Inside the CHL
The road to the 2009 MasterCard Memorial Cup is winding down to the final stretch and the Drummondville Voltigeurs are hoping it ends with a trip to Rimouski.
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The Voltigeurs hold a 3-1 lead over the Shawinigan Cataractes in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League Championship Series after a 5-4 win in Shawinigan on Tuesday night.
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The Voltigeurs, who finished first overall in the QMJHL standings this season with a 54-10-0-4 record for 112 points, hosted the first two games of the series and jumped out to a quick lead with a 2-1 win in the opener on Friday but the Cataractes evened the series with a 5-3 win on Saturday.
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The series resumes on Friday in Drummondville with the winner advancing to the 2009 MasterCard Memorial Cup, which starts next Friday in Rimouski.
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In the Western Hockey League, the Kelowna Rockets are making a serious bid to play in the Memorial Cup for the fourth time in the past seven years. The Rockets, who won the Memorial Cup on home ice in 2004, have jumped out to a 3-1 lead over the Calgary Hitmen in the WHL Championship Series.
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“They are a very good team with very good depth up front,” Rockets’ coach Ryan Huska said about the number one ranked Hitmen. “They’ve got guys on the back end that are probably the best defensive corps in the league. The only thing we asked our guys to do was try to make sure they were in shot lanes all the time and work on taking away time and space.”
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The Rockets, who won WHL championships in 2003 and 2005, skated to 3-1 and 5-2 wins in Calgary in the first two games. They won the third game 3-0 on the strength of a 21-save shutout performance by Mark Guggenberger on Monday.
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“We knew when we came in that we were a really good team,” said Rockets’ forward Mikael Backlund. “But we knew at the same time that the Hitmen were pretty good. But they’re not unbeatable so we just gave it to them. We have to have a lot of respect for them and not be looking too far forward.
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Game 5 is Friday in Calgary.
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In the Ontario Hockey League, the Windsor Spitfires jumped out to a 2-0 lead over the Brampton Battalion in the Rogers OHL Championship Series before the Battalion stormed back with a 4-2 win in Game 3 in Windsor on Monday.
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“I give our guys a lot of credit,” said Battalion coach Stan Butler. “They are a great hockey team. The last time we were in here obviously the results were embarrassing. We just said to our guys ‘our backs are against the wall but we can do two things – we can get farther into the wall or we can push back.’ I’ve got to give our guys credit to come into this rink and win a hockey game like we did.”
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Game 5 is Friday in Windsor with the Spitfires ahead 3-1 in the series.
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Photo Credit: David Connell