What’s sweeter than winning in triple overtime? Winning a series in overtime of course. The UBC Thunderbirds knocked off the Mount Royal Cougars in a clean quarterfinals sweep Saturday, sealing their fate with a 3-2 overtime win.
“I think it was a lot of hard work from the other players,” captain Celine Tardif — who logged 40 minutes of ice time yesterday and still had enough energy today to score the series-clinching goal — said post-game.
“It’s playoff hockey, we’ve weathered it all season and are ready for it … I’m just going in with the mindset of winning every shift, keeping it simple, winning those little battles and you’ll end up with results in the end.”
With an afternoon start, the question of the day was fatigue. Any unease was quickly put to rest as both teams came out flying, but it was UBC who had a 2-0 lead seven minutes in.
UBC’s first goal was scored by Hannah Clayton-Carroll on a rolling-puck slapshot that beat Mount Royal starting goaltender Zoe De Beauville blocker side. Their second goal would come during a power play on a short side tip by Brielle Bellerive.
Mount Royal would bounce back less than three minutes later. A wide shot left bounced off the back boards for the Cougars and right to the stick of Tatum Amy who put it top shelf. UBC starting goaltender, Amelia Boughn, was too far out of position to get to her right post and keep the clean sheet.
It would remain 2-1 for the remainder of the period with shots narrowly in favour of the Cougars at 7-6.
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Interference and body checking would put the T-Birds on the penalty kill through the start of the second, as Mount Royal started to chip away at UBC’s defence. It would be a relatively quiet second period, which saw brief stints of offensive pressure from both teams. UBC would come the closest to scoring on several tip opportunities, though they couldn’t find the back of the net.
By the end of the second, a much slower dump-and-chase style hockey had been adopted by both teams as they fought to control zone time.
“I think more so than anything our legs were pretty good,” UBC head coach Graham Thomas said. “I think just mentally we probably just needed to rebound a little quicker after that [first goal] ... but other than that, physically I thought we were pretty good.”
The third period’s pace of play ground to a halt as whistles for penalties came against both teams. Momentum shifted towards the blue and gold as zone time began to accrue with scrambles around the net, leading to more offensive zone face-offs — but again, with little to show for it for UBC.
Time began to dribble away from Mount Royal and with their season on the line, desperation snuck into their play – it would pay off. After failing to clear the zone after a long penalty kill, Anna Purschke capitalized on a turnover in front of the Thunderbirds net to give the Cougars their tying goal.
With 60 minutes not being enough, overtime was needed for the second night in a row.
A power play for UBC wouldn’t end it immediately, but it built the momentum needed for captain Celine Tardif to send UBC to the next round of the playoffs with a well-placed wrist shot 15 minutes into the extra period.
UBC will now move on to the Canada West semifinals starting next weekend.