73's climb the mountain to exact revenge
A record sixth all-Ontario title for Essex
By Kevin Wickham - April 29, 2009
How do you spell revenge? How about with a broom, as in SWEEP!
That's exactly what happened in game four Saturday night in Alliston. The Essex 73's avenged their game seven overtime loss in last year's final against the same Alliston Hornets, by throttling the Hornets seven-zip and capturing their sixth Schmalz Cup title.
Oh my, how time can erase bitter memories. A year later, almost to the day, the 73's finally closed a 12-month open sore.
Even though they won't openly acknowledge the revenge factor, any athlete who has climbed the mountain and had his dream extinguished in a seven game final, in overtime, feels cut wide open by a surgeon's scalpel. This distasteful pill motivates those who believe in a second chance. It was undeniably the driving force behind Essex's dismantling of the reigning all-Ontario champions.
Essex defenceman Chris Warren, who had played in three previous Schmalz Cup finals and lost, felt beating their nemesis from last season made it all the sweeter.
"Redemption it feels good. It's about time," Warren said after playing in his last junior C game Saturday night. He is off to London to pursue his education.
"Last year was just a heartbreak, seventh game, overtime. The team that we played last year, their goaltending was the difference," Warren stated. "This year we had a much more powerful offence. We had people that would finish this year. If there was a loose puck around the net someone was putting it in. Last year there would be a loose puck or a scramble, maybe or maybe not we'd score. This year if they made a mistake we put it in.
As evidence of their domination this year, Essex didn't allow a goal for the last two games of the series. The 73's scored in 10 of the 12 periods in the series, Alliston in only three. The old axiom, Every period is a game within a game favoured the 73's as they lost only one period in the entire 12-periods of final round play.
Essex goalie Branden Robitaille played in eight Schmalz Cup games: two and a half against Dresden, one against Norwich and the final four against Alliston, allowing only seven goals in his 450 minutes of work, an out-of-body experience by the keeper, as he posted a .93 goals against average.
Backup keeper Chris Zelko, in relief of the injured Robitaille in the Norwich series, was rock solid in his four games against the Merchants. He allowed the 73's to remain confident they had a puckstopper capable of timely saves.
All season, 'The Robber' and Zelko were that final wall of frustration that every opponent had to deal with, but only if they were diligent enough and willing to pay the price, a phrase espoused by Belle River head coach Mark Seguin. Only three times in 62 games this season was the ledger in the red against the 73's. Fifty-nine other times black and white, with that vibrant orange, stood tallest.
The ability to penetrate Essex's choreographed trap became a very arduous and debilitating task. Every game Essex would arrive in ill humour, willing to sacrifice life and limb for the benefit of their bunker mates. This team was, simply put, a nasty piece of business big, strong, physical, aggressive, with a different hero every night.
In the finals, game one, Mike Roach was the catalyst, scoring twice. In game two, the line of Tanner Gallant, Dan Reaume and Roach netted the second and third goals, the latter the winner. In game three, 'The Rifle' showed off his tool kit with four points in a six-nothing whitewash. And in game four, 11 different point getters and five different scorers epitomized the balanced attack, led by captain Nick Mariani's four-point night, in disintegrating the Hornet nest, seven-zip.
Speaking of balance, what about the sextet of blueliners? Mike Dobric, Anthony Iaquinta, Kyle Deslippe, Chris Warren, Nick Diemer and Adam Corbett were so efficient the Big Three should hire them to rectify their solvency issues. Point: When the 73's needed to raise their game to another level because the end result was in question, Essex always knew the zero hour was upon them.
They had seen this movie before and they didn't like the first three episodes losing twice to Penetang and last season to Alliston in the All-Ontario finals. Make no mistake, they screamed with their work ethic, there was no possible way there would be a repeat number four.
A footnote to the series is this. Before the series started, most experts expected a six or seven game final. The Alliston Herald Newspaper headline blared "Epic rematch for Cup starts Friday." Unfortunately, epic became another four letter word-rout! The 73's game plan worked to perfection. Essex created numerous odd man scoring opportunities and frustrated the finesse, speed and skill of the Hornets all series long. In the end, the series touted as the fire wagon Hornets a la the Habs and Oilers, against the New Jersey Devils of Junior C hockey turned into a change of personalities Essex became the offensive juggernaut, and Alliston, claiming their identity had been stolen, wondered how nine days of 73's mayhem could undue eight months of Hornets domination. Obviously, watching Alliston hoist the Clarence 'Tubby' Schmalz Cup last year in their own barn was a negative touchstone that Essex turned into lemonade this year, returning the favour on Hornet ice in a four-game clinical masterpiece.
Alliston had come into the finals with a season record of 56-5; Essex was 55-2-1. Alliston were the highest scoring and best defensive team in the province this year. They had scored 310 goals and only allowed 71 in 42 Georgian Mid-Ontario league regular season games. They ran up another 100 goals in only 19 playoff games, winning 16 and losing only three. They were on a misson to repeat. They had the core of their championship team returning, 14 players. Their NHL coach, Darrin Shannon, had assembled an even more potent lineup. But the missing pieces from last year, especially star netminder Jon Porretta and defensive stalwart and inspirational leader and captain Robbie Rutledge, were gigantic deletions that this year's Hornets didn't replace. Alliston didn't get the required goaltending or the leadership to contend with a highly motivated Essex team. Hornet Captain and centre Kyle McDowell, who came into the final leading all Schmalz Cup point-getters with 21 points in 10 games, was virtually eliminated from being a factor. He was held to a pair of assists. Ryan Algar, the leading goal scorer in this year's playdowns, with nine, only potted one to go with one assist. When your two best players only score one goal in four games, and their play is indifferent, the four game sweep is almost expected. No other stat exemplifies the difference between this year and last year more so than the goal totals. And the magic number in both finals was 20, the same number of wins you need to raise the all-Ontario cup. Last year, Alliston outscored Essex 20-15. This year Essex sniped 20 to Alliston's four. That's a plus five for Essex and a minus 16 for Alliston. That's why the Essex 73's are the most decorated team in Junior C hockey history provincially. They are the epitome of the acronym T.E.A.M. The Essex Arena Memories!!!
