Friday, May 21, 2011 /
By Sam Laskaris /
As the Pembroke Lumber Kings walked into their dressing room following a 5-3 loss to Vernon in their final round robin game of the Royal Bank Cup, there couldn’t have been a more positive post-loss vibe.
It’s not as if the Fred Page Cup and CCHL Champions were celebrating a two-goal defeat at the hands of the back-to-back defending RBC Cup champions, but they certainly felt genuinely pleased with what they had accomplished over the last 40 minutes of hockey.
Having lost by just a two-goal margin, the Lumber Kings not only had secured a spot in the playoffs but they had also acquired a valuable piece of knowledge that would come in handy down the road in what would eventually be a 2-0 national championship winning victory over those same Vipers.
“In that game, despite losing 5-3, we still got the favourable score that we wanted out of it and further to that, we came out of that game feeling we could play with anybody in the tournament,” said Pembroke coach Sheldon Keefe. “I remember the feeling in the room and as the coach I said it. ‘I think we all know now that we can win this thing.’”
For the fourth round robin game in a row, Vernon had jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead but, unlike the Vipers first three games, the opposition, that being the Lumber Kings, battled back and for the first time in the tournament forced the Vipers to play from behind.
“After the first period, we regrouped,” said Lumber Kings forward Jonathan Milley who went on to score both Pembroke goals in the championship game. “And when we came out in the second, there was a three-minute span in which we scored three goals and we told ourselves we can play with these guys and we might even be better than them.”
Pembroke went up 3-2 only to see Vernon claw right back and win by the 5-3 count. But the loss didn’t seem to matter all that much.
Three days later, after Pembroke beat Camrose 4-2 in the semifinal and Vernon beat Wellington 4-1 in the other semifinal, the teams met again. But this time the Lumber Kings were ready.
And a touch irritable.
“It was personal for us,” Milley said. “We felt we didn’t get the respect that we deserved. You know we were 90 games into the year and people were still talking about how good Vernon. We took it as a personal grudge. We knew we were right beside [Vernon] and we just needed to show everybody that we could play.”
In the championship game, for the first time all tournament, the Vipers were held scoreless in the opening frame and the teams went to the dressing room knotted 0-0.
“We knew we were going to have to rely on our goaltender [Francis Dupuis] to make saves for us early and he did,” Keefe said. “And once you could tell he was in the zone, our confidence grew from there.
“Getting out of the first period 0-0, it was really the first piece of adversity Vernon had faced where they had many opportunities but had nothing to show for it. We knew we had to keep working and we knew we were going to get better as the game went along and I think that’s what happened.”
While Pembroke was outshot 40-23 in the game and 14-3 in the third period alone, as it turned out, Milley’s breakaway with 6:21 to go in the final fram and his empty netter just over six minutes later was all they would need. Three shots in the period. Two goals. And one championship.
And for a Pembroke team that was criticized for relying too often on its powerplay, winning a game without even earning a single extra-man opportunity was sweet icing.
After winning the CCHL championship for five straight years and participating in the RBC Cup in three of the last six years, the Lumber Kings got their first national championship. And the Ottawa River town celebrated.
“I don’t know who in town didn’t show up,” Milley said of the crowd that greeted the team when it returned to Pembroke. “I mean we were two kilometres from the rink and there were people on the side of the road cheering for us who walked us all the way in. It was a pretty amazing feeling.” |