CALGARY – The No. 4 University of Calgary Dinos will look to end a 19-year championship draught as they head to the Canada West Final for the fourth time in five years. Waiting for them will the No. 1 University of Alberta Golden Bears – the team which ended their season a year ago, and the defending CIS Champions.

The best-of-three series gets underway on Thursday, March 5, from Edmonton. Games 2 and 3 (if necessary) would follow each of the next two nights with all three games getting underway at 7 p.m. The series can be seen on CanadaWest.tv (pay-per-view).

"Ever since I came here, we have always had tough playoff series with Alberta. We want to be the team that comes out and wins our league," said forward Spencer Edwards. "We played a really good team in the semi-finals that worked us extremely hard. We have the confidence now to know what we need to do to win."

"Our focus is on one thing and that is we want to be league champs. It is not easy, we have to take it from them in their rink," said Dinos head coach Mark Howell. "We have to be focused and very determined to win a championship."

Calgary enters this weekend with a shot at some redemption. As the top two teams in the conference in 2013-14, the Dinos and Golden Bears met last year in the Canada West Final with a young Calgary squad going up against a formidable foe. In the first game of last season's series, Alberta jumped all over Calgary to secure an 8-1 win. The Dinos brought a strong effort the next night, but the Golden Bears were too much to handle in a 2-1 season-ending loss.

With the core of their team a year older, the Dinos feel they are better set for a shot at the defending national champs. The provincial rivals split their season series with each team sweeping the other in weekend home-and-home sets.

"We had some good games against them this year, especially the ones before Christmas," noted Edwards. "Our goalies really stood on their heads and helped us out a lot."

The Dinos (20-8-0) advanced to the conference final following a thrilling series against their cross-town rival the Mount Royal Cougars. Calgary took the opening game of the series in double overtime after Dylan Walchuk scored the game-winner. A third-period comeback by Mount Royal forced a decisive Game 3, but the Dinos prevailed with a 6-3 decision.

"I think we learned a lot in Game 3 [against Mount Royal], it was probably our most complete game of the year. Our buy-in and focus was bang on and as a group we were very resilient," said Howell. "We will have to play this next series with incredible energy. A lot of things are going to have to happen, we are playing to be the best."

Facing the UBC Thunderbirds in the semi-finals for the second year in a row, the Golden Bears (24-3-1) once again booked their ticket to the final in two games. Jordan Hickmott led the way for Alberta in Game 1 with a pair of goals, while team captain Kruise Reddick was clutch in Game 2. With the T-Birds leading by two goals, the Golden Bears tied the game to set up a heroic tally by Reddick to win the game with 33 seconds left.

-UC-