KITCHENER, Ont. -- The Kitchener Rangers' 9-0 drubbing of the Belleville Bulls in the MasterCard Memorial Cup semifinal is bringing on shades of a year ago.
At last year's tournament, the host Vancouver Giants needed to go through a semifinal en route to their Memorial Cup championship over the Medicine Hat Tigers. Vancouver ran the score up in their semifinal game against the Plymouth Whalers, beating them 8-1.
Perhaps spurred on by their triumphant victory with the support of the home crowed, the Giants went on to dominate the Tigers in the final, winning the championship 3-1.
Like the Giants last year, this year's host Rangers will have plenty of momentum heading into the final against the Spokane Chiefs. Among those similarities is one of the players, defenceman Trevor Glass, who experienced the heartbreak of losing in the final last year. Glass will be looking for the sweet taste of success in his second attempt after a bitter feeling a year ago.
Vancouver became the second team in the last 10 years to win the Memorial Cup while going through the semifinal. However, the format only recently changed from a one-day break between the semifinal and final, making for a more competitive championship game when each team had a day of rest.
The Rangers will have plenty of momentum heading into the final game against the Chiefs. Kitchener finally looked like the team which received plenty of press throughout the regular season and will be playing with loads of confidence.
Defenceman Robert Bortuzzo returned to action while Yannick Weber made his tournament debut two games ago. With this team clicking the way they are heading into the final game, one can't help but imagine it will be a different Ranger team facing the Chiefs than the one from the round robin.
The Rangers might not always play at their best, but when they're on their game, look out. Kitchener rarely faced the do-or-die situations and they have now twice come out swinging when they were pushed into a corner. Although they blew a three-games-to-none series lead over the Bulls in the OHL final, Kitchener was in control in Game 7, taking the championship with a 4-1 win.
Kitchener did not look overly impressive in the round robin of this tournament but we saw their true colours on Friday. This was as dominant a win as we have seen in this tournament and the Rangers could be peaking at the right time.
With one game left to go, the Rangers are looking strong heading into the Memorial Cup final where they will face yet another do-or-die situation. And like the Giants a year before them, the home crowd will be rocking in what should be an unbelievable final.
