CALGARY – The juggernaut that has been the University of Calgary women's hockey team begins the second season this weekend with its first-ever home playoff series – and the Lethbridge Pronghorns will be their first opponent on the road to the CIS championship.

The Dinos and Pronghorns face off at WinSport's Markin MacPhail Centre at Canada Olympic Park in a best-of-three Canada West semi-final this weekend, with a trip to the conference championship series on the line. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday, and 6:15 p.m. Sunday (if necessary) on Rink 'A', the new home of Hockey Canada.

The Dinos enter the series as the No. 3-ranked team in the nation and the favourites to win the conference after cruising to a 20-4-0 regular season record – easily the best in program history – and winning their last 11 games in a row to secure first place and home ice advantage throughout the playoffs.

The other series has the Saskatchewan Huskies visiting the Alberta Pandas in Edmonton. The Pandas are already guaranteed a berth to the CIS championship March 8-11 as the tournament host, meaning that if Alberta defeats Saskatchewan this week, the Calgary/Lethbridge winner would also earn a spot at the CIS championship regardless of the outcome in the Canada West final.

The Dinos have never won the Canada West title before, and this weekend's series marks the first-ever playoff battle between the two provincial rivals. Calgary and Lethbridge faced each other four times in the regular season, with the Dinos emerging with a 3-1-0 record. The only blemish was a 1-0 shutout loss back on Oct. 28, the only time all year the Dinos were held scoreless. Otherwise the Calgary offence has been deadly, averaging exactly four goals per game with 96 scored over the 24-game schedule.

That high-powered offence, which features seven of the top 18 scorers in the conference, runs headlong this weekend into the major reason the Pronghorns qualified for the postseason this year: goaltender Crystal Patterson.

The Horns, who finished dead last in 2010-11 with a 4-17-3 record, added 10 wins to their total this season to come in at 14-8-2, knocking Manitoba out of the postseason for the first time in seven years. Much of the credit needs to go to Patterson, who recorded five shutouts in the first half of the season and gave her team an opportunity to get its offensive act together. And her sixth shutout came in Winnipeg against the Bisons, who outshot the Horns 30-13 but lost 1-0 in a game that ultimately put Lethbridge in the playoffs and knocked out Manitoba.

Patterson played 300 more minutes than her next-closest rival – Calgary's Amanda Tapp – and managed a .928 save percentage

Shelby Ballendine's 21 points led the Pronghorns this season, while Sadie Lenstra and Jenna-Marie Durnin scored 19 points apiece for Lethbridge.

The Dinos handed Lethbridge its worst loss of the season back on Jan. 13, an 8-2 triumph thanks to a hat-trick performance from Hayley Wickenheiser. Wickenheiser missed out on her second straight scoring title by just two points, scoring 32 in the 16 games she played with the Dinos this season. Iya Gavrilova finished fourth in Canada West with 27 points in 21 games, while defenceman Stephanie Ramsay easily led all blueliners in scoring with 25 points in 22 games for the Dinos.

Tanya Morgan (19 points), Elana Lovell (18), Erika Mitschke (18), and Melissa Zubick (18) also finished among the scoring leaders in Canada West for Calgary.

Over their 11-game win streak, the Dinos have outscored their opponents 51-18. Over the course of the season, the Dinos were deadly in virtually every situation: the power play was second-best in the conference at 18.6 per cent, while the penalty kill was the best in Canada West at 89.9 per cent. In fact, Calgary gave up 15 power play goals on the season while scoring eight shorthanded tallies themselves.

-UC-