The University of Regina’s men’s hockey team will play at home for the first time in over two months this weekend, as they’ll host the Saskatchewan Huskies in the front end of a home-and-home series on Saturday night at the Sherwood Ice Sports Centre.
The last time the Cougars played a home game was back in mid-November, and those two games against Manitoba weren’t even at the team’s usual home rink – they were played out at Emerald Park due to a scheduling conflict.
Regina is coming off of a three-point weekend at UBC which saw them score a 6-2 win on Friday before losing 5-4 in overtime on Saturday. The Cougars spotted the Thunderbirds a 4-0 lead during Saturday’s game before responding with four unanswered goals of their own to send the game into overtime.
Playing his first games since being injured against Saskatchewan on Oct. 16, Dillon Johnstone had a four-point weekend against UBC. The addition of forwards
Jared Jagow and
Devon LeBlanc – who both had stints in the Central Hockey League earlier this season – also provided an offensive spark for the Cougars, as Jagow had a pair of goals and LeBlanc tallied a goal and added two assists.
This weekend will mark the first Canada West games for Saskatchewan since late November, when they swept the Cougars by scores of 5-1 and 3-1 in Saskatoon. The Huskies (9-6-1) enter the game ranked No. 10 in the CIS and in fourth place in the conference standings with 19 points.
Steven DaSilva leads the Huskies in goals (8), points (19), and penalty minutes (37) this season, while Steven Gillen, Chris Durand, and Kyle Bortis all have 15 points for Saskatchewan. Former U of R forward Kyle Ross has scored just one goal this season for the Huskies, but has a team-leading 13 assists.
The two teams will face off at 7 p.m. at Saturday night at the Sherwood Ice Sports Centre. They’ll meet for the sixth and final time of the season on Sunday night in Saskatoon.