Sunday, May 19, 2013

Halifax, Summerside Both Lose

The 2013 Memorial Cup tournament just got a whole lot more interesting.

After having a decent game against the London Knights on Friday night, the host Saskatoon Blades defeated the No. 1 ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League, the Halifax Mooseheads, by score of 5-2 on Sunday night.

The Blades were swept in the first-round of the Western Hockey League playoffs and the franchise had basically forgotten how to win a playoff game until tonight.


Pretty much everyone had written off the Blades heading into the tournament. But after tonight’s display, this tournament just got a whole lot more fun.

Thanks to two quick goals in the third period, Saskatoon led 4-0 before the Mooseheads could finally get things going. Stephen MacAulay and Nathan MacKinnon quickly scored, making it a 4-2 contest. But despite some good pressure being applied by Halifax in the final minutes of the game, former Lewiston Maineiacs goaltender Andrey Makarov protected the lead. The Blades added an empty net goal with two seconds left which was a apparently a signal for everyone to throw their clappers and a single chair onto the ice (pictured above).

Halifax just could not get things rolling like they did on Saturday against Portland. It’ll be interesting to see how a team that has not faced much adversity all year deals with this kind of loss at the Memorial Cup.

Tomorrow, the Portland Winterhawks take on the London Knights. It Portland wins, every team at the tournament would be 1-1.

Elsewhere on Sunday…
  • Unfortunately, the Summerside Western Capitals fell short in the RBC Cup final as they lost 3-1 to the Brooks Bandits on Sunday afternoon. None of the former Sea Dogs who play for the Capitals recorded a point in the game. A tournament record crowd 4,211 watched the game at Credit Union Place in Summerside.

No comments:

Post a Comment