No doubt the best team won today....the Rockets dug themselves a very early 3-0 hole and could not climb out of it.
All the laughing I & other WHL fans did at the Spitfires earlier this week sure makes us look foolish now. They weren't good enough, they couldn't possibly win four straight after those two weak early efforts, etc, etc....well, they WERE good enough. They won four straight games while facing elimination in each one - you can make the comparision to a team coming back from down 3-0 in a playoff series. You have to win four straight and if you don't, you're out. And the Spitfires pulled off that nearly impossible feat.
You have to feel like the Rockets brought this on themselves with that pathetic effort on Tuesday. They could have knocked the Spitfires out of the tournament with a win last Tuesday and instead they mailed in the two points that kept the Spits alive. Everyone does (or should) know you don't give a team that dangerous a second chance, and they did....and look what happened. If they finished off Windsor the first time, they could have played one of the QMJHL teams today instead and maybe the result would have been different.
Oh well. It was a good season for the Rockets even if the final result was not what we WHL fans had hoped. They were definitely the best team in the WHL since January so the season overall is nothing to hang their heads over.
And congrats to the Spitfires and all their fans....they came back to win when nobody gave them a chance. And I understand their losses for next season are not that devastating, so there is a very good chance they could be back in Brandon next year looking for back-to-back Memorial Cup titles.
And.....that's the end of the junior hockey season. Next item on the calendar is the NHL draft on June 26th & 27th in Montreal....
3 comments:
That's what you get when the 2nd best team in the Dub represents you, plain and simple. The Rockets squeaked by the Hitmen in Ot and were on their way.
Guggenburger played well in 4 of the 6 games against Calgary and crap in the other two. Evan Boodoff played two good games in the Dub final and then we didn't hear from him again the rest of the way. Is Backlund back in Sweden?
You are right the Rockets mailed in the game on Tuesday. Guggenberger was poor against Drummondville and God awful today. Three harmless shots in three minutes and three goals...game, set, match. Huska better have learned some lessons from this today. They could have sent the Spits packing and most likely beat either Quebec team in the final. They played with fire and got burnt. Ouch!
I gotta take my lumps. I had completely written Windsor off after they started 0-2. Gotta give the Spits tons of credit, easily the best 'backs against the wall' performance since 1972. Kelowna was awful today, and I feel bad for Guggenberger. 0 saves in his last junior game, not the way anyone wants to go out.
I wonder what kind of effect Windsor coming back to win this will have on future teams' approaches to their last game if they are already in the final. Last year, Spokane knocked out Gatineau and went on to win the Cup, but this year Kelowna wets the bed in their game against Windsor and they paid the price for it. I don't think we'll be seeing a Kelowna like effort from Tuesday in future Cups for quite awhile, should the same scenario arise.
The Memorial Cup result was justice. Swisscheeseburger finally used up his last horseshoe.
It doesn't matter how much up front you have, your last line of defence is still the masked man and Guggenburger was NOT the man for the job. How can someone that is 5th on the goaltending stats sheet carry you to the promise land?
If CPZ has of showed up for the playoffs and Sexsmith and Kane didn't have the flu, we are talking about a Giants vs. Hitmen WHL final.
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