CALGARY – The Canada West Championship is coming to the Jack Simpson Gym this weekend as the University of Calgary Dinos women's basketball team will host provincial rival the Alberta Pandas Saturday afternoon for a 2 p.m. tipoff.
 
The first 250 students get in free of charge. For all other tickets, they are on sale at GoDinos.com/BuyTickets.
 
The game will be streamed live on Canada West TV and is also a Game of the Week that will be featured on Telus Optik TV, channel 1997.
 
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW
 
1. HOW WE GOT HERE – The Dinos entered the postseason as the No. 3 seed, hosting No. 6 Winnipeg in their opening game, where a 13-3 run down the stretch saw Calgary advance past the Wesmen, 84-74. Then, in last week's semifinal in Regina, the Dinos got a game-high 21 points from Bobb-Jo Colburn for a 71-62 road win.
 
The Pandas are the No. 4 seed in this year's tournament and started their run with a convincing 73-54 rout of Fraser Valley, outscoring the Cascades 46-24 during the second and third quarters. Alberta then turned in the surprise of the tournament so far, knocking off the three-time defending champs and top-seed Saskatchewan 69-57 on the road.
 
2. PLAYOFF REMATCH – The Battle of Alberta has spilt over into the postseason plenty of times in the rivalry's history. In the last two decades, the Dinos and Pandas have met four times, with the two teams splitting those meetings. The most recent occurrence took place back in Feb. of 2020 when Alberta claimed an 80-78 semifinal victory inside the Jack Simpson Gym.
 
3. FIRST MEETING – Although it may not seem like it was this season with all the excitement of the past few weeks, the Dinos and Pandas did square off twice earlier this season, all the way back in early November in Edmonton. Calgary claimed the weekend opener, 70-65, before Alberta bounced back for an 87-76 win one day later.
 
4. U SPORTS FINAL 8 – With their top-two finish in Canada West already guaranteed, both Calgary and Alberta have already punched their tickets to the U SPORTS Championship, hosted this year by Cape Breton in Sydney, N.S. from Mar. 9-12. This will mark the third time in the last five seasons the Dinos have advanced to nationals, going 4-2 in those two appearances and finishing atop the consolation side of the bracket in both 2018 and 2020.
 
5. POSTSEASON HONOURS – Annacy Palmer and Louise Rouse were both recognized for their efforts during the regular season late last week as Canada West announced the results of this year's All-Star squads. Palmer was named a Third Team All-Star after leading the team in scoring this season, while Rouse was voted to the All-Rookie Team after a dominant first collegiate season, averaging 11.6 points and 5.9 rebounds per game.

-UC-