Running Back To Saskatoon

The trophy that honors our war dead... and forms of payment with ridiculous interest rates!

Oh, the Memorial Cup. Arguably my favorite time of the year as a hockey enthusiast. Which is ironic considering the junior teams I follow has been subjected to two ginormous gut punches at this tournament (for more information on the only two days of my life where the results of a hockey game made me want to be swallowed up by the earth's core or punch a nun respectively, click on the hyperlinked text, please and thank you)

So yeah, some good and not so good times in this tournament. However, on a broader scope, the junior hockey fan in me can't help but be enthralled by the goings on during the last full week of May. Last night's opener - a 3-2 victory by London over the host Saskatoon Blades - seemed to be a microcosm of the Blades season in general. Came out totally flat, rallied to pot the first goal, lose the lead on another wave of less than stellar play before finishing strong - but still coming up short. For a team in which literally noone knew how they would react, the Blades accounted themselves quite well. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough in what could very well have been their most winnable game.

As for tonight, it's Halifax and Portland in the matchup everyone who follows this tournament wants to see oh so badly. Sportsnet will tell you this is a big game because it pits Seth Jones against Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin. I will tell you it's a big game because a) every game at the Memorial Cup is pretty freakin huge and b) both teams in general are outstanding. I will guarantee that if you are watching tonight's game, by night's end you will be raving about the play of more than these three players. For my money, I'm predicting that this game is a final Sunday preview.

Oh, and if you were wondering - and god help you if you were - how I see these four teams finishing, here's the Coles Notes version:

Portland - The team with arguably the most balance at all three positions. The defensive pairing of Jones and Tyler Wotherspoon is probably the best in major junior right now... and Ty Rattie proved during his team's last game - a victory over the Edmonton Oil Kings in the Ed Chynoweth Cup clinching Game 6 - that he's as clutch as any forward in this tournament. The only question is will they do the one thing that raised a couple eyebrows this playoff season - namely, lose a game at an unexpected juncture. That's exactly what happened twice in their first round series with Everett. This isn't exactly the time to lose even one game that could conceivably be within a team's grasp.

Halifax - Super explosive and uber-talented (and they have a German on the roster, so the use of the word "uber" is totally legit), they were the only team in the Q this season that could consistently roll three scoring lines - and roll they did, to the tune of 16-1 en route to the President's Cup. From what I've seen during the OHL finals from London as well as the handful of Blades games I've caught this season, these two teams can't quite transition with the puck or cycle as effectively as the Moose (tonight is actually my first chance to watch the Winterhawks for an entire game this season). Will the thinner-than-Portland (and London) defense be their Achilles heel? For as much press as MacKinnon and Drouin get, if something was to happen to Konrad Abeltshauser on the back end, that could prove to be the most devastating blow of all. As well, will this tournament - the biggest test for the Moose this year by a mile, in my humble estimation - result in their undoing?

Say what you will about the Mooseheads, they get serious points in my book for playing this little nugget of gold over the Metro Center PA after clinching the President's Cup:

London - Got to Saskatoon by coming from 3-1 down against Barrie and winning Game 7 at the last possible second (actually, the last possible tenth of a second). Great balance up front and on the backend. As much as everyone is all about MacKinnon and Drouin and Jones, guys like Max Domi and my personal favorite from the Top Prospects game - Nikita Zadorov - probably get overlooked. Make no mistake; the Knights will make this a very interesting tournament. If it was alot of other years, London may very well have been considered tournament favorites. As it is, they bring a ton of Cup experience to the table... but will the fact that they had the hardest road to Saskatchewan play a factor as the tournament moves along? Plus, everyone's favorite person to injure opponents while they celebrate a goal, Dale Hunter, has juggled his goaltending during the OHL playoffs when the tandem of Jake Patterson and Anthony Stolarz faltered at respective points of the post season. In fact, Patterson got the Game 7 win over Barrie while Stolarz got the nod and the "W" against Saskatoon. Will that little issue rear it's ugly head again this week?

Saskatoon - You know, I appreciate the fact that the economics and general fan appeal of this tournament pretty much demands there be a non-champion team. And yes, more often than not, it's the host team. I get it and accept it. However, this is one of those years (and the second year in a row, actually) where going in, you really have to scratch your head at whether or not it would be better for everyone to find another feasible way to handle the logistics of the Memorial Cup. Saskatoon is talented. It's not like they're a horrible team. They won 44 times during the regular season (by comparison, Barrie came within a game of being out there right now with the same number of regular season victories) and had an outrageous 18 game winning streak in there somewhere. But therein lies the problem; all signs point to the fact that you never know what sort of Blades team will hop over the boards any given night. As a person who followed the team he followed this season, I can totally relate.

Oh, and my predicted order of finish? As shown above. You see what I did there?

I also predict a new anthem singer tomorrow night.

Hey Look, A New Post!

Greetings,

Any number of things that are conductive to me not paying full (and by "full", I mean "any") attention to this blog reared their ugly head over the last few weeks. Not to mention the fact that, simply put, it's a long hockey season even from a local point of view, which by and large is what this little spot on the interwebs devotes most of it's time to. Writing every day or every second day is great during that season and really, it's what makes a blog like this work. However, a rest was in order. After the Jr.A season and (highly frustrating) major junior season came to a close, the opportunity presented itself.

But enough about that... let's talk about crap! Some random thoughts du jour...

The Q finals are in full swing and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Halifax Mooseheads are still alive and thriving, holding a 2-0 series lead over the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. I was in attendance for that second game, a 4-3 Moose victory - their 13th in a row these playoffs - in which the scoreboard did not reflect the flow of the game. Two goals in the final two minutes by the Drakk - the last with three seconds remaining - made this one look more respectable for the visitors than it actually was.

The Drakkar remind me of how the Wildcats looked in the 2004 Q finals against Gatineau. Les Olympiques that year were clearly more talented and were in all likelihood going to fare better between the two potential Memorial Cup representatives (they lost on finals Sunday that year to host Kelowna). However, the Cats were physically solid that season - which is to say, they could goon it up a tad when the spirit came about them. Guys like Thierry Douville, Nathan Saunders, Luke Pelham, Cody Doucette et al made sure the Cats weren't going to get pushed around by pretty much anyone. They tried to use this to make a statement at times during that finals series. And when they did, it didn't exactly work. Gatineau were masters at sucking the Cats into those "feel good" penalties that coaches detest. As a result, the O's won it all in a quick five games and Moncton would go two more years before nailing down their first President's Cup. It was a valuable experience for those who got another crack at it in 2006, but a tough lesson to learn nonetheless. The Cats lost not only because they faced a better team... they lost because they didn't adjust.

Fast forward to this season. The Drakkar are by far the more physically imposing of the two teams in this series. The problem is - just like that Wildcat team from nine years ago - they are trying to use that to their advantage with disastrous results. The Moose aren't getting intimidated... and they're getting their revenge on the scoreboard. Baie-Comeau spent a good fifty minutes of  Game 2 focusing more on taking the body as opposed to taking the puck and the scoresheet attested to this. If the Drakkar play at home (Games 3 and 4 go down tomorrow and Wednesday) the way they did the last five minutes of Sunday's outing, there will be another game at the Halifax Metro Center this year. If not, the Moose could very well run the table all the way to Saskatoon. Either way, this past weekend just brought the entire QMJHL season two steps closer to the inevitable.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


How 'bout those *insert NHL team currently in the playoffs this year here*?

- First off, there's the Canucks. A team that always manages to be a focal point in the NHL's second season, be it for early exits or quick thinking riot squad workers. Looks like this year will be more a tale of the former than the latter. And with that, allow me to rant...

What the hell do people see in the Vancouver Canucks? I've been watching this team for years. Been perusing their lineups for years. Been reading the predictions for years. And every year, I wonder how they manage to garner the amount of attention for potential playoff success that they do. The core of this team - this team that, sooner or later, never fails to disappoint in the second season - stays pretty well the same from year to year. The tweaking that is done to the lineup is seldom one that makes you stop and think "that's the missing piece". When I think "key acquisition", I think of guys like Ray Bourque in Colorado, Marian Hossa in Chicago, Luc Robitaille and Chris Chelios in Detroit or Dr. Mark Recchi in Boston. Either superstars in the prime of their careers or veteran guys who bring their wealth of experience to the table. When is the last time the Canucks pulled off a coup of this magnitude? The closest thing I can think of would probably be Mats Sundin back in 2008. I think that in itself proves my point quite nicely.

Bottom line, the Canucks do not give consistent enough reason for anyone to peg them as front runners... and yet there they are, year in and year out, high atop many a publication's Cup picks. To me, it reminds me of that whole "San Jose are contenders" fad during the latter half of the last decade. People kept predicting it until they essentially got tired of being wrong. Nowadays, people seem to try and avoid talking about the fact that the Sharks are in the postseason altogether. And it seems to be working quite well for them this year. Just ask Alain Vigneault.

- Speaking strictly of on-ice, non-extra curricular activities, the Isles/Pens series is my pick for most surprisingly entertaining series so far. Even if the series ends in five for Pittsburgh (which there's an outstanding chance it will), it's refreshing to see that the Islanders are not going away. I think this is one of those series where alot of people forgot just how close in many aspects #1 and #8 can be nowadays. Even if the Islanders don't win another game in the series, their young, exciting team have won a great deal of respect for their dressing room and their bat s*** crazy owner.

- Watching the crowd in Toronto the first three games of their series vs the Bruins - in particular during tonight's Game 3 - makes me realize how utterly insane people can be. Is that seriously what nine years out of the playoffs can do to you? Or is this exuberance just compounded to nullify the mere thought of the Blue Jays' existence even further? Tonight's intro on Hockey Night in Canada - both the opening montage and the scene outside Air Canada Center - would've given the below average fan the impression that the Leafs were in the Cup final. What happened there tonight simply would not happen in any circumstance in about 80% of the NHL's other markets. In a way, it was riveting and a truly awesome sight... and if it takes another nine year playoff drought to happen again, I'm prepared to watch the Leafs make that sacrifice.

- Habs/Sens... is anyone talking about this? Nothing big happening here, right?

Look... any Montreal fan who thought that maybe the Senators would go away quietly was grossly misinformed. Because the Senators by all rights should've gone away quietly about 40 times since the start of this season and have not as of yet. And, frankly, I expected the Habs to find some way to beat themselves against this "happy scrappy" Sens squad that escape with wins like it's a friggin episode of MacGuyver instead of a hockey game. What I didn't expect was for the Habs to make it this easy of pickings for Ottawa.

After all that took place last night (incidentally, remember a week or so back when all Habs fans loved Jean-Gabriel Pageau?), the question becomes this: can the Canadiens erase Game 3 out of their heads, minus the parts that they need to stay motivated to tie this series? Can Michel Therrien - who, incidentally, reminded me last night why I didn't like him in Granby, Fredericton or Montreal the first time - rally the troops and even more importantly, sustain any momentum earned in the early stages tomorrow night (and trust me, if the Habs are going to pull out the stops required to tie this series up again, it needs to start right away)? Did Montreal learn their lesson (and not just the lesson about bringing a knife to a gun fight)? All of these are key questions that Bob Cole will vaguely decipher for all of us in under 24 hours.

One last point about last night: what is it about the last couple years in hockey and the term "class"? Is it just me or does that term get tossed around way too much by people these days? I'm with Paul MacLean on this when he basically said "Oh, now such and such is classless now?". I'm not saying players should be out there killing and threatening each other. Nor do I feel people should do anything that makes a mockery of the game. However, the rules of what's "classless" nowadays seems to vary from day to day. To me, the word "class" is becoming nothing more than a trendy buzzword in today's game. It's quickly losing it's true meaning.

Bottom line, this is a very fast, physically demanding game played by incredibly strong people who have to make snap decisions numerous times each night. Sometimes, the wrong decisions are made. Sometimes, a decision is made that is neither wrong or right but at the end of the day still manages to raise the ire of certain individuals (see the MacLean timeout). Just because something happens during a game that some armchair coach doesn't agree with doesn't mean it reflects a lack of class. Sometimes, people just have to take one step back and one deep breath. For the sake of their fellow fan, their own greater good and - most importantly - my twitter feed. Because I'm convinced that if one was to go back in time and pick apart everything that could be potentially viewed as "classless", the game of hockey would've been outlawed sometime around 1894 and the only person playing it today would be Teemu Selanne.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Finally, congrats on the Summerside Western Capitals and Truro Bearcats on making it to the RBC Cup at Credit Union Place later this month. The Caps made it in automatically as hosts while the Bearcats punched their ticket by combining their perfect round robin record in last week's Fred Page Cup (hosted by the Bearcats) with Summerside's OT win over the CCHL's Cornwall Colts in the tournament semi-finals. Although the tournament final on Sunday was a non-factor in determining who would advance to the nationals, the Caps and Cats didn't let that get in the way of a truly thrilling finish. The Bearcats 3-2 OT victory in double overtime allowed the host team to exact a measure of revenge against a Caps team that beat Truro for the MHL championship a couple weeks earlier.

My advice - bite the bullet on bridge fare and make your way to the ultra-modern new barn in Summerside and take in some of the outstanding hockey that will undoubtedly unfold between May 11-19. You will not be disappointed.