coach Sven Butenschon, this game has got to be teaching tape for the remainder of the season. They took one of the best teams in the country and made them look incredibly subpar. It’s the kind of statement win that this team has been looking for all year.
The ‘Birds got the party started early. After a choppy opening couple minutes, with numerous whistles and pucks out of play, the game’s first power play would go to the T-Birds, who would need only 20 seconds of the man advantage to take an early lead on an impressive play off the draw. While forward Jake Wright initially mishandled the pass from his defenceman, Jake Lee, at the point, the third-year did a commendable job to keep his composure, quickly corralling the pass back in, recognizing the opportunity for a shot had been lost, and dishing it back to Lee. Wright’s pass was perfect, and Lee hammered it home with a one-time from the blue line — a laser to the back of the net.
That early lead was important, and the way the ‘Birds were playing was impressive. While they had taken the lead on the power play, they were playing just as well at even strength, controlling the puck, not allowing Calgary any time or space in the offensive zone. Yet, they couldn’t get comfortable. After all, they had a strong first period against Mount Royal, but ended up collapsing. The Dinos were bound to get some chances of their own, and it was up to the ‘Birds to keep their momentum.
The first real challenge to UBC’s strong first period came about midway through, when ‘Birds defenceman Wolfgang Govedaris pre-empted a pass up-ice and cross-checked a Dinos forward before they had the puck. Govedaris would go to the box, and in doing so, leave his team short-handed against one of the best power play units in Canada.
If the Dinos have a strength as a team, it’s their power play. Going into this matchup, they had notched 26 power play goals in 20 games, scoring on nearly 30 per cent of their opportunities. Both of those marks would place Calgary in the top five nationally — so needless to say, it was a unit that UBC would want to avoid, especially since the T-Birds’ penalty kill has been relatively weak this season.
Those stats certainly didn’t play out on the ice, however. UBC’s penalty kill made the Dinos look pedestrian, not allowing them to get set up in the attacking zone until half of the power play had already drained away. Even when the Dinos did set up, the passing lanes closed fast, with their only solid chance of the advantage coming on a give-and-go near the slot, which defenceman Jonny Lambos got a stick on to deflect it out of harm’s way. The ‘Birds sustained their one-goal lead.
For how well the ‘Birds played in the first, the one area they seemed to struggle in, strangely, was shots on net. Eleven minutes into the frame, they had only mustered one shot on goal — which was Lee’s goal at the start of the period. That wasn’t indicative of the Thunderbirds’ offensive success. Case in point, with eight minutes to go, hemming the Dinos in their own end, UBC forward Nathan Sullivan found space behind the net, whipping back out front with space to get a clear shot away. It rang off the post.
Chances like Sullivan’s — hitting the post, just missing a one-timer pass, not having space to shoot into an open net — these were the near-misses that defined much of the game for the T-Birds. They were getting high-danger chances, they just weren’t scoring. Or, even registering shots on net.
This continued with a late power play to end the first. Wright’s attempt to jam home a rebound was just blocked by a sprawling defenceman. A beautiful tick-tack-toe setup by Douglas left Mutala with nothing but twine in front of him — but the angle was too tight to get off a shot. By the end of the power play, with two minutes left in the period, UBC only had four shots — but they had plenty more opportunities.
Those chances finally paid off for UBC right as their man advantage came to a close. With another great cross-ice pass to Mutala — this time from Josh Williams — UBC’s leading scorer left no doubt this time. Dinos goalie Carl Tetachuk could only watch as the ‘Birds extended their lead to 2, taking that lead to the locker room.
In the second, things mostly settled in. The ‘Birds continued to hog the puck, both by pressuring the Dinos whenever they attempted to set up play in the UBC end, and through an aggressive forecheck that routinely forced offensive zone turnovers. Yet, while the T-Birds’ puck possession continued from the first, their overall quality of chances didn’t. Sure, they still had their moments, such as a Ty Thorpe shot off the post early on, but without that third goal to solidify their lead, the door was open for the Dinos.
As an uneventful period started to wind down, Calgary started to wake up. On a UBC power play, the Dinos got their best chance of the game short-handed, as their leading scorer, Adam Kydd, forced a turnover at the blue line and sprinted up ice for a partial breakaway. Fortunately for the ‘Birds, Mirwald was there to save the day, blocking Kydd’s shot with ease, looking impeccably calm in the face of the first real danger he faced all night – even a quick rebound attempt from another trailing Dino couldn’t throw him.
Kydd’s rush seemed to spark something in the Dinos, as for the next few minutes, they found some of their best chances of the night. A couple minutes after, they forced another UBC turnover and turned an odd man rush the other way, with first-year Caden Stienke getting a shot off in the high slot — but it was blocked. Then, it was Kydd again, who, while fading away from the net, slid a perfect pass to a streaking Wyatt Wilson, whose one-timer came less than a foot from the goal line. Mirwald came up huge for the ‘Birds here again, sliding across to stone Wilson from point-blank range. While it was a quiet night for him overall, in the second, Mirwald almost single-handedly kept UBC in it.
Strangely enough, what broke the Dinos’ new-found momentum was a penalty — but not on them, on UBC. When Calgary went on the man advantage with three minutes left in the period, all the air came out of their offence. The ‘Birds aggressive, puck control penalty kill left the normally lethal man advantage unit without gas, and in draining out the Calgary power play, they kept their multi-goal lead into the third.
That’s when they put their foot down. Less than a minute into the third, on a power play that had carried over from the end of the prior period, the Dinos penalty kill made a brutal mistake. With the puck in the corner, all four penalty killers converged in the same area, looking to battle and take possession. Instead, the puck popped loose to Douglas, who dished it to Williams in front of the net. With Calgary out of position, Williams had an eternity in the slot, and he made no mistake. 3–0 ‘Birds.
While the Dinos still had nearly a full 20 to turn things around, the Williams goal was the killing blow, if they weren’t out of it already. With how Calgary had played, any kind of comeback didn’t seem within reach. The offence just wasn’t there. UBC had shut everything down, to the extent on the next Calgary power play, the T-Birds had the best scoring chance, with a 2-on-1.
UBC would add another garbage time tally to cap off the 4–0 victory, but they didn’t need it to cement their dominance. The margin is impressive, sure. But the performance spoke for itself. Because, in truth, with a playoff spot locked up, and the division all but a formality, wins and losses aren’t as important to the Thunderbirds right now. Instead, it’s about how they play. Can they continue to build upon their game and fortify themselves for a gruelling Canada West playoff grind, in which they’ll have to play mostly teams from the superior CW East Division? Can they prove they belong with the big dogs in the conference? On Friday, they did — emphatically.
