Gens the best in the country
Kenny Appleby stretches out to make one of his many game-saving stops during the Memorial Cup final on Sunday, May 31. Oshawa won the game 2-1 in overtime defeating the Kelowna Rockets.
By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express
The end of the season couldn’t have gone any better for the Oshawa Generals.
On Sunday May 31, the Gens defeated the Kelown Rockets 2-1 in overtime to bring home the franchise’s fifth Memorial Cup and first since 1990.
Oshawa Generals goaltender Kenny Appleby raises the Mastercard Memorial Cup after the team walked away with an overtime win over the Kelowna Rockets in the finals of the tournament in Quebec City. The win marked the team’s first Memorial Cup win in a quarter century.
It was rookie Anthony Cirelli who played the hero for Oshawa, scoring both of the team’s markers, including the overtime winner.
“It feels unbelievable right now,” said a stunned Cirelli on the ice during post-game celebrations, a Memorial Cup champions cap snug on his head. “I’m proud of the team, excited for the guys and it’s been a great season,” he added.
A great season indeed.
The Generals finished the regular season with a 51-11-2-4 record, totaling 108 points, breaking team records for most wins and most points in a single season.
Through the playoffs, the Generals knocked out rival Peterborough Petes, the Niagara IceDogs and North Bay in the conference final. The Generals met Connor McDavid and the Erie Otters in the OHL final and seemed to have little trouble dispatching one of the top offensive teams in the league.
Finally, the team went undefeated at the Memorial Cup tournament to hoist the silver chalice, beating the Rimouski Oceanic 4-3 in their opener, the host Quebec Remparts 5-4, also in overtime, and finally beating Kelowna the first time 2-1 in the final game of the round robin.
More than 10,000 fans jammed the Colisée Pepsi to see the final game of hockey played beneath its rafters. The arena is slated for demolition in the near future to be replaced with the near-completed Videotron Centre next door.
At the start of game, things didn’t look good for the Generals. The Rockets outshot Oshawa 9-4 in the first and controlled much of the play through the first frame. It was a bounce off the backboards behind Gens’ goaltender Kenny Appleby that scooted back out front of the net and onto the stick of Kelowna forward Tomas Soustal that put the Gens behind by one going into the first intermission.
In the second, a pair of powerplay opportunities would prove fruitless for Oshawa with Rockets’ goalie Jackson Whistle coming up with a few big saves.
But he couldn’t stop Cirelli, rushing down the wing to snap a laser from one leg into the top corner to tie the game.
Energized by the work of the young rookie, the Gens poured it on in the third, getting several scoring chances. Oshawa seemed to pull ahead when Hunter Smith redirected a shot from the point to beat Whistle. However, the tip was ruled a high stick and the game remained tied. It would stay that way at the end of regulation with Appleby coming up big for the Generals with a series of show-stopping saves to keep the Gens in it.
The crowd buzzed with nervous excitement as the teams took the ice for sudden death overtime.
A few exchanges was all it took. A shot from the point bounced of Whistle and Cirelli was in the right place at the right time.
Slamming the puck into the back of the net, his gloves were off, his stick in the air and the crowd exploded.
Arms reached into the air from the stands, seeming to try and catch the gloves and sticks bursting up from the Generals’ bench as players rushed to the corner to mob Cirelli.
“I couldn’t dream of this,” said Gens’ star Michael Dal Colle, who led the club in scoring through the tournament. “(I) never thought I’d be in Quebec winning a Mastercard Memorial Cup, so what a feeling.”
Dal Colle attributes much of the team’s success to head coach DJ Smith.
“He’s an awesome coach, he’s turned things around here. He came to Oshawa three years ago, they were on a losing streak there and he turned it right around.”
For Smith, it is the third Memorial Cup he has under his belt, the first two coming in back-to-back years as assistant coach with the Windsor Spitfires in 2009 and 2010.
Yet, he said much of the same as his players, it’s an unbelievable feeling.
“There was so much support from our fans, parents, everybody that came. It didn’t look good there for a while.”
For assistant coach Eric Wellwood, this is also his third Memorial Cup, those first two coming when he was a player on the same Spitfires team Smith was assistant coach.
“It’s a surreal feeling. It’s the third time, but it’s different in a way, so it feels a lot better than the other ones,” Wellwood said.
The ending of a Generals season that saw the team break a franchise record for most wins and most points is a bittersweet one for Smith, who is saying goodbye to some players he has coached since his arrival in 2012.
“It’s a sad day to see a guy like Josh Brown, Cole Cassels, Hunter Smith, Mermis, especially the guys that have been with me all the way…it’s a sad day that I’ll never coach these guys again, but we’ll remember it as champions, that’s special,” Smith says.
Brown says the realization that his junior career has come to an end hasn’t really sunk in yet.
“I get to ride off into the sunset with a Memorial Cup so to speak,” he says. “It’s definitely unbelievable, I think it will sink in a little later, maybe tomorrow morning, that I won’t be playing with these guys anymore and I won’t be playing at the GM Centre in front of that amazing crowd, so as of right now, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”
Brown also said he couldn’t picture a better ending to Generals’ season and his junior career.
“This group of guys is the closest team I’ve ever played with in my life, the core group of guys, we’ve been together three, four years some of us so, to pull out a win with these guys, I wouldn’t want it any other way.”