Box Score CALGARY – The Cougars finally got their Friday night monkeys off their backs.
The Mount Royal University Cougars men's hockey team exploded for nine even-strength goals in a blowout 9-2 win over the Trinity Western University Spartans.
The victory marked MRU's first win on a Friday all season, after going 0-6 in weekend openers to start the 2025-26 campaign.
"Our previous Friday performances have kind of been a built-up theme. We're excited to finish the night with a really great team win. Everyone was going; nine goals five-on-five is really good for us," said Cougars assistant captain
Justin Lies.
The Cougars got on the board first in the opening period.
Kyle Walker's point shot was redirected by
Dawson Milliken to make it 1-0 partway through the first. The goal was Milliken's first of the year.
Walker was playing in his 113th career Canada West regular season game, which ranks him fourth all-time in Mount Royal history.
Connor Bouchard doubled the Cougars' lead a few minutes later to give the home team a 2-0 lead heading into the intermission.
In the second, Lies went on a rush and was stopped but collected his rebound behind the net and centred the puck to
Blake Stevenson who whacked the puck into the open cage.
Mount Royal had clearly made it a point of emphasis to stay with the puck even if their initial chance was stopped.
"We talked a lot this week about just being around the net, always having guys around and doing our best at retrieving pucks for a second opportunity," said Lies. "We scored a few tonight directly off of rebound by just hunting for those loose pucks."
The Spartans got their first goal of the game midway through the second. After a big rebound, Aiden Knutson buried his first of the year past MRU netminder
Ethan Buenaventura to cut the deficit to just two.
After the brief lapse, the Cougars exploded for four more second-period goals, all from similar spots on the ice.
Remy Aquilon,
Justin Lies,
Jaxon Martens and
Dawson Milliken all potted a goal for Mount Royal in the second half of the period. The four goals were tallied in a span of less than seven minutes.
After facing 40 shots in the first two periods, Trinity Western goaltender Leon Sommer was taken out of the game and Raphael Audet entered for the final 20 minutes.
In the third,
Clay Hanus got his second of the year to make it 8-1 for MRU. Now having completed his fifth game of the season, Hanus looks just like his MVP self on the Cougars' blueline.
Josh Tarzwell got his team-leading sixth goal of the season to make it 9-1.
With under a minute to go, Spartans' second-year forward Artem Hrabovetskyi scored to give the visiting side two goals on the forgettable evening.
For the first time this season, MRU will head into a Saturday with the chance to sweep. With the big win on Friday, they remained focused on continuing their prosperous play.
"We took a step in the right direction tonight. There's still a lot of work to do with our game and keep progressing," said Lies.
Puck drop for Saturday's game is set for 5 p.m. MST at Flames Community Arena.
