The Alberta Golden Bears swept the Huskies in the weekend series to take first place in the Canada West standings.

After entering the weekend tied for top spot the Huskies men’s hockey team was edged out of first place in the Canada West standings by the Alberta Golden Bears.

Two hard-fought games saw the Golden Bears down the Dogs by a one-goal margin on back-to-back nights Jan. 11 and 12 in Edmonton’s Clarke Drake Arena. The pair of rivals have now settled 11 of their last 13 contests by just a single goal.

Huskies captain Brennan Bosch opened the scoring in game one to give his squad a 1-0 lead 29 seconds into the match. The teams went back and forth on the scoreboard and the game was knotted at two midway through the third period.

In the end Kruise Reddick was the difference maker for Alberta. He potted the game-winning goal with only 1:21 left in the third frame to put his team up 3-2 in front of more than 2,000 spectators at Clare Drake Arena.

Huskies head coach Dave Adolph said the Huskies made one bad mistake that cost them that first game.

“We tied the game up and had control completely,” Adolph said. “Myself and our assistant coach thought we were going to overtime and were already planning for four-on-four. Then one of our best players turned the puck over in the neutral zone, Alberta went in on a breakaway and scored.”

Game two started differently because it was the Golden Bears who jumped ahead 2-0 before the finish of the first frame. The result was the same, however, as the Dogs could not claw their way back and lost 3-2 despite goals from Bosch and forward Jimmy Bubnick.

The 16-4 Golden Bears now hold a four-point advantage in the standings over the 14-6 Huskies. While the Huskies still hold down second spot for the time being, Manitoba and Calgary sit close behind the Dogs with 27 and 26 points, respectively.

“That’s the thing that really irks me the most about the four points that we didn’t get in Alberta, that it allowed everybody else to close the gap on us,” Adolph said.

With eight games remaining on the schedule, including a pair against the Calgary Dinos, the Huskies will need to play their best if they want to earn the bye week given to the top two teams in the league going into playoffs.

“I know we are going to nationals and we’re going to make sure we have a really good team, but we are going to find out what kind of character we have over the next three weeks,” Adolph said.

The Huskies will be at home in Rutherford Rink Jan. 18 and 19 to host the fifth-place University of British Columbia Thunderbirds.

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File Photo: Raisa Pezderic/The Sheaf