The Sea Dogs claimed victory on Sunday evening, holding off a frantic third period attack from the Mississauga St. Mike's Majors and taking the championship on the strength of a 3-1 victory.It marks a successful return to the Memorial Cup for the Sea Dogs goaltender Jacob DeSerres, who last year played for the Brandon Wheat Kings and suffered a rather handy defeat at the hands of the Windsor Spitfires.
365 days or so later however, it was a very different result for DeSerres now a member of the Sea Dogs who made remarkable save, after remarkable save in the third period of Sunday's championships.
For the Majors, the lengthy road required in the tournament, (due to their slow start they had to qualify for the final through the most torturous route of what seemed like an elimination game after elimination game) seemed to wear on them in the first half of Sunday's game, as the Sea Dogs jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead.
However, spurred on by their home crowd the Majors battled back and but for that remarkable goaltending of DeSerres they surely deserved to have been in the lead, but with the St. John goaltender setting up the road block, the Sea Dogs finally capitalized on their opportunities with Jonathon Huberdeau netting the insurance marker with a nifty move to push the puck past the sprawling Majors goaltender.
St. John's was a well rested squad for this championship game, having qualified for the Memorial Cup final much earlier in the week on the basis of their perfect record in the early round of the tournament, the rest while perhaps providing for a bit of rust, never the less didn't seem to affect them that much in the end, though the third period provided a few tense moments as they began to scramble in their own end up the the ceaseless attack of the St. Mike's squad.
And while they seemed to be bending quite a bit as those final moments started to count down, they never broke, securing victory and bringing home the Memorial Cup to the Quebec Junior Major League and providing New Brunswick with their first Junior A hockey championship.
It was a crowning achievement for Gerard Gallant, the head coach of the Sea Dogs who was also named Canadian Junior Hockey coach of the year, as he steered his squad through comebacks in the Quebec league finals to reach the Memorial Cup and brought them to Mississauga where they dominated the early going this week.
Gallant ended up facing a fellow Prince Edward Islander in Dave Cameron the St. Michael's head coach, two Island boys that have made it to the front of the national stage in Junior hockey and may yet have more success to come in the pros one day.
While supportive of each other and quick to praise each others teams and the coaching discipline in place with them, for this summer it will be Gallant with the boasting rights from Charlottetown to Summerside and everywhere in between.
But not before he returns to St. John with a pretty impressive keepsake from the teams trip into Upper Canada.
Some of the reviews of the Championship game can be found below.
Globe and Mail-- St. John wins Memorial Cup
National Post-- Sea Dogs top Majors to win Memorial Cup
Toronto Star-- Sea Dogs break local hearts to take title
Toronto Sun-- Sea Dogs claim the Memorial Cup
Mississauga News-- Hearts broken - again
St. John Telegraph-Journal-- Saint John Sea Dogs win national championship ...
Our full HockeyNation review of the tournament can be found here.
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