Where have the Québec Major Junior Hockey League champions gone?
The Gatineau Olympiques' quick exit from the 2008 MasterCard Memorial Cup signals the changing of the guard where the Canadian Hockey League is concerned. For the second year in a row, the QMJHL representatives have failed to survive in the Memorial Cup tournament and were the first team heading home.
Last year, the Lewiston MAINEiacs were just over a minute away from a possible berth to the final when a shorthanded goal led to an overtime loss. Lewiston needed a win over Plymouth in that game and a Medicine Hat win the next night, which the Tigers won, and they would have been playing in the final.
Instead, the MAINEiacs failed to regroup and were beaten handily in the tiebreaker game by the Plymouth Whalers.
Lewiston and Gatineau's inability to pull it together in the tournament forms a rare sight for Memorial Cup fans. Prior to last year's tournament, a team from the QMJHL made it to the final in the previous seven tournaments, with the 2000 Rimouski Oceanic being the only one of those teams to win in 2000.
The QMJHL is falling behind where championships are concerned. Just seven teams from the QMJHL have won the Memorial Cup championship since 1972 when the tournament originally featured a team from each league. The Western Hockey League leads the list of Memorial Cup champions in that time with 17, followed by 12 from the Ontario Hockey League.
Is it a lack of talent? Not as much as a lack of execution. Neither Lewiston nor Gatineau played with a killer instinct in the last two tournaments and appeared to have difficulty adjusting to the style of teams from other leagues, particularly those from the WHL.
Lewiston's biggest problem was the lack of a goal-scorer. No one would have suspected the same problem would occur for the Olympiques in this year's tournament with Claude Giroux after he scored 51 points in the playoffs.
Giroux left something to be desired in the Memorial Cup. He rarely went to the net and was often content driving wide and throwing it towards the middle of the ice. He wasn't nearly as assertive in the offensive end as he needed to be and didn't get the opportunistic chances that he enjoyed a lot of success from in the playoffs.
The last time a QMJHL team made it to the final was three years ago when it was in Moncton, N.B. The host Wildcats lost to the QMJHL representatives, the Québec Remparts in the championship game.
The Rimouski Océanic are hosting next year's tournament. The QMJHL has a chance to put their streak to an end next year when two of the four teams will be from their league but the stronger Memorial Cup champions are the one's playing from other leagues.
Having the ability to travel across the country and facing a raucous crowd in an unfamiliar rink is hard to overcome. Only the special teams have the ability to overcome this kind of adversity against the Canadian Hockey League's finest.
But until then, it might be a while until a QMJHL team finds a way back to the final and takes home the CHL's biggest prize, the Memorial Cup.
