VANCOUVER – The #8 UBC Thunderbirds won their second Canada West women's hockey banner by recording a 2-1 victory over the Manitoba Bisons in Game 3 of the league championship series Sunday, March 6 afternoon at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre in Vancouver.

Defenders Celine Tardif and Kelly Murray were responsible for UBC's goals, while Danielle Dube made 21 stops in net for the T-Birds.

Karissa Kirkup scored a late marker on the power play for Manitoba but the Bisons couldn't complete the comeback at the end of their third consecutive road playoff series. Goaltender Amanda Schubert logged 19 saves in a losing cause.

The Bisons outshot the hosts 12-3 in the first period, however, a rejuvenated Thunderbirds offence in the final 40 minutes helped the 'Birds earn the victory and the league's only berth to the CIS Women's Hockey Championship March 17-20 in Calgary.

The Thunderbirds struck early, with Tardif netting the game's opening goal just three minutes into the first frame. She took a pass at the left point, skated towards the middle of the ice and fired a wrist shot through traffic and past Schubert. Melissa Goodwin and Haneet Parhar picked up assists on the play.

The Bisons spent the final three minutes of the opening period on the offensive. Several pass interceptions and solid fore-checking gave the team momentum but Dube stood tall amidst the attack.

Manitoba's best chance came when a fortunate bounce deflected out front to Alanna Sharman, who stood alone in front of UBC's net, but Dube snatched her backhand out of midair.

UBC eventually found success on the power play when, at 4:50 of the third, Rebecca Unrau fed a pass to Murray, who unleashed a one-timer from the blue line directly into the lower left corner of the Bisons net.

The goal sparked an offensive surge from UBC. At 9:12, Nicole Saxvik found herself in the Bisons zone on a breakaway. However, Schubert was able to track Saxvik's dekes and made the save on the T-Bird forward.

UBC took a late penalty at 17:48, giving the Manitoba coaching staff an opportunity to pull Schubert for a 6-on-4 advantage.

It didn't take long for the Bisons to strike. Just 15 seconds into the power play, after a series of passes between Kirkup in the faceoff circle and Venla Hovi at the point, Kirkup unloaded a wrister from just behind the faceoff dot. Dube stretched to make the toe save, but the puck nicked the left post and dfelected in, getting the Bisons on the board with less than two minutes remaining in the third. 

 

Schubert stayed out of the Manitoba net after that but the Bisons didn't get another prime scoring chance as UBC was able to keep the puck to the perimeter and in scrums along the boards before the final horn started the celebration for the home team.

It is UBC's second Canada West championship in four seasons, after claiming the league's top prize in 2013. Manitoba great season is over for 2015-16 after an amazing run in the post-season as they won two of three conference best-of-three series (all three series went the distance of three games) on the road.