RIMOUSKI, Que. – After waiting five days to play for a national championship, the Kelowna Rockets‘ dream of winning the Memorial Cup was dashed after five minutes.
The Windsor Spitfires went two-for-two with their first two shots on Kelowna‘s net, as the Spitfires raced out to a 2-0 lead in the opening five minutes of Sunday afternoon‘s final. Two minutes after that, it was 3-for-3 and a 3-0 lead for Windsor.
Fifty-three minutes later, the Spitfires were celebrating as Memorial Cup champions, courtesy a 4-1 victory.
“Of course we didn‘t want to give up the goals early on, but, sometimes, that‘s the way it goes,” said Rockets head coach Ryan Huska. “I think we did have some jump early on, and I think we carried some of the play offensively in the first period.
“I thought we had the puck in the offensive zone a fair amount, but we found ourselves in that hole. As a team, we weren‘t able to dig ourselves out of it.”
After watching the Spitfires mob their goaltender, Andrew Engelage, the Rockets slowly lined up, shook hands, then, with heads down, walked to their dressing room. Their lack of words said it all.
“This is tough,” said Rockets captain Colin Long. “It‘s tough because it‘s one game and you‘re out. In single elimination, it‘s a matter of a couple of bounces and your season is over. But I‘m proud of being part of this group.
“It‘s the best group that I‘ve ever played with and the tightest group. I wouldn‘t change a thing.”
Moments after Windsor made it 3-0, Huska pulled starting goaltender Mark Guggenberger and replaced him with backup Adam Brown. Brown finished with 24 saves on 25 shots in nearly 53 minutes.
“Mark‘s won us a lot of hockey games,” said Huska. “Sometimes unfortunate things happen, but there‘s never a finger pointed in our dressing room. That‘s something we pride ourselves in.”
For Brown, Sunday‘s final was a mix of emotions. Until Sunday, he hadn‘t played a minute in the tournament. Then, when he was thrust into the spotlight, he played very well.
“It‘s obviously bad that we lost,” said Brown. “I hate to lose at any time, especially in a game like this. But I guess it‘s also good to get experience in the Memorial Cup.
“I was happy with my game; obviously it wasn‘t enough for us to win, but I was happy.”
For Windsor, it was a win for the history books.
Prior to Sunday, no team in tournament history had won the tiebreaker game then went on to win the championship contest. In becoming the first team to do so, the Spitfires single-handedly eliminated every team in this year‘s event, starting with Rimouski, then Drummondville, then Kelowna.
“Being (CHL champions) is the best feeling in the world,” said Spitfires defenceman Ryan Ellis, who played for Canada‘s gold-medal winning team at the 2009 world junior hockey championship. “This and the world juniors is so similar, but this has been a blast and I can‘t ask for much more than this.”
Adam Henrique, Dale Mitchell, Rob Kwiet and Ryan Ellis scored for Windsor, which led 3-0 and 4-1 at the period breaks. Tournament MVP Taylor Hall was kept off the scoresheet. Engelage made 21 saves.
Windsor opened the scoring early in the first period, Henrique at 3:22 following a turnover in Kelowna‘s zone. Mikael Backlund had his pocket picked between the hashmarks by Greg Nemisz, who then threw a back pass to Henrique. In turn, Henrique loosed a quick wrister that beat Guggenberger high blocker side. The goal was the fourth of the tournament for Henrique, who, according to several media members, should have been named the tournament‘s MVP.
Mitchell made it 2-0 for Windsor at 4:58 when he grabbed a loose puck on the right boards, then snapped a shot past Guggenberger from the faceoff dot.
Then, at 7:11, Kelowna‘s poor start turned into a nightmare when Kwiet slipped a long, stoppable power-play shot from the blue-line to make it 3-0. The goal came 29 seconds into a Kyle St. Denis penalty for kneeing and beat Guggenberger five-hole.
Seconds after, Huska yanked Guggenberger and replaced him with Brown, who wound up making his first post-season appearance and first start since March 14, when he made 16 saves in a 7-1 victory over the Kamloops Blazers at Prospera Place.
And just seconds after being thrown into the fire, Brown faced more heat, as Mitchell broke in on a long breakaway. Brown, however, came up the winner.
“You always have to be ready because you never expect to go in,” said Brown, 17. “Especially in a game like this. But you have to prepare for every game like you‘re going to be playing.
“Mark‘s been unreal this whole playoffs. One game . . . he shouldn‘t be too rattled. It‘s a team effort out there, and you can‘t blame just one guy.”
The first period ended with Kelowna on the power play, as Spits winger Lane MacDermid was hit for a kneeing penalty on Long at 19:54. Eight seconds into the second, Long made MacDermid pay by burying a Jamie Benn rebound. Benn set the goal up after Kelowna won the opening faceoff, by zipping into Windsor‘s end and partially around defenceman Mark Cundari before putting a backhand on net. Long followed up and rang the rebound off the far post and in.
At 12:46, however, Windsor restored its three-goal lead, as Ellis rang in his third of the tournament with a slapshot from the blue-line that clanged off the crossbar and in. The goal followed a failed Rockets clearing attempt when Cundari kept the puck in play just inches from the blue-line. From the left side, he passed to Ellis, who then teed it up to make it 4-1.
That goal sealed Kelowna‘s fate.
“It‘s tough,” Long said on trying to climb back from that early three-goal deficit. “You rely so much on momentum and bounces going your way and keeping that momentum going. A lot of things need to go right, and when it felt it was going to go our way, they scored again.”
“There were a lot of big plays in the game; everyone contributed from all ends,” said Ellis, who had a running and word-filled battle with Long. “We took hits, we laid hits, everything. I think we did all the small things right, and that‘s what you need to win a hockey game.”
“We pushed a bit,” said Rockets president and general manager Bruce Hamilton. “Had we been able to get to 3-2, it would have been a little more entertaining for us. But it was one of those days where we didn‘t get the start we had hoped for.
“I don‘t think it was that they outplayed us . . . the pucks went in today.”
In the third, neither team generated much offence, barring a late flurry by the Spitfires on a long two-man advantage.
“We just weren‘t able to generate a lot,” said Huska. “That‘s just the way it goes sometimes.”
“We never quit and I knew we would never quit,” said Hamilton. “But I knew (Windsor) would play defence like they‘ve never played before, and they did. They just shut us down.
“We pushed and we had to take a lot of chances, and we still didn‘t get a lot of great scoring chances. At the end of the day, they‘re a pretty good team.” Top of Page
