The #7 Bison women's hockey team play their first games at home in the second half of 2016-17 by hosting the #1 and defending conference champion UBC Thunderbirds on January 13-14 weekend at the Wayne Fleming Arena (U of M Fort Garry campus). Puck drop versus the Thunderbirds will be 7 p.m. CT on Friday and 1 p.m. CT on Saturday. Tickets available at the Arena door.

The Bisons look to continue their winning ways at home as Manitoba holds a 4-2-1-1 record so far at Wayne Fleming Arena this season and starts first of back-to-back weekends on home ice.

Heading into the two game weekend series, Manitoba sits in second place in the Canada West standings entering the weekend with a 9-4-3-2 record for 35 points (three points given out for regulation win) and two points ahead of third place Alberta, four points ahead of Regina. UBC is first in the eight team conference as they hold a 14-2-2-0 record for 46 points and have gone 9-1 in last ten games.

This is the second weekend series between the two teams this conference season. Earlier in 2016-17, the Herd was swept by UBC on the road (L 3-2 on Oct. 28/16 and L 6-2 on Oct. 29/16).

Manitoba and UBC has several players in the Canada West Top 15 scoring. For the Bisons, third year forward Lauryn Keen is tied for third with 18 points (six goals, 12 assists), third year forward Alanna Sharman (6g, 6a) and third year forward Venla Hovi (5g, 7a) are tied for 14th with 12 points. For the T-Birds, Cassandra Vilgrain (5g, 16a) leads with 21 points, Nicole Saxvik (7g, 11a) is T-3rd with 18 followed by Kathleen Cahoon (7g, 7a) and Kelly Murray (2g, 12a) tied for sixth with 14 and Mairead Bast (5g, 8a) is T-12th at 13.

In the nets, Bison fourth year netminder Rachel Dyck has played in 13 conference regular season games and in first place in Goals Against Average with 1.38, first in Save Percentage at .938, tied for first with nine conference wins, first with four shutouts. Bison fourth year goalie Amanda Schubert has 1.83 GAA with .896 Save Pct. and three conference wins plus one shutout.

Bison Notes: Manitoba has allowed the third lowest goals against so far this conference season at 30 and scored the second most goals in Canada West with 52, heading into the weekend series.