Rodvie Barnachea - Golden Bears and Pandas Athletics

EDMONTON - Special teams were the difference of the game as the penalty-filled affair between the Alberta Golden Bears and Calgary Dinos led to numerous chances for both teams. The Golden Bears, most notably, Steven Owre with his hat-trick, proved to make the most of their opportunities. Alberta, improving to a 16-2-1 record on the season, went 4-8 on the power-play, supplementing a 5-2 victory at Clare Drake Arena.

Cole Sanford and Tyson Baillie also scored for Alberta, who snapped their two-game losing streak with the impressive come-from-behind win over the Dinos. Calgary opened with two goals, before allowing five unanswered from the Bears in the second and third periods. Dylan Busenius and Brayden Sherbinin scored in defeat for the visitors, who now fall to 5-11-3 this season.

The game began with both teams attempting to impose a physical presence. Midway through the first,  Alberta's Luke Philip became overzealous when he checked Calgary's Dan Gibb knee-on-knee. Only 12 seconds later, Busenius made the Bears pay for the hit on Calgary's captain, with a tap-in goal to the left of Bears' starter, Brendan Burke, giving the Dinos a 1-0 lead.

The testiness of the game was further emphasized by a Baillie hit, which started a scrum in the Calgary corner. Baillie was assessed a two-minute penalty and a 10-minute misconduct, which would only be the first misconduct for either side. From then on, the game was mired in penalties.

In total, 132 penalty minutes were assessed to both teams, which included a fight between Alberta's Graeme Craig and Calgary's Tim Vanstone. The Dinos were only able to muster one goal on nine chances on the man-advantage against Burke.

Calgary took a 2-0 lead at 1:01 of the second, when beat Burke to the glove side.

However, for the rest of the game, Owre and Alberta took over with their lethal power-play. All three of the forward's goals came 5-on-4 as he capped off his hat-trick going bar-down on Calgary's Jordan Papirny's glove side in the third period. The freshman now moves into third-place in the Canada West rookie scoring race.

Sanford chipped in with his own power-play goal only 58 seconds into the third period, which proved to be tonight's game winner for Alberta.

Baillie sealed the match with an empty-netter with 2:17 remaining in the final period.

The Dinos will look to avoid the season sweep at home against the Bears tomorrow at 6:00pm at Father David Bauer Arena.