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.