CALGARY – The puck dropped on the Canada West playoffs Friday night at the Flames Community Arenas, as the Mount Royal University Cougars played host to the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds.

The Cougars came into the playoffs at the number four seed in the conference after finishing the regular season with an 18-8-0-2 record earning them a best-of-three series at home. The Thunderbirds wrapped up their season at 9-14-4-1, good for the fifth seed in the Canada West.

The teams traded goals early into the first period, as Quinn Benjafield scored the first goal of the game for the Thunderbirds five minutes and 25 seconds into the opening frame. Despite UBC striking first, the Cougars responded two minutes later on a Nolan Yaremko goal, assisted by Connor Rankin and Kade Jensen.

The Thunderbirds special teams made the difference through the rest of the first period, as they killed off a penalty and capitalized on a power-play with just over four minutes remaining in the period. Tyler Sandhu assisted Maxwell James on a goal that trickled past Cougars netminder Riley Morris to help the Thunderbirds take a 2-1 lead after the opening 20 minutes.

After a high paced second period, in which neither team could beat the opposing netminder, the Cougars found a way to tie the game at two with just under a minute remaining. A loose puck snuck its' way out from behind the Thunderbird net, right to Brad Kennedy for the tying goal.

Other than the late score, the goalies stood tall in the second period. UBC's Rylan Toth and MRU's Morris combined for 18 saves through the second frame and withstood some offensive flurries on both sides. The teams both killed off penalties in the period and neither could take advantage of the open ice during some four-on-four.

With the game tied heading into the third period Thunderbirds' Head Coach Sven Butenschon said that he "didn't like the last half of the second period and [they] were just too fancy and were getting a little bit soft." He said that he asked his team to "bear down and focus on the small details" for the final period of the game. 

Colton Kehler broke the tie after six minutes had passed in the third for the Thunderbirds. He capitalized on a breakaway to put UBC up. The Thunderbirds were able to keep the pressure on and grow their lead after NAME jumped on a rebound in front of the net and put it in to put the visitors up 4-2 with 10 minutes remaining.

Despite the Cougars' comeback effort at the end of the game, they couldn't find a way to get a puck in the back of the net and the Thunderbirds held on to win game one of the series.

The Cougars will look to "get a little bit more energy in our lineup and find units that can connect as a unit of five" Said Head Coach Bert Gilling. "We'll reconsider the lineup a little bit and look at our special teams and see what we can do to have a better game tomorrow."

Game two of the series will be played Saturday night at Flames Community Arenas, as the Thunderbirds will have the chance to move onto the semi-finals with a win. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. MDT and will be broadcast live on CanadaWest.tv, presented by Co-op.