Box Score Box Score

The University of Regina's men's hockey team opened its Canada West schedule with a 5-2 loss to the Alberta Golden Bears on Friday night at the Clare Drake Arena in Edmonton.

Tyler Penny opened the scoring for the Cougars (0-1-0) early in the contest, but Alberta's Ben Lindemulder evened the score less than two minutes later as the teams traded goals in the first six minutes of the first period.

Johnny Lazo's unassisted power play goal with 13 seconds left in the opening frame gave Alberta (1-0-0) the lead for good. Levko Koper scored another power play goal for Alberta midway through the second period to give the Golden Bears a 3-1 lead after two.

Veteran defenceman Russ Nielsen scored for the Cougars just shy of the three-minute mark of the third period to cut Alberta's lead to two, but that was as close as the visitors would come. Koper and Lazo both scored again for Alberta in the span of 2:29 midway through the third to put the game away.

Alberta was 2-for-5 on the power play and outshot the Cougars by a 47-25 margin. Regina was 0-for-1 with the man advantage. Kurtis Mucha made 23 saves in the win for Alberta, while Lucas Gore made 42 saves in his Canada West debut for the Cougars but was tagged with the loss.

The two teams will meet again at Clare Drake Arena on Saturday night beginning at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast live at www.canadawest.tv.