There was no point in changing their game plan now.

The last time the Spokane Chiefs met the Kitchener Rangers they grabbed a marginal lead and clamped down defensively to claim the win. They did the same thing on Sunday and this time, their efforts earned them the Memorial Cup.

The Chiefs beat the hometown Rangers 4-1 to win the MasterCard Memorial Cup tournament and claim their second CHL championship.

“We stuck with our system all year and did it again tonight and we came out on top,” said sophomore forward Mitch Wahl, who was named to the tournament all-star team. “We’ve got a good defensive corps on our team and good defence leads to offence so that’s what we do.”

Brandon Mashinter staked the Rangers to an early lead when he scored his first of the tournament 5:01 into the first period. Judd Blackwater responded with a powerplay marker late in the first and then Drayson Bowman and Trevor Glass scored a little more than a minute apart in the second period. Then the Chiefs put their defensive system to work.

They held the Rangers off the score sheet the rest of the way and Jared Cowen scored an empty netter in the final minute to seal the win.

The win capped a sensational season for the Chiefs, who also won the Western Hockey League championship.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Chiefs’ coach Bill Peters. “I’m so happy for our guys. They’ve been through a lot together. It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to walk off the ice and say that I won my last game. I’ve been close a few times but this is the first time. I have a lot of pride for our organization, our city and especially the 24 guys.”

Dustin Tokarski made 53 saves in the win and won the Stafford Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the tournament.

“It’s sweet,” said Tokarski, who was a perfect 4-0 with a 1.72 goals against average in the tournament. “It’s hard to believe. When this year started we wanted to be here and here we are hoisting that Cup.”

Bowman’s scored a goal in every game of the tournament and tonight’s marker proved to be the game-winner.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Bowman said. “I can’t describe it. The team played great tonight.”

The Chiefs had a four day layoff after cruising to a 3-0 round robin record and Bowman said the time off may have left them flat footed to start the game.

“At the start of the first we were on our heels a little bit,” Bowman said. “But we came out in the second and played our game and it worked out real well. It’s a big quality of our team. We’re used to getting the first one but when we don’t we battle back. We did a great job tonight.”

Rangers’ forward Justin Azevedo won the Ed Chynoweth Trophy as the top scorer of the tournament with 11 points while Matt Halischuk of the Rangers won the George Parsons Memorial Trophy as the most sportsmanlike player in the tournament. Tokarski also won the Hap Emms Memorial Trophy as the top goaltender of the tournament.

Tokarski, Azevedo, Bowman and Wahl were all named to the tournament all-star team along with defencemen Justin Falk of the Chiefs and Ben Shutron of the Rangers.

They follow the Vancouver Giants as back to back winners from the WHL. Peters said that his preparation before the tournament included talking to people like Giants’ coach Don Hay who had been in the tournament before. He said the advice he picked up along the way paved the way for their win tonight.

“We had a plan and obviously it worked,” Peters said.

aaron.bell@chl.ca

Photo: Aaron Bell / CHL

Justin Azevedo just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

No, the Kitchener Rangers’ star centre hasn’t grown any during the past three weeks, but his game has.

Azevedo, who was the OHL’s player of the year this season, has raised his level of play throughout the OHL playoffs and on Friday he may have turned in the best performance of his junior career.

Azevedo scored three goals and two assists to lead the Rangers to a 9-0 whitewash over the Belleville Bulls in the semi-final game of the MasterCard Memorial Cup.

The win gives the Rangers a berth in Sunday’s championship game against the Spokane Chiefs.

It may have been the Rangers most dominant performance of the season and it was the most lop-sided semi-final win in the history of the tournament.

“I think we did everything right today,” said Azevedo, who was a team-best plus-six in the game and took over the scoring lead in the tournament. “We established our forecheck early and we kept it up throughout the whole game. When we do that we’re usually pretty successful. It was an all-around solid game.”

Azevedo said that his line with wingers Nick Spaling and Matt Halischuk knew that they needed to take control of the game, especially after squandering a 3-0 lead and losing in overtime to the Bulls’ in the round robin finale on Wednesday.

“It was a huge game for me,” Azevedo said. “I knew I had to step up and play a big role. My linemates were outstanding tonight too. We all battled hard and we deserved that game today.”

Azevedo has already had some outstanding performances. He was the top scorer in the OHL playoffs and scored the overtime winner for the Rangers in the opening game against the Gatineau Olympiques.

“He’s an amazing guy,” Rangers’ coach and GM Peter DeBoer said about the five-foot-eight, 180 pound pivot. “You see his size and as small as he looks on the ice, he’s even smaller when you see him off the ice. He just refuses to lose when it’s a big game. Whenever we needed a big goal, that whole line has stepped up tonight. They led the way in taking our team to a level that they needed to dispatch a real worthy opponent.”

Nazem Kadri got the Rangers rolling early with his first goal of the tournament 46 seconds into the game. Halischuk, Azevedo and Spaling all counted in the first period and Azevedo added two goals and Mike Duco scored in the second. Halischuk scored his second of the night early in the third and Scott Tregunna rounded out the scoring with a powerplay marker with 17 seconds left on the clock.

Halischuk and Spaling both finished the game with five points.

DeBoer said that it was an impressive performance for his club.

“Every time we faced adversity or elimination this year our guys found another level,” DeBoer said. “I think they did that again tonight. It’s an amazing group and I’m just happy and proud to stand behind that bench.”

DeBoer also tipped his hat to the Bulls, who rebounded from a 3-0 deficit in the OHL Championship Series to force a seventh game and rebounded after being down by three goals on Wednesday.

“This is a team that continuously over the past three weeks got off the mat and kept coming back at us,” DeBoer said. “I hope that they haven’t taken enough out of us over the past few weeks that we have enough for Sunday. It was as gutsy a performance by an opposing team as I’ve seen in a long time.”

For the Bulls, it was a disappointing end to one of their most memorable seasons in franchise history. They set regular season team records for wins and points and matched the 1999 squad that also reached the semi-finals of the Memorial Cup.

“It’s a tough way to finish,” said Bulls’ coach and GM George Burnett. “We didn’t have much left. We had an incredible run and are devastated on how things ended here tonight.”

It also marks the end of several players’ junior careers including captain Matt Beleskey, who recently signed with the Anaheim Ducks, and star centre Shawn Matthias. Beleskey said that it was difficult way to end a standout season.

“Well it wasn’t our best game, that’s for sure,” Beleskey said. “We haven’t come out strong all tournament and when you are playing the best team in the country, they’re not going to let you back in every game. Tonight they just shut that door. We didn’t come out strong and they did.”

The Rangers’ win sets up a rematch of their round robin match against the WHL champion Chiefs, who clamped down for a 2-1 win on Sunday. Azevedo said that his team will follow a similar game plan that they did against the Bulls.

“We’ve got to do exactly what we did tonight,” Azevedo said. “Last time we played them I think they outworked us. If we want to be successful, we’ve got to take it to teams. I think last game they brought it to us and we didn’t really do much about it.”

aaron.bell@chl.ca

Photo: Aaron Bell / CHL

It’s a good thing Keaton Turkiewicz was quick off the mark.

His coach was thinking of pulling the fourth-year winger off the top line after Turkiewicz banged his shoulder on an earlier play. But Turkiewicz didn’t know it yet and jumped over the boards with the rest of his linemates.

Turkiewicz made the best of that shift, scoring the winning goal in overtime to lift the Belleville Bulls to a 4-3 win over the Kitchener Rangers in the final round robin game at the MasterCard Memorial Cup on Wednesday.

“We were thinking about not sending him back out on the ice,” Bulls’ coach and GM George Burnett admitted after the game. “It was a quick change and we called his line and he jumped before we could make the switch.”

Burnett said that it was good to see Turkiewicz bury the game winner on a scramble in front of the net.

“He’s a tenacious guy that works his tail off each and every shift,” Burnett said. “Usually when he makes something happen, it’s through hard work and determination. He’s been a real good guy for our team all year long. He’s scored some big goals for our club.”

The win gives the Bulls (2-1) second place and last line change in the semi-final against Kitchener (1-2) on Friday (7:00 p.m. Eastern on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS).

Scott Tregunna, Mikkel Boedker and Yannick Weber staked the Rangers to a 3-0 lead a little more than midway through the first period, but the Bulls battled back with goals by Shawn Matthias and Cory Tanaka in the second period and P.K. Subban tied the game on a powerplay 20 seconds into the third period.

Turkiewicz, who was moved up to the Bulls’ top line with Matthias and captain Matt Beleskey earlier in the tournament, was thrilled to get the winner and giving the Bulls a moral victory over the Rangers, who beat them in seven games in the OHL Championship Series.

“Just battling back is good for our confidence going into the semi-finals, which is a must-win,” Turkiewicz said. “Knowing how we can beat them, especially if we have a good start. It was another bad start for us and we need to try to turn that around.”

His teammates were happy to see that hard-working Turkiewicz end the game with his second goal of the tournament.

“After games, you see a guy like that with ice bags all over him and cold tubs every day,” Subban said. “He lays everything out on the line. It’s an emotional time because our season is on the line next game and players like that you know leave it all on the ice. He’s such a character player and works so hard. No one else deserved it more than him tonight.”

Turkiewicz said that he feels at home back on the top line with Beleskey, who he billets with in Belleville, and Matthias.

“We were together at the beginning of the year and had some success,” Turkiewicz said. “It’s good to get back out with them. They are two of my good buddies off the ice and we have chemistry. Good things are happening right now.”

Mike Murphy was outstanding in the game again for the Bulls, turning aside 54 shots, including 26 in the third period to maintain the tie score. The Bulls were outshot 57-29.

“It’s not the first time that he’s done it,” Burnett said. “He continues to hear that he can’t and he continues to prove that he can. I thought he battled hard and despite being down 3-0 our team battled hard as well and competed a little harder for the last 40 minutes and the overtime. Without him, the game is probably over early, but he gives us that confidence that we can crawl back in it and we did tonight and he deserves a lot of the credit.”

The Rangers have lost four of the past five games against the Bulls, but are confident that they will be ready to go for the semi-final on Friday.

“The one thing about our group is that we haven’t made it easy all year,” Rangers’ coach and GM Peter DeBoer said. “But we’ve played some good hockey and we could easily be 3-0 in this tournament as quickly as we’re 1-2. We don’t have to change a whole lot. We need to get a little luck around the net and keep doing what we’re doing. Our guys have always responded well to adversity and I’m hoping that it might be the best thing that happened tonight.”

Game Summary

aaron.bell@chl.ca

Photo: Aaron Bell / CHL

Bill Peters feels like he’s been cramming for an exam.

The third year coach of the Western Hockey League champion Spokane Chiefs is the only one of the four coaches competing in the 2008 MasterCard Memorial Cup that hasn’t been there before. He said that he tried to make up for his lack of firsthand experience by talking to everyone that he knew that had played in the national championship tournament before.

“I went through two legal pads talking to people about it,” Peters said. “I’ve got writer’s cramp.”

Peters said that one of the things that his mentors stressed was the importance of getting a win in their first game. Peters and his Chiefs will get that opportunity when they open the tournament tonight against the Belleville Bulls from the Ontario Hockey League (4:00 p.m. Eastern on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS).

“It’s huge – especially with the way the tournament format has changed over the years,” Peters said. “The format of the tournament has evolved and it makes it more of a level playing field in my opinion. Getting that first W is a big thing.”

Peters said that one of the biggest differences about the Memorial Cup today versus past years is in the pre-scouting teams do before they get here. They utilize contacts from around the hockey world and watch games on TV and the Internet to get a feeling of how the other teams in the tournament play.

“It’s all about doing your homework,” Peters said. “We’re following the same process that we have all year that was successful for us. You don’t play at this time of the year unless you are an elite team so we know that these teams are all highly skilled.”

The Chiefs are looking for their second Memorial Cup championship after winning the title in 1991. They have a balanced attack up front with 42-goal man Drayson Bowman leading the way. Bowman, a Carolina Hurricanes prospect, led the team with 11 goals and 20 points in the post-season and is joined up front by a group that includes Dallas Stars’ prospect Ondrej Roman, overagers Judd Blackwater and David Rutherford.

In net, Dustin Tokarski had an outstanding regular season with a 20-7-0-1 record and emerged as one of the top netminding prospects for the 2008 NHL Entry Draft. He was 16-5 in the playoffs and plays in front of a solid group of blueliners that includes Trevor Glass, who played in the Memorial Cup last season with the Medicine Hat Tigers.

For the Bulls, the Memorial Cup is a second life for a quality team that pushed the Kitchener Rangers to seven games in the OHL Championship Series.

Bulls GM and coach George Burnett, who guided the Guelph Storm to the OHL championship and an appearance in the Memorial Cup championship game in 1998, said that it’s important to start the tournament off with a win tonight.

“Unlike the other three teams, we’re the only ones that lost our last game,” Burnett said. “I think more than anything, we’re not really here to prove to anyone that we belong. We believe that we are here for a reason and we deserve to be here.”

The Bulls dropped the first three games of the OHL finals and were down by three goals on home ice before they rallied for an overtime win in Game 4. They won Games 5 and 6 to push the series to the limit, but the Rangers cruised to a 4-1 win in the deciding game.

“The mental challenge of losing Game 7 on Monday night and regrouping on Tuesday and coming back to Kitchener was probably the biggest challenge,” Burnett said. “I think our guys responded with a couple of great practices and there’s a lot of energy. I know they are anxious to have another opportunity to have a positive outcome.”

The Bulls are also anxious to have star centre Shawn Matthias back in the lineup for the tournament. Matthias, who helped Canada win the gold medal at the World Juniors and was a standout in an emergency call-up to the Florida Panthers in January, missed all but the final game of the playoffs with mono. He scored the Bulls’ only goal in his return on Monday.

“We were real pleased to see him back in the lineup,” Burnett said. “I think any game that Shawn would participate in the final series would benefit him in the tournament by getting some quality minutes under his belt. He’s really excited to be playing again. He was probably overexcited and probably tried to do too much. We’re real pleased to have him back in our lineup.”

Matthias joins a deep group of Belleville forwards that includes captain Matt Beleskey, an Anaheim Ducks’ prospect that is the definition of a heart-and-soul player. Despite playing at less than 100%, Beleskey scored the overtime winner in Game 4 that extended Belleville’s season. Their group also includes veteran forwards A.J. Perry, who won the Memorial Cup as a rookie with the London Knights in 2005, and Detroit Red Wings’ prospect Jan Mursak.

Team Canada defenceman P.K. Subban anchors a group of blueliners that includes Nigel Williams, a big, fleet-footed blueliner with a booming shot, veteran Geoff Killing and NHL draft prospect Shawn Lalonde. They play a solid game in front of Mike Murphy, the OHL’s goaltender of the year.

Burnett said that playing four games at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium helped prepare his team for this tournament.

“I think the building and the environment – there’s probably no better in junior hockey with the fans, the old building, everybody is right on top of you,” Burnett said. “It’s just a wonderful atmosphere and having played four games in here over the last couple of weeks was probably huge for our preparation for the tournament. It should help us as we prepare to move forward, just knowing the environment that we are playing in.”

Peters said that after a week’s worth of his own preparation, his team is also ready to get back to the ice.

“We’re done processing the information and we’ll be ready to go on Saturday night.”

aaron.bell@chl.ca

Photo: Aaron Bell / CHL

It was easy to assume that Tuesday’s game at the MasterCard Memorial Cup was meaningless to the Spokane Chiefs.

After starting the tournament with wins over the Kitchener Rangers and Belleville Bulls, the Western Hockey League champions had already clinched a berth in Sunday’s final game and could have mailed in an easy effort in their final round robin game against the winless Gatineau Olympiques.

But Chiefs’ coach Bill Peters said that there wasn’t one person in the Chiefs’ dressing room that would have accepted anything less than their best effort.

“Our players are competitive by nature and I think that’s why we’re a good hockey team,” Peters said. “It comes out intrinsically. I don’t have to get that out of them every night. If they’re going to play, they want to win. It’s the most competitive group I’ve been around in sport. I knew there wasn’t going to be a problem getting the juices flowing.”

The Chiefs responded from an early deficit and skated to a 3-1 win that gave them a perfect 3-0 record heading into the final on Sunday against the winner of Saturday’s semi-final between the Belleville Bulls (1-1) and Kitchener Rangers (1-1).

Alexandre Quesnel opened the scoring for Gatineau on a powerplay late in the first period but Drayson Bowman replied with a powerplay marker of his own early in the second period to tie the game. Mitch Wahl counted later in the period with what proved to be the game-winner and Levko Koper iced the win with an empty-netter in the last minute of the game.

“It was important for us to win the game,” said Bowman, who leads the tournament with five goals. “Going into Sunday we want to be ready and be sharp. We wanted to win the game for sure. We’ve put ourselves in the position that we want to be in. It’s perfect. It’s what we were looking for coming in.”

It was the second straight game that the Chiefs allowed just one goal.

“We take a lot of pride in playing good defence,” Peters said. “Our guys understand that the better we can play defensively then we can get on offence. We tried to score eight tonight to be honest. I thought their goaltender was outstanding. It’s not like we’re trying to play for 2-1 games. We’re trying to get to six as quick as we can – or seven or eight. But these teams are so good and the goaltenders are so good that unfortunately we haven’t been able to do that.”

The Olympiques finished the tournament without a win.

“We’re proud of the effort we had tonight from our guys,” said Gatineau coach Benoit Groulx. “But obviously that was not enough to win our first game. We’re very proud of our team. At the beginning of the year, no one would have thought that Gatineau would have been here. We came here and faced three very good hockey clubs. You’ve got to admit that these three teams are better than us.”

After dropping the tournament opener in overtime to the Kitchener Rangers on Friday and then a 6-3 loss to the Belleville Bulls on Monday, the Olympiques needed a win against Spokane to stay alive in the tournament.

“It’s not that we didn’t try; they were just a better team than us,” Giroux said. “Everybody in the room gave their all but in the end we couldn’t win. They played a great game. It was a tight game all night but at the end we couldn’t get that second goal.”

The Bulls and Rangers will meet again in a rematch of the OHL Championship Series that the Rangers won in seven games. First they will hook up in the round robin finale on Wednesday (7:00 p.m. Eastern on Rogers Sportsnet) before meeting again in the semi-final on Friday.

aaron.bell@chl.ca

Photo: Aaron Bell / CHL

Benoit Groulx said that his priorities have changed over the past few days.

The Gatineau Olympiques head coach is focused on keeping his team’s season alive after they lost their first two games in the MasterCard Memorial Cup. They need a win on Tuesday against the undefeated Spokane Chiefs (7:00 p.m. on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS) to get the opportunity to play in a tie-breaker game on Thursday.

That is what his team is focused on now.

“Tonight my thoughts are not about winning the tournament,” Groulx said on Monday. “It’s about playing on Thursday. We know the task we have in front of us. Tomorrow is the biggest challenge of our season. Losing to Kitchener or losing to Belleville is not something that we have shame about. We have to find a way to win the hockey game. We were very successful doing that a couple of weeks ago.

“We know that we are going to face a good team in Spokane, but at the same time, we don’t want our season to end. We need to regroup. We knew from the beginning of the tournament that we were facing good competition. We’re going to regroup and play better.”

Gatineau cruised through the QMJHL playoffs and won their third league championship in the past six years with a five-game win over the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies in the championship series.

They dropped a 5-4 overtime loss to the OHL champion Kitchener Rangers in the opening game of the tournament on Friday and last night lost 6-3 to the Belleville Bulls.

“Is our confidence hurt a bit? Probably,” Groulx said. “But at the same time in hockey you face challenges and we’ve got a big one in front of us. We want to win for pride.”

The Olympiques have been a resilient bunch during the tournament. In the opener against Kitchener, they responded to a 3-0 first period deficit to send the game to overtime and on Monday, they battled back from being two goals down in the first period to tie the game.

They know that they need a big comeback this time to keep their season alive.

“We’ve got to bounce back,” forward Michael Stinziani said after Monday’s loss. “We’ve got a lot of character in our room and I’m sure we’ll bounce back.”

The Chiefs opened the tournament with a 5-4 overtime win over the Bulls on Saturday and came back the next day to edge the Rangers 2-1 and set up their road to the finals. Gatineau’s loss on Monday clinched first place for the Chiefs and a ticket to the championship game on Sunday.

The Chiefs are clearly in the driver’s seat for winning their second Memorial Cup championship.

Four teams went 3-0 in the round robin part of the tournament in the past 10 years and all four of them went on to win the championship game. The team with the bye to the final game has won eight of the past 10 tournaments.

Spokane coach Bill Peters said that they are obviously happy to be in this position but they still have some work to do between now and the championship game on Sunday.

“We’ve played twice and won twice; what more can you ask for,” Peters said. “I think our team game will get better as the tournament rolls along. We expect to improve. By no stretch of the imagination have we been perfect or dominant.”

MasterCard Memorial Cup Notebook – Belleville forward Cory Tanaka didn’t come into the tournament as a high scorer, but he is second to Drayson Bowman for the tournament lead with three goals and four points. Bulls’ coach and GM George Burnett said during the playoffs that while Tanaka doesn’t score a lot of goals, he always comes through in big games...Anaheim Ducks’ star Corey Perry has been seen around Kitchener Memorial Auditorium this week. Perry, who won the Memorial Cup with the London Knights in 2005, has been watching his younger brother A.J., who plays for the Bulls...the CHL held a special governor’s reception on Sunday at a local restaurant and presented the Chynoweth family with a commemorative painting that captured many of the career highlights of former CHL President Ed Chynoweth, who passed away last month.

aaron.bell@chl.ca

Photo: Aaron Bell/CHL