Six days ago in Edmonton, the Alberta Golden Bears beat the TRU WolfPack in a Canada West men’s volleyball semifinal.

Four months before that, also in Edmonton, the Bears swept the WolfPack in two matches.

Actually, it has been that way for five years — the WolfPack has not beaten the Golden Bears since joining Canada West in 2005-06.

Does that mean anything today, 6 p.m., when the WolfPack and Golden Bears meet at the Tournament Capital Centre on the first day of the CIS championship?

“It does and it doesn’t,” said Alberta head coach Terry Danyluk, who is making his 19th trip to nationals with the Golden Bears, 15 of them as head coach. “Every time you play a team, it’s a new day.”

The TRU-Alberta match is one of four on the opening day of the championship, which is scheduled to end Sunday. Games will be played at 1, 3, 6 and 8 p.m., today and Saturday, and 1, 3 and 6 p.m., on Sunday.

The two-time defending CIS-champion Golden Bears won the Canada West championship last weekend and are the No. 2 seed in the CIS. The WolfPack has lost three of four matches, and is ranked seventh.

The WolfPack has a major goose egg on its stats sheet against Alberta — in 15 regular season or playoff matches against the Golden Bears, TRU hasn’t won any. In many of those matches, the WolfPack failed to win a set, and it has only pushed Alberta to five sets once, in Kamloops on Nov. 14, 2008.

“We’ve talked about that and we’ve talked about ignoring who we’re playing,” said WolfPack head coach Pat Hennelly. “We’re playing volleyball, we’re not playing some unbeatable team.

“Really, we want to play the guys on the floor, not the legend of Alberta.”

The Golden Bears have as much depth as any team in the country, which is what makes them so good.

Alberta had five players hit double-digits in kills in a five-set victory over the Trinity Western Spartans in Sunday’s conference final, and had three players — Spencer Leiske, Thomas Jarmoc and Jason DeRocco — average more than three points per set this season. The Golden Bears also have two players — Simon Lidster and Christopher Womack — average two-plus points per set.

“I’ve traditionally been a guy who runs a more balanced offence,” Danyluk said. “Having the personnel to be able to do that is a good thing. Some teams rely really heavily on one or two people, and traditionally we’ve tried to stay away from that.”

One team that might feel good about recent history is the Laval Rouge et Or, which enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed.

Laval is to take on its Quebec conference rivals, the eighth-ranked Montreal Carabins, today at 1 p.m. This will be the seventh meeting between the teams this season, and Laval has won the previous six.

In fact, Laval has only dropped two of 20 sets in the six matches, which means — as they say in the sports world — the Rouge et Or has Montreal’s number. Montreal is ranked No. 8, and lost to Laval on March 5, Feb. 28 and Feb. 6, the Rouge et Or’s last three matches.

“We’re looking at it like this,” explained Laval head coach Pascal Clément, who was named CIS coach of the year Wednesday. “We’re coming into the tournament, and we’re playing an opponent. It’s going to be blue, probably, and it’s named Montreal — but it’s the opponent, nothing more.”

Today’s second game, pitting the No. 4 Trinity Western Spartans against the No.5 Queen’s Golden Gaels at 3 p.m., is a matchup of two teams that know little of each other.

Based on seedings, the Spartans are favoured, but head coach Ben Josephson knows that doesn’t mean much.

“It’s going to be a really good match,” said Josephson. “It’s really exciting . . . they’re an exciting team, and young, just like us.

“We’ll see who can handle the pressure better.”

The late game, starting at 8 p.m., will feature the No. 3 Dalhousie Tigers and No. 6 Calgary Dinos. Dalhousie beat Calgary in four sets (25-22,23-25,25-23,31-29) in a match at the McDonald’s Invitational exhibition tournament at the TCC on Jan. 2.

mhunter@kamloopsnews.ca