University of Calgary Dinos men’s hockey team hoping for long playoff run

The U of C Dinos men's hockey team finished third in the standings in their division. They'll be on the road for the playoffs.

After starting the year with a record of 17-2, the University of Calgary Dinos men’s hockey team struggled down the stretch.

The Dinos were just 2-6 in their last eight games and fell to third in the Canada West’s East division.

The good news for the Dinos is they wrapped up the regular season with a pair of wins against the University of Manitoba. Goaltender Carl Stankowski says that’s huge heading into the post season.

“Before the series we talked to all of the guys about how important momentum is going into the playoffs,” said the 25-year-old.

“We had an emphasis on that but going into the games we didn’t really stress about it too much saying it’s just like any other hockey game. But it was big for us to get those four points and have some momentum going into the playoffs.”

Going through adversity

Not winning is never easy. Forward Adam Kydd is hoping that stretch of adversity can bring the team closer heading into their quarter final matchup against the MacEwan University Griffins.

“I think when you have such a good first half like we did you might start to lose some habits and lose some details to your game and get away with it,” said the 23-year-old.

“So to kind of expose a few parts of our game with that losing streak I think was huge for us going into the playoffs because we know what we need to work on and how we need to play to beat these guys.”

Matchup against MacEwan

The Dinos finished the regular season with 39 points. That was 10 more than the Griffins, but MacEwan gets to host because of a format change. Head Coach Mark Howell is expecting a tough matchup.

“They’ve got a lot of offensive guys,” Howell said.

“They throw a lot of pucks to the net and they’ve got good goaltending. You know any team that gets to the playoffs at this time of year is going to be good.”

“They’ve got home ice advantage just because of the new division and the new format. It is what it is and we’ve got to go up there and win two games against a team that plays fast. They throw pucks to speed and we’ve got to make sure we take car of that.”

Last hurrah for some

This is the last year of university for both Stankowski and Kydd and they both say they’ve love to go on a long playoff run and go out in style.

“That’s the goal for sure,” Kydd said.

“I’ve loved my time here and had a good run my first year. Last year we came up a little short so to finish it off with a deep playoff run would just mean the world to me.”

We’ve had a lot of successful years here in my five years,” said Stankowski.

“So to have one more really good push and hopefully win the national title, that would be the cherry on top.”

The quarterfinal series gets underway on Friday night. Game two is on Saturday night and if necessary, they’ll play game three on Sunday night.