The Kelowna Rockets had a couple days to prepare for the WHL Final against the Scotty Munro champions in the Brandon Wheat Kings after defeating the Portland Winterhawks in six games. Even though Portland didn’t move on, that they won two games against the Rockets is something Brandon would be unable to do.
The Wheat Kings had good success in the first two series as they outlasted Edmonton and then Calgary, but when it came to Kelowna, they just couldn’t compete. Brandon would land the opening goal in the first three games, but then the Rockets would take over in a big way and they would find a way to hold the lead, sometimes for a full period. With Kelowna taking the first two games in Brandon, the series headed to Kelowna for the next three games. It wouldn’t take three for Kelowna to sew up the WHL Final though. While Brandon was able to keep things close in the first three games and come up just a goal short, the fourth game was a bitter pill to swallow. The teams remained deadlocked through 2 periods of play and Brandon went on the power play to start the third period. Within the first ninety seconds, Kelowna had scored two short-handed goals and then went on shutdown mode. Brandon never did get on the scoreboard and Kelowna would add a third goal with five minutes left in the game to shutout the Wheat Kings 3-0 and a sweep of the series in four games.
With the win, Kelowna is the first team to win a berth in the Memorial Cup, but will have to wait a few days before learning who they will face in the round robin tournament from the Ontario Hockey League. Both teams from the Quebec Major Junior League will advance to the Memorial Cup tournament as the Quebec Remparts, who hosts the tournament and is thereby guaranteed a spot, and Rimouski Oceanic, who is in the President’s Cup Final, will represent the QMJHL. Their series is currently knotted at two games each.
In the Ontario Hockey League, the Erie Otters are one game away from elimination heading into this weekend against the Oshawa Generals. The Otters lost the first two games by a combined 9-2 score before earning a hard fought one goal win in game three. Game four went to overtime with Oshawa scoring midway through the first frame to win a wild 6-5 contest.
Meanwhile, while the Portland Winterhawks aren’t playing on the ice, they certainly aren’t staying dormant off the ice. The Western Hockey League announced that the Winterhawks will receive their first round draft pick in 2017 back. The team had lost that pick plus several more from 2012 to 2017 as part of a penalty handed down during the coaching career of Mike Johnston for violations relating to players benefits. With Mike now in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the effects of having limited draft picks over the past few years have done a little bit of damage to the Winterhawks program. The Hawks were without their own first round pick this year, though they were able to trade for one to obtain Cody Glass, who will be a part of the growing process going forward.
The Winterhawks entered the 2015 Bantam Draft in the fourth round and selected in the next rounds a total of eight players who will hopefully attend training camp in August. Ty Colle, Bradley Ginnell, Stanislav Demin, Nicholas Cicek, Illijah Colina, Johnathan Rees, Noah Kim, Justin Paul and Dawson Klein were the Portland selections as five forwards and three defensemen. These players will not be eligible for full time WHL games until next season, but will get into several scrimmage games and practices to gain knowledge of what to build on for the future.
Oliver Bjorkstrand, who led the team in scoring this past season, won two awards during the WHL Awards presentation, earning the Four Broncos trophy as the top player of the year, the Bob Clarke trophy for the scoring title and then headed to Denmark to play in the International Ice Hockey Federation Cup. Dominic Turgeon, who was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings last year, was signed to an entry level contract with Detroit and then signed an amateur tryout with the AHL affiliate Grand Rapid Griffins, where he will remain until their season is over. Turgeon will be carrying a heavy load once he returns to Portland as one of the nineteen year-old players.
The next two weeks will be devoted to the Memorial Cup and then less than a month later, players will be eagerly awaiting the NHL draft. Among the strong draft class will be Paul Bittner, Adin Hill, Evan Weinger and Keoni Texeira from Portland.
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