Dinos look east to nationals after tough Canada West loss to UBC

The University of Calgary Dinos men’s hockey team is heading to the National Men’s Hockey Championship next week.

They’ll be looking for a better showing than they had last year, when they were eliminated by the hosts from Prince Edward Island.

One thing that’s different is the Dinos won’t be heading east as the number one seed like they did last year.

That’s because this past weekend, UBC won the Canada West title.

The Thunderbirds took down the Dinos two games to one in the best-of-three series, losing the deciding match 5-3.

The good news for the Dinos is their season isn’t over yet – they were still guaranteed a spot in the national championship prior to the Canada West final.

“It was tough,” said Dino forward Connor Gutenberg. “Obviously, three hard games, but they’re a good team. (It was) a disappointment from the result we got.”

Dinos forward Connor Gutenberg said the team is looking forward to playing in the national championships in Toronto.

What about going to Toronto to play in the nationals?

“We’re looking forward to it,” he said. “We kind of got a second chance to win a championship – obviously, a lot of us were there last year, that have a bad taste in our mouths from that year so we’re definitely looking forward to it.”

Gutenberg said the one-and-done format of the nationals was a bit of a shock to the team.

 “ If you don’t win the first game, you’re done," he said. "So you’ve kind of gotta put all your eggs into one basket on the Friday night or Thursday.”

BITTER ENDING

Dinos head coach Mark Howell won’t forget the sting of last year’s loss either.

“Last year it was a bitter ending,” said Howell. “You know we were ranked one and lost to the supposed eighth seed and the host. It didn’t sit well with anybody. It was a really lonely two days sitting in P.E.I. waiting to get out of there and it was a long season.”

Defenceman Noah King said the team might benefit from going in as an underdog this year.

“Being underdogs is powerful,” he said. “You’ve got nothing to lose. You just go out there and play your game, play like we know how we can play and we can win this.

"You still have to have a bit of confidence in yourselves obviously," King said, continuing, "but yeah – (this year), we have nothing to lose so we’re just going to go out there and play.”

Toronto will host this year’s nationals from March 14 to the 17^th.