Monday

The Memorial Cup participants are all decided now, with the Gatineau Olympiques having beaten Rouyn-Noranda on Friday night to win the QMJHL title in 5 games. This is Gatineau's 3rd QMJHL title in 6 years, which is a pretty impressive record in any league. Their last two trips to the Memorial Cup, they lost in the final both times - in 2003 to Kitchener and 2004 to Kelowna.

The OHL final is anti-climatic as far determining a Memorial Cup berth since both Kitchener and Belleville are going to the Memorial Cup regardless, but what a potentially historical final series it has turned into. Kitchener won the first three games of the series, but Belleville has stormed back to win the next three, forcing a game seven. Only two teams in OHL history (and that's a long history) have rallied from 3-0 deficits to win the series. Belleville will attempt to become the third team tonight when they play game seven in Kitchener. Win or lose tonight, Kitchener kicks off the Memorial Cup on Friday against Gatineau. Belleville starts on Saturday afternoon against Spokane.....just over four days to get ready after the emotional drain of a potential 3-0 comeback win tonight.

I always thought that if the host team also wins their league, then they play the league champ schedule while the league runner-up plays as the host team. But according to the official Memorial Cup site, Kitchener's schedule is already set so they must have chosen to play the host schedule no matter what. I suppose this knowing when you're going to play stuff helps with selling tickets to the local fans, etc, when you think about it.

The Royal Bank Cup wrapped up on the weekend too with an all-prairie final. After the AJHL's Camrose Kodiak (3-0 over the Weeks Crushers) and SJHL's Humboldt Broncos (6-1 over the host Cornwall Colts) both won their semifinals on Saturday, they met in Sunday's final and it was a terrific game. Humboldt won 1-0 on the strength of a 30-save shutout from goaltender Taylor Nelson, which included an amazing clutch glove save on Camrose sniper Joe Colborne with just one second left on the clock. Hopefully somebody puts that save up on YouTube soon so that everyone who didn't watch the game (or see the highlights) can see it too.

That's Humboldt's 2nd Royal Bank Cup in five years, and in a cruel twist of fate for Camrose, they were also on the losing end of the final game in Humboldt's first win back in 2003. The Kodiaks also lost the final in 2005 to Weyburn and lost in the semifinals in 2007. So that's four times in the last six years that Camrose has won the AJHL and then beaten the BCHL champ to go to the Royal Bank Cup, but then failed to win it....including three losses in the final. I think that's enough to make diehard fans suicidal. They did win it in 2001 though!

Speaking of things that you CAN see on YouTube, how about that "goal" Finland scored against the USA in the World Championships yesterday? It's at about the 35 second mark on that video and the only people who watch the replay who can't tell that the puck went through the SIDE of the net are, uh, the video replay officials. I mean, how friggin incompetent do the replay officials have to be to review even the crappiest video of that play and not be able to make the correct call and say it's no goal? It ends up being the difference in the game too....very sad and if the replay officials aren't immediately fired by the IIHF then you have to wonder about the credibility of that organization.

And, I'm glad to see the NHL decided not to suspend the Dallas Stars' Mike Ribeiro for his slash on Chris Osgood of the Wings on Saturday. I mean, Osgood is a freakin' embarrassment to the league for the way he tried to sell that slash. The guy wears a chest protector that can stop 100 m.p.h. slapshots without giving him so much as a bruise, but a half-hearted half-swing from a stick puts him down for the count? Plus Osgood clearly butt-ended Ribeiro in the face right before the slash and there was definitely no provocation for THAT. At least Ribeiro can honestly say he was provoked by the butt-end. Don't get me wrong, Ribeiro shouldn't have slashed Osgood (just as Osgood shouldn't have butt-ended him) but it wasn't any worse than a half-dozen other slashes in that game. If Osgood doesn't do his soccer player imitation the incident barely makes the highlights. And so nobody thinks I'm a homer, I hate Dallas and am rooting for the Wings in this series. I just hate diving goalies like Osgood even more. Seriously, anyone so much as breaths on a goalie in the NHL these days and it's an equipment sale with his stuff flying everywhere as he re-enacts a tragic death scene.