One Year Ago

One year ago tonight in Rimouski, the Saint John Sea Dogs completed a sweep of the Oceanic to win their second straight President Cup title.

Stanislav Galiev had three goals and two assists in Saint John’s 8-0 victory. Tomas Jurco had two goals and three assists while Zack Phillips, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Danick Gauthier had solo markers. Mathieu Corbeil made 24 saves for the shutout victory.

The win topped off a 16-1 playoff run for the Sea Dogs. Their season would end in the Memorial Cup semi-final.

Some of our posts from a year ago:

• LIVE BLOG: Sea Dogs vs Oceanic
• RECAP: Back-To-Back. Dogs Win 8-0.
• VIDEO: The President's Cup Win
• POSTSCRIPT: Sea Dogs 8, Oceanic 0

What a moment.

Looking at the lineup, only four players - Ian Saab, Pierre Durepos, Maxime Villemaire, and Jason Cameron - played in that game and ended the 2012-13 season with the Dogs (also Sebastien Auger who was backup in this game).

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: One Year Ago...

One year ago tonight, one of the most entertaining games of the 2009-10 season took place at the Moncton Coliseum.

The Moncton Wildacts held a 3-1 lead going into the second intermission against the Saint John Sea Dogs. The Sea Dogs have never had much luck in Moncton in terms of winning.

“We came in the room after the second period and no one was talking,” said Mike Hoffman to the Telegraph-Journal, via the SN post-game. “We were just thinking about what we had to do in the third period.

"All the boys were focused in the room and we went out there and dominated them in the third period. Coming back from 3-1 in Moncton isn't an easy thing to do.''

But Saint John did it, coming all the way back. Danick Gauthier scored early in the third and Yann Sauve tied it, eventually taking the match to a shootout. Mike Hoffman and Tomas Jurco scored in the breakaway challenge to pick up the extra point.

Probably the most memorable moment of the game came when Marco Cousineau made an unreal save in the dying moments to send the game to extra time.

Apparently, these are the highlights. For some bizarre reason, the goals are not in order.



And here is the shootout:

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Renewing a Rivalry

The worst part about the St. John’s Fog Devils departing for Montreal in 2008 was the realignment of the divisions.

It didn’t have a great affect on maritime based teams, but it did take away one of the Saint John Sea Dogs’ biggest rivals in the Lewiston MAINEiacs. Instead of playing six to eight games per season against each other, that total was shrunk to just two or three.

The two teams had created a nice rivalry over the three seasons they spent together in the Eastern Division. Although the Maineiacs were usually the better team – especially in 2006-07 when Lewiston won the President’s Cup – Saint John always put up an entertaining fight against the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s lone American team.

It wasn’t like the epic Saint John – Moncton rivalry from a year ago where both teams were serious contenders for the league title. This rivalry always seemed to revolve around one thing – fisticuffs.

According to HockeyFights.com, the Sea Dogs have dropped the gloves with the Maineiacs more than any other QMJHL team.

The following are some visual examples:

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Office Hockey

Some more amazing commercials from the past in today's Flashback Friday. Today, Alex Grant, Chris DiDomenico, and Splash (R.I.P.) make an appearance.



This ad makes us wonder: does anybody miss Splash at all? We don't.



Unreal pair of sneakers on DiDomenico.

Ed. Note: Each Friday, SN takes a look at a moment(s) in Sea Dogs history. In a continuing trend of random topics that make little sense to any current event, we look back at two the Office Hockey Chair-ity ads from the 2007-08 season.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Four Goal Leads Aren't Always Safe

Ed. Note: Each Friday, SN takes a look at a moment(s) in Sea Dogs history. In a continuing trend of random topics that make little sense to any current event, we look back at two wins featuring four goal leads from the 2007-08 season.

Earlier this season, the Saint John Sea Dogs blew a 5-1 mid-second period lead to fall to the Drummondville Voltigeurs 7-6 in a shootout. Back during the 2007-2008 campaign, two memorable matches featured some whacky events surrounding four goal leads as well.

Back on October 27, 2007, the Sea Dogs climbed out of a 5-1 second period lead themselves. It was easily one of the most entertaining games ever played by the Sea Dogs (at the time). This game is also high on our list of the greatest Alex Grant moments in team history.

Just how remarkable was this game at the time? Just look at the Sea Dogs’ website game recap opening paragraph:

Harbour Station bore witness to an event fraught with awesomeness on Saturday night, as the Saint John Sea Dogs earned their tenth win of the season in amazingly dramatic fashion, erasing a four-goal deficit in handing the St. John's Fog Devils a 6-5 shootout loss.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: The Drakkar

The Baie-Comeau Drakkar are really, really bad.

After losing their first game of the year, the Drakkar pulled off a 3-1 victory over the Shawinigan Cataractes on September 12.

They haven’t won since.

Baie-Comeau has now lost an unreal 21 straight games. They are the owners of a 1-17-2-3 record which places them last in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League standings and seven points out of a tie for the last playoff spot.

The Drakkar return to the ice this Saturday in Lewiston where they could lose their 22nd second straight game – the same amount of games the Saint John Sea Dogs won consecutively last season. Just imagine going two months without winning a game.

On Saint John’s 22-game streak of pure awesomeness, the Drakkar gave the Sea Dogs not one, but two scares.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: The Super Series

Just three days away from the opening game of the 2010 Subway Super Series, it’s time to take a look back at what was the 2008 version of the tournament which featured a stop in Saint John.

On November 19, 2008, Harbour Station played host to Game Two of the ADT Canada-Russia Challenge – now called the Subway Super Series. The game was seen coast-to-coast on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS just as this Monday’s Super Series will be from Harbour Station.

According to Wikipedia, the Canadian Hockey League has a 36-4-2 all-time record against the Russian juniors in this event and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League all-stars have a 9-3-2 record. The Ontario Hockey League has never lost a game.

In front of a capacity crowd of 6,451 fans at a rocking Harbour Station, the Russian team defeated the QMJHL all-stars 4-3 to pick up a rare victory over the Canadians.

Andrey Marygin opened the scoring at 14:21 of the first. Team QMJHL got rolling at 1:18 of the second when Maxime Sauve scored. But the Russians would take the lead back at 3:05 with a shorthanded goal and then a two goal lead at 6:46. But Luke Adam, who made his NHL debut a few days ago with the Buffalo Sabres, put the ‘Q’ all-stars back within a goal at 8:20.

In the final frame, the visitors took a two goal lead again at 16:01. The Canadians would respond nine seconds later but it wouldn’t be enough as the Russians went on to victory by score of 4-3.

Here are the highlights:

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: The Sea Dogs Painting

We stumbled across a gem on YouTube today.

As you can see in the video, the Saint John Sea Dogs were featured in some kind of infomercial awhile back for the special CHL paintings that were sold at every rink a couple of years ago. It looks like it was photoshoped in so every team probably had a video feature at one point.

The guy (and the dog) in the video are certainly not the Shamwow guy as far as salesman go.

This looks like a commercial that is played during a telethon on PBS.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: The Anthem Incident

(Ed. Note: We’d like to introduce ‘Flashback Fridays’ here on SN. Each week, we look back at an event that went down over the past six years. Send any suggestions to stationnation@yahoo.ca.)

There are some great Saint John Sea Dogs videos on YouTube.

This is not one of them.

Inspired by the Sea Dogs’ theme song making its way onto YouTube, Randy Corey of FreddyPuck.com sent this in. Below you see Kenny MacLean, Platinum Blonde's former bassist, brutalizing the Canadian Anthem at Harbour Station during the 2006-07 season:



The Sea Dogs were forced to give a public apology after the incident.

"We've gotten absolutely inundated by calls and by e-mails," said one time Sea Dogs executive director Dave Turk to the CBC. "They were embarrassed. They were enraged by the treatment the national anthem got, and rightly so. I think the national anthem is a source of pride for most people in Saint John and getting that sort of treatment is not what we wanted to do."

"One of the [lines] is 'We stand on guard for thee.' Well, he said, 'We stand in line for thee,' " said Ann Comeau who attended the game. "One line, he left out about four words. Then he kind of hummed a bit to make up the missing space where he left the words out."

Judging by his entrance and the way he introduced himself, MacLean was in his own little world that night.

He died in 2008 with a heart problem.