I watched about half of the Drummondville-Windsor game yesterday and the Rimouski-Windsor game today. All I can say is, is that all Windsor's got?
Sure, they were close in both games and you could make a case that they might have deserved at least one win out of the two games, but bottom line: they didn't win. For all the hype about what a great team they were, they sure didn't live up to that hype. They had an awful lot of trouble today with a Rimouski team that Kelowna manhandled pretty easily. It's getting tiring listening to the Eastern media pump the tires of these ordinary OHL teams every year. The last hyped OHL team to actually live up to the hype was London in 2005.
It doesn't help Windsor that their goaltending sucks. That Engelage guy is SLOW and he has given up more than a couple stinkers in just two games. This is a tournament of champions, you can't give up weak goals at all.
If history means anything, Windsor's dreams of winning the Memorial Cup are over. Since the tournament went to a 4-team format in 1983, no team with 2 losses in the round-robin has ever won the Cup. In fact, in those 26 years, only 4 times has a team with 2 losses even made it to the championship game.....needless to say, all four of them lost that game, including Kitchener last year. So basically, the Spitfires are toast...no doubt they'll be a desperate team when they face Kelowna on Tuesday because they absolutely have to win that game to go any further, but I just don't see Windsor as being a Memorial Cup championship calibre team anymore. The really good teams win these critical games and they didn't.
As for Kelowna, they take on Drummondville tomorrow and a win would lock up first place and a spot in the final. At 2-0 with wins over the two QMJHL teams, the Rockets could lose to the Spitfires and would still finish in first place - they'd be 2-1 and whichever Quebec team won their head-to-head meeting on Wednesday would also be 2-1, but Kelowna would get first place because they beat that team, whoever it was.
2 comments:
What bugs me the most about the Memorial Cup coverage/predictions in addition to the OHL lovefest each year is that the WHL team gets little to no coverage, despite the fact history says that in any given year the WHL teams is just as likely to win as the OHL and QMJHL teams combined. Probably over 50% of the predictions I saw last year had Spokane finishing last, and I saw none that didn't pick the Rangers to win it. I've seen very little coverage of the Rockets this year, compared to the other teams, and if they do win it, most of the predictions this year will again be wrong. You'd think that as the years go by and the WHL keeps on winning 50% of these things that eventually the media would notice. But it's asking to much of the talking heads to look east of Ontario I suppose.
My bad, I'm not totally geographically challenged. :)
That should say 'west of Ontario'
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