By Patrick King, Sportsnet.ca
If the Vancouver Giants felt any pressure about repeating as Memorial Cup champions, one certainly wouldn’t know it.
The Giants have used the motto “Starting Over” this season as a means of keeping the players focused on the task at hand, rather than on past success. So far, the results indicate the players are paying attention.
“We put last year behind us,” team captain Spencer Machacek said. “Obviously it’s a huge honour winning the Memorial Cup, but you can’t dwell on that because you kind of have a target on your back being the defending Memorial Cup champions.”
Being a target isn’t new to the Giants, who also won the Western Hockey League title the previous season. While this young franchise has a solid history of winning, the team’s hot start to the season looks that much more impressive considering seven of their core players from last year’s squad have graduated from the junior ranks.
“That’s the fun part of junior hockey,” Giants head coach Don Hay said. “The players go through their junior years and graduate then young players come in.”
One surprise loss for Vancouver was forward Milan Lucic. The Giants expected him back this season and named him captain in the summer. However, the Boston Bruins, who drafted Lucic in the second round in 2006, gave him an audition early this season and decided to keep him.
“It was a big surprise to us,” Hay said. “We were really hoping he would be back. He really set the tone with his work ethic for our group and it’s great for Milan that he’s playing at the National Hockey League level. We wish him well and we’ll just move on without him.”
“It’s a great thing for him that he moved on and is playing in Boston now, but we can’t let that bother us,” goaltender Tyson Sexsmith said. “We can’t use that as an excuse and say, ‘Oh, we should have won but it would have been a lot easier if we had Luch here.’ He’s a key player but he’s moved on and started his pro career and we just had to move on without him.”
The Vancouver Giants’ path looks strikingly similar to that of the Kelowna Rockets teams from a few seasons past. Like Kelowna, Vancouver won the WHL championship one season then played host to and won the Memorial Cup the next year. Kelowna went on to win another WHL championship the year following their Memorial Cup victory.
The success the Rockets enjoyed from 2002 to 2005 is considered a dynasty in junior hockey circles given the short window of opportunity to win in the Canadian Hockey League. With a Memorial Cup and WHL title to their credit, the Giants might not be far away from taking their place with those Rockets teams.
“Recognition will come with time and you have to put a good team together every year to have a shot at winning the Cup,” Sexsmith said. “Kelowna has done that in the past and now they’re a rebuilding team. We want to just keep on going and try to rebuild our team to win another Memorial Cup and maybe the recognition will come with time.”
“(The organization) doesn’t want just one big year and then a bad year,” Machacek said. “That’s the good thing about our organization; they’re always trying to recruit and always trying to get better.”
While the Giants have maintained a high-level of play, the rest of the B.C. Division is also improving. The Rockets have re-emerged after their first season out of the playoffs, the Chilliwack Bruins are challenging and the Kamloops Blazers are strong. The Giants, for their part, are certainly aware each team is gunning for them.
“We have to show up every night,” Sexsmith said. “Games in your own division are four point games, as we like to call them.”
Even though the competition has gotten tougher, the goal has never changed.
“Our goal is the Memorial Cup,” Hay said. “We set off every year wanting to compete for the Memorial Cup.”
Sexsmith, though, cautions against getting ahead of themselves.
“(The Memorial Cup) can’t be our No. 1 goal,” Sexsmith said. “We have to have short-term goals and if we reach those goals it will give us a good chance to finish near the top of the league.
“(When we get to the playoffs) we’ll do the things that have made us successful all year and hopefully it will pay off and give us a chance to go to Ontario this year to defend our title.”
Given their early success and rich history, the Giants might be looking to re-use this season’s motto a year from now.
