5 Dinos from Manitoba aim to bring 1st university men's hockey championship back to Calgary

Five Manitobans will try to lead the Calgary Dinos to their first U Sports title in men's hockey this weekend in Charlottetown.

The Dinos enter the University Cup, which starts Thursday, as the top seed in the eight-team national championship tournament.

It's Calgary's first trip to the nationals since the 2014-15 season and it follows their first Canada West conference banner in 27 years.

Calgary, captained by Winnipegger Noah King, scored twice in the final 10 minutes against the visiting Alberta Golden Bears to take Game 3 of the best-of-three Canada West final on March 5.

Defencemen Zach Wytinck of Glenboro, Man., said the Dinos' goal all season was to put themselves in a position to win the conference title.

"That was something we were really focused on all year, and that's something we were really committed to doing," the 23-year-old said Tuesday.

The Dinos opened the season with just two wins in their first five games before rattling off a Canada West-record 23 straight conference victories to close out the regular season. The previous record of 18 straight wins was set by Alberta in 1978-79.

"It was pretty crazy. We kind of just took it one week at a time. We were getting sweep after sweep," Bradley Schoonbaert said of the streak.

Schoonbaert, a 25-year-old forward from Brandon, Man., finished fifth in team scoring this season with 25 points (10 goals and 15 assists) — one point behind fellow Brandonite Connor Gutenberg (nine goals, 17 assists and 26 points) — and 12 back of Winnipeg's Riley Stotts, who led the Dinos with 37 points (10 goals and 27 assists), which was tied for fourth in Canada West scoring.

Calgary has become a popular destination for Manitobans ending their junior hockey careers and wanting to