MacEwan and Manitoba face off on January 26, 2026. Charlotte Legrand/The Griff.

The Griffins suffered from a lack of discipline, and a late Manitoba push put the nail in the coffin.

The Griffins couldn’t hold on and dropped their second straight to the Manitoba Bison 4-3 in overtime. Kadyn Chabot and Eric Ward put on great performances despite the loss, with Chabot breaking the single season Griffins points record.

The game started with the Griffins controlling the pace of play, with first-year forward Myles Gauld scoring a coast-to-coast goal around two minutes in. After the initial goal, the Griffins continued to play well. They played a strong physical game in the corners, and team scoring leader Kadyn Chabot scored on a power play. It was his 16th goal of the season. An assist later in the game brought him to 29 points, a single season Griffins record. The Bison quickly retaliated with a goal of their own as Kaycee Coyle wired one off the bar and into the net.

The second period was when the Griffins’ game fell off the rails. Despite a Griffins goal by Sam Simard to make it 3-1, the Griffins started to pile up penalties. “Too many penalties,” coach Zach Dailey said. “Too undisciplined.” 

The Bison then scored two unanswered goals, one in the second period and a last-minute killer in the third. Despite the Griffins collapse and eventual Bisons OT win, Griffins goaltender Eric Ward played exceptionally well. “Yeah, he was good tonight. If we’re going to win games we need our goalies to be good,” said Dailey. “But again, we relied on him too much. We sat back in the last two periods, got outskated, got outplayed.”

Dailey expressed that he wants the team to stop sitting back when they get leads. It has been a pattern with these Griffins, as even the prior week’s victories against Trinity Western involved a comeback push from the Spartans.

The Griffins will start a two week B.C. road trip, facing the league-leading UBC Thunderbirds and the Trinity Western Spartans.