QUEBEC CITY — We can argue about the format, about whether teams should have to play three games in three nights, about if a host team should get an automatic berth in the MasterCard Memorial Cup every year.
All these are worthwhile discussions. What seems almost undeniable, however, is that this event, with all its idiosyncrasies, has an uncanny ability to produce a competition in which the best two teams in the Canadian Hockey League lock horns on the final Sunday of the season for one of hockey’s most historic trophies.
It’s not impossible, but very close to impossible, to fluke your way to a Memorial Cup final.
SUNDAY PROGRAMMING ALERT:
Watch the MasterCard Memorial Cup final between the Oshawa Generals and Kelowna Rockets on Sportsnet with coverage starting at 6:30 p.m. ET | Broadcast Schedule
Two years ago, we had Halifax against Portland, Nathan MacKinnon against Seth Jones, the two best teams and probably the two best draft-eligible players.
Last year in London, the host Knights faltered, but the final between Guelph and Edmonton was a collision between the country’s two best major junior clubs.
Sunday, it’s Kelowna and Oshawa, and while folks from Brandon, Sault Ste. Marie, Rimouski and Erie might care to argue the point, most would agree that this collision at Le Colisée between Dan Lambert’s Rockets and D.J. Smith’s Generals is a best-versus-best match.
Both teams flirted with the CHL’s No. 1 ranking all season, a subjective measure, to be sure. Both have veteran cores, have added key players during the season and have an ability to play the game any way you like it, similar to the two Stanley Cup finalists from Tampa Bay and Chicago.
That’s the test here. Not to be best on one night, but over the course of a long season. Only the host team gets to be here on a freebie, and this year’s Quebec Remparts proved to be more than a viable opponent for the other three teams. Had the Remparts taken advantage and finished off Rimouski on Wednesday night, thereby avoiding a Thursday tiebreaker game, they would certainly have been a better challenge for Kelowna in the semifinal on Friday.
As it was, Quebec was out of gas, and the Rockets demonstrated that, like Edmonton last year, it took a few days to get their legs under them after travelling east, but they appear to be firing on all cylinders now.
Oshawa, meanwhile, has been the best of the competition so far, but not by such a margin that they would be seen as overwhelming favourites today. They did defeat Kelowna in the round robin in a tight 2-1 game, and they were successful in getting the matchups they wanted to neutralize Kelowna’s top player, centre Leon Draisaitl.
With the final change tonight, Smith may be able to do so again. That said, Lambert demonstrated a few more tricks in his bag on Friday, moving Riley Stadel in beside Draisaitl and Nick Merkley, shifting Rourke Chartier to another line, then at times playing Draisaitl with Gage Quinney and Justin Kirkland. It’s going to be a chess match Sunday, and the challenge will be for Lambert not to let Draisaitl get taken out of the game too much by trying to keep him away from Cole Cassels.
At some point, Draisaitl may need to take that challenge on himself, and see if he can fare better than Connor McDavid did in the OHL final.
Interestingly, it’s really been a tournament without glittering individual performances. Each team has had different players going in different games, but right now, if you had to be pick a tournament MVP, it wouldn’t be easy. It’ll come down to a General or a Rocket, but you might choose Michael McCarron or Cassels or Ken Appleby from Oshawa, depending on your point of view, and you might choose Draisaitl or Jackson Whistle or Quinney from Kelowna.
It’s tough for one player to blow away the competition in this tournament, although MacKinnon did two years ago. Last year, Edgars Kulda of the Oil Kings took away the Stafford Smythe Trophy as MasterCard Memorial Cup MVP, snatching the honour away from bigger names on his own team like Curtis Lazar and Griffin Reinhart.
Perhaps Sunday night, this year’s version of Kulda will step forward and distinguish himself from the crowd. The stakes are high, and what we know is that while all these players have played in big games, and Madison Bowey and Josh Morrissey played in the gold medal game this year for Canada at the world junior championships, there won’t be a player on the ice tonight who has faced this unique moment before.
McCarron and Dakota Mermis of the Generals know what it’s like to play in the Memorial Cup tournament, but not to play for the Cup itself. So it’s about 40 players all facing a unique experience and a unique challenge at once. They’ve all heard about the Memorial Cup every day this season, as it was the ultimate goal for Kelowna and Oshawa from September on.
They were both built for this game, this moment. The process, this tournament, this format, this hockey season, has brought all 40 together for this game.