1996 MEMORIAL CUP
Brandon Wheat Kings, Guelph Storm, Peterborough Petes and Granby Predateurs
at Peterborough (Memorial Centre)
They had arguably the greatest tradition of any major junior hockey team in the Canadian Hockey League.
But the Peterborough Petes had never played host to the Memorial Cup tournament.
Their record-setting seventh tournament appearance would change all that. The Petes, a non-profit private company since 1967, would play host to the 1996 tournament in the 3,866-seat Memorial Centre, a square-cornered facility which first opened its doors in 1946.
Bench seating for 756 was added for the tournament. Throw in 240 standing room spots, and capacity was shown as 4,854.
"With all due respect to other past events -- which I admittedly wasn't involved in organizing -- I think this will probably be the biggest thing to ever hit Peterborough,” Bob Neville, chairman of the host committee, told The Canadian Press.
It's fair to say the city of 70,000 people was alive with hockey fever.
Prior to the tournament, Petes head coach Dave MacQueen visited a local school.
"I drive up to the school and the principal and the teachers were all out in the parking lot with 500 kids chanting ‘Go Petes, Go!' It's just a tremendous rush right now in this city,” MacQueen stated.
And therein lay the biggest battle for the teams involved in this event.
"If we can keep our players away from all the bands and concerts and other things going on, we'll be OK,” offered E.J. McGuire, the head coach of the Guelph Storm, the OHL's other entry. "They may be able to come back as 40-year-olds and enjoy the Memorial Cup. But not now.”
It would be hard to avoid the hype. After all, Memorial Cup week actually got under way on the morning of May 11 with a parade that featured some 30 floats and 100 vintage automobiles, along with all of the competing players.
The 1996 tournament would feature three of the CHL's four highest-rated teams -- the OHL's Guelph Storm was No. 2 in the last rankings, followed by the QMJHL-champion Granby Predateurs and the WHL-champion Brandon Wheat Kings. And it was the Wheat Kings, the only one of the four teams who was in the tournament for a second straight season, who had knocked off the No. 1 team, the Spokane Chiefs.
In fact, at one time or another, Guelph, Granby and Brandon were all ranked No. 1. The Petes came in ranked 10th.
"We're no more favoured than anybody else,” offered Brandon head coach Bob Lowes. "I hear Guelph has a good team, I hear Granby has a good team and I hear that Peterborough has a good team. How do you compare?”
How indeed?
Only the Petes, who had won the OHL title, weren't in the top four.
The Petes found out in midseason that they would be the host team for the 1996 tournament. The decision to award the tournament to Peterborough and its older facility drew considerable criticism, especially from the Ottawa area.
The folks of Peterborough chose to greet it all with good humor.
The Ottawa Sun was especially vitriolic, referring to Peterborough as a burg with only one bar worth visiting and few other attractions.
During Memorial Cup week, Zeke's, the bar to which The Sun referred, had a sign in its front window: "The Ottawa Sun says we're the only good bar in town.”
"We were truly and genuinely surprised,” Neville told Mike Sawatzky of The Brandon Sun. "We were hurt (but) we also recognized it was coming from one place.
"We knew Ottawa had the best arena (a refurbished Civic Centre) and the most money to offer.
"I think the attraction of Peterborough is we offer more than hockey games. (The Memorial Cup) has grown to be an event for fans. You want to make it a festival for the week where people can really enjoy themselves.”
All of the criticism didn't slow down the Petes in their quest for the crown.
At the time that Peterborough was named host city, the Petes came under fire. There were some folks out there who didn't think the club was competitive enough.
"Our guys got tremendous motivation off of some of the press that we weren't a good enough team to host the Cup, let alone a good enough city,” MacQueen stated. "We've got tremendous pride in that. We wanted to get in through the front door.”
They put together a 35-22-9 regular season to finish second in the East Division, four points behind the Ottawa 67's.
This Peterborough team started slowly and only got better as the season progressed.
Right-winger Cameron Mann led the Petes with 102 points, including 42 goals. Centre Rob Giffin totalled 88 points, with 34 of them goals, and centre Mike Williams had 20 goals and 77 points.
Mann went on a real tear in the playoffs. He led the league, with 43 points, including 27 goals, in 24 games. He smashed the franchise record of 19 goals set by Mike Ricci in the spring of 1989. Mann was a premier penalty-killer as well -- he had 11 shorthanded goals during the regular season and added seven more on the playoff trail.
Williams helped out with 41 postseason points, second in the league to Mann, including a playoff-high 29 assists.
And left-winger Dave Duerden, who hadn't missed a game in two seasons with the Petes, had 27 points, including 14 goals.
The defence featured captain Adrian Murray, first-team all-star Kevin Bolibruck and Mike Martone, all of whom knew the way around their zone.
And in goal the man was Zac Bierk, who was perhaps better known because of the accomplishments of three members of his family than for his goaltending.
David Bierk, Zac's father, is an internationally acclaimed artist. Sebastian Bach, Zac's brother, is the lead singer for Skid Row, a heavy metal band that was based in New Jersey. And sister Heather is a model.
It shouldn't be surprising then that Zac Bierk was not your conventional goaltender. He was big -- 6-foot-4 and 202 pounds -- and didn't do a whole lot by the book. A lot of hockey people talked about his going down every time he saw the puck; Bierk preferred to call it a butterfly style.
But, hey, it worked. He was 31-16-6 with a 3.17 GAA in the regular season. He followed that up by going 14-7 record with a 3.60 GAA in the playoffs. He had help, too, from former NHL goaltender Marv Edwards, who was one of the Petes' assistant coaches.
Still, the Petes were well off the pace set by Guelph. The Storm had been favoured to win everything the previous season but had lost out to the Detroit Jr. Red Wings in the championship final.
Guelph roared back in 1995-96 to finish on top of the Central Division with the OHL's best record -- 45-16-5.
Head coach Craig Hartsburg had left Guelph for the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks after the 1995-96 season. He was replaced by McGuire, a man with NHL experience who knew lots about the Petes as he had, at one time or another, worked with former Peterborough coaches Mike Keenan, Roger Neilson and Jacques Martin.
McGuire chose to come to Guelph as a head coach in an attempt to turn around a career in which he feared he was being branded as a career assistant coach. He had been an assistant for nine seasons, the last three with the NHL's Ottawa Senators.
"I was in Ottawa for three years, that's why I look 68,” McGuire said. He was actually 43.
Guelph general manager Mike Kelly was quick to credit McGuire with being worth 10 to 15 points in the standings.
No one played defence like the Storm which set an OHL record by allowing only 186 goals in the 66-game regular season.
The defence was keyed by goaltender Dan Cloutier, who joined the Storm after three season with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. He was with the Greyhounds at the 1993 Memorial Cup tournament, which they won, but didn't see any playing time. With the Storm, he went 11-7-0 with a 3.34 GAA.
Chris Hajt was the most highly touted of Guelph's defencemen. His father, Bill, was a stay-at-home type during his NHL career and Chris played the game the same way.
The offence, which totaled 297 goals, relied on balance -- there were 11 players with at least 30 points.
Guelph's top scorer was Herbert Vasiljevs. He had 67 points, including 34 goals, and was tied for 40th in the OHL's scoring derby.
Left-winger Jamie Wright had 66 points, including 30 goals, and centre Jeff Williams scored 15 times and set up another 49.
Williams caught fire in the OHL playoffs, scoring 13 goals and setting up 15 others. His 28 points left him fourth in the postseason scoring race.
Peterborough opened the playoffs -- all series were best-of-seven -- by ousting the Kingston Frontenacs in six games, both losses coming in overtime.
The Petes moved into a quarterfinal series where they took out the Sarnia Sting in six games. Only one game went into overtime -- the Petes won Game 5, 7-6.
Peterborough met Detroit in one semifinal series and eliminated the Jr. Red Wings in five games, winning two of them in overtime.
Meanwhile, the Storm had received a first-round bye and then eliminated the Niagara Falls Thunder in five games. (Shortly thereafter, the Thunder announced it was relocating to Erie, Pa.)
In the other semifinal series, Guelph went five games in ousting the Belleville Bulls.
The Petes and Storm would meet in the OHL's championship final and, oh, what a series this would be.
It went the full seven games and, strangely enough, the visiting team won each of the seven games.
And Game 7 needed overtime before it was decided -- the Petes winning 8-7 in Guelph. In fact, two of the games went to overtime, meaning Peterborough played in seven postseason OT games.
The winning goal was scored by Martone, one of those stay-at-home defencemen. It was his second overtime goal of the series and seventh goal of the postseason.
"We feel great,” he said. "That's the way we wanted to do it -- going in the front door.
"None of this back door stuff for us; we're going in the front door.
Prior to Game 5 on May 2, which the Petes won 5-3 in Guelph, MacQueen's wife, Nancy, gave birth to their third child, son Dylan.
"It might have been the best day of my life,” said MacQueen, who was given the game puck after Game 5 and said he would put it in his son's crib.
"I gave the boys a pretty emotional speech before the game,” MacQueen said. "A lot of people said it would be a miracle if we advanced in the playoffs. That it would be a miracle if we beat Guelph. I told the players I witnessed a miracle with the birth of my son and it would be no miracle to beat Guelph.”
A few days later, on May 13, the Wheat Kings added a new member to their family when Lowes' wife, Shelley, gave birth to Robert Joseph, their third child and first son. They named him after Bob's father, who died in 1990 with his son's coaching career in its infancy. In fact, Bob was coaching the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's Nipawin Hawks and was boarding a bus to the Centennial Cup when he was informed of his father's death.
The night his son was born, Lowes was named the CHL's coach of the year. In an emotional acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to his father.
In Brandon, the Wheat Kings had won their first WHL championship since 1978-79. That team, featuring the high-powered line of Ray Allison, Laurie Boschman and Brian Propp, along with defenceman Brad McCrimmon, lost in the tournament final, dropping a 2-1 overtime decision to the Petes in the Verdun, Que., Auditorium.
This edition of the Wheat Kings led the WHL with 369 goals, but didn't have the firepower of the 1979 champions. Still, the 1995-96 Wheat Kings offered much better balance.
Brandon had the WHL's best regular-season record (52-19-1) and its 105 points were one more than Spokane accumulated.
Left-winger Mike Leclerc, a midseason acquisition from the Prince George Cougars during the 1994-95 season, was Brandon's best offensive player. He totaled 111 points, including 58 goals, good for seventh spot in the scoring race.
Peter Schaefer, another left winger, was right there, too, with 108 points, including 47 goals.
The Wheat Kings got an early-season break when centre Cory Cyrenne, a native of Winnipeg, left Colorado College and headed for Brandon. He would scored 38 goals and set up 59 others in his rookie season.
Brandon also got a big lift when general manager Kelly McCrimmon swung a deal with the Moose Jaw Warriors for goaltender Jody Lehman.
Lehman had asked to be dealt from Moose Jaw but there weren't any early takers. In fact, he was out of the WHL for about a month before the Wheat Kings came calling.
He got into 29 games with Brandon, going 22-5-0 with a 2.49 GAA.
The backup was Brian Elder, who was 23-9-1 with a 3.46 GAA but was plagued by knee woes in the latter half of the season.
Some observers would tell you that the key to the Wheat Kings was on defence, where they surrendered 231 goals, the second-lowest figure in the league.
Defenceman Justin Kurtz, easily the most under-rated player on the team, had 74 points in 53 games while Wade Redden picked up 54 points in 51 games. And the Wheat Kings got amazing play out of two 16-year-olds -- Daniel Tetrault and Burke Henry.
The Wheat Kings opened the postseason by taking a best-of-seven series from the Saskatoon Blades in four games. Brandon followed that up by sweeping the Red Deer Rebels in four games, and then took out the Prince Albert Raiders in six games in the East Division final.
The championship final featured the WHL's two best teams -- Brandon and Spokane -- and the Wheat Kings won it in five games.
Brandon played 19 playoff games and lost just three of them. Right-winger Bobby Brown, who had 88 points in 59 regular-season games, was named the playoff MVP. He had 27 points, including 14 goals, in 19 games.
LeClerc had 25 playoff points and left-winger Chris Dingman, the biggest of the Wheat Kings at 6-foot-4 and 235-pounds, played the best hockey of his career and wound up with 23 points, including 11 goals. Schafer also had 23 points, while Cyrenne finished with 20.
And Lehman was easily the best goaltender in the playoffs. He played all 19 games and finished with a 2.59 GAA, shutting out the Chiefs 3-0 in Spokane in the title-clinching game.
This Wheat Kings team would be prepared -- you could count on that.
In the WHL, teams take individual 12-minute pregame warmups during which they use the entire ice surface. In the Memorial Cup, which would be played under OHL rules, teams warmed up together, each using half the ice surface, for 20 minutes.
So, before leaving for Peterborough, the Wheat Kings practised their pregame routine to get used to using only half the ice.
"It's the way we have to get ready for a game,” assistant coach Mark Johnston said. "We have to prepare as effectively as we can.”
Meanwhile, in Granby, a couple of faces familiar to the Memorial Cup scene were pushing the Predateurs to their first QMJHL title.
Jean-Claude Morrissette was one of six brothers who owned the QMJHL's Laval Titan, who played host to the 1994 tournament. And it was during that tournament when Morrissette, the Titan's general manager, found himself on the hotseat after referee Luc Lachapelle was assaulted in a parking lot after the Titan had lost 5-4 to the Kamloops Blazers.
At the time, the Titan were fined $10,000 and Morrissette was, among other things, suspended from all Canadian Hockey League activity, including the Memorial Cup, for three years, or through the completion of the 1997 event. The QMJHL then suspended Morrissette through the 1994-95 season, but he was reinstated halfway through that season.
He and five of the brothers sold the Titan to another brother, Leo-Guy, and Jean-Claude laid low for a bit.
Prior to the 1995-96 season, Morrissette purchased the Granby franchise, brought in younger brother Georges as general manager and hired Michel Therrien to coach the Predateurs. Therrien was no stranger to the Memorial Cup, having been an assistant with Laval in 1990 and head coach in 1993 and '94.
There was good news on the eve of the 1996 tournament when CHL president Ed Chynoweth announced that the Memorial Cup's discipline committee had lifted Morrissette's suspension.
"(The QMJHL) really felt we'd be doing them a favour if we could take a serious look at it,” Chynoweth said. "If we were soft, we were soft. We took into consideration that he's been pretty clean and now we're giving him an opportunity to see whether it's going to continue.”
Morrissette was pleased.
"I did something wrong and I paid very dearly for it,” he told The Brandon Sun. "As far as my reputation and everything goes, I suffered greatly. But I felt I was treated justly.”
Therrien, for one, felt this would give his club a boost.
"We are family and Jean-Claude Morrissette is part of our family,” Therrien said. "We're more than happy to have J.C. back.”
The Predateurs enjoyed quite a season.
Along the way, they added seven players who would play an important role. In fact, a case could be made that the following seven players formed the guts of this team.
1. They added Jimmy Drolet, a veteran defenceman, from the St. Hyacinthe Laser.
2. They also dealt with the Laser for right-winger Georges Laraque, a tough guy with some offensive touch.
3-4-5. Left-winger Daniel Goneau, right-winger Jean-Francois Brunelle and defenceman Francis Bouillon were acquired in midseason from Laval.
6-7. In mid-January, they picked up defenceman Jason Doig and centre Benoit Gratton from Laval.
"We got five kids from Laval and I knew what I was getting,” Therrien said.
The Predateurs finished the regular season at 56-12-2, their 114 points leaving them eight points ahead of the Hull Olympiques in the Lebel Division.
They scored 389 goals, so came into Peterborough with the reputation as a highly offensive team.
Their roster included four 100-point men, led by 5-foot-6 centre Martin Chouinard, whose 134 points included 52 goals.
Right-winger Xavier Delisle, a second-team all-star, totalled 120 points, including 45 goals.
Gratton was described by some as the "heart and soul” of the Predateurs. He wasn't bad on offence, either, as his 118 points, including 85 assists, would prove.
Goneau, a first-team all-star, had 105 points, including 51 goals, and also had Memorial Cup experience. He was with Laval in 1993 and 1994, totaling five goals and six assists in 10 games.
But the Predateurs, a big and physical team, could play defence, too, witness their 191 goals-against over 72 regular-season games.
They were solid in goal, with first-team all-star Frederic Deschenes and Frederic Henry, both of whom had already been drafted by NHL teams.
Deschenes, now in his third season with Granby, was taken by the Detroit Red Wings in the fifth round of the 1994 draft. He was 34-7-0 with a 2.63 regular-season GAA and then went 9-2 with a 2.72 GAA in the playoffs.
Henry, 19-5-2 with a 2.71 GAA in the regular season, went to the New Jersey Devils in 1995's eighth round.
This team depended a whole lot on Doig, a defenceman they called The General. In three QMJHL seasons, he had played for St. Jean, Laval and now Granby. He was big -- 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds -- and talented, and had spent 15 games with the NHL's Winnipeg Jets. In 29 games with Granby, he had 43 points.
The leader of Granby's physical game was Laraque, a 6-foot-2, 235-pound banger, who had 20 goals, 44 points and 260 penalty minutes.
Bouillon, who had also appeared in two Memorial Cup tournaments with Laval, was a second-team all-star.
The QMJHL opened its playoffs with a round-robin series that included the top six teams from each division. Granby went 5-1 in the Robert Lebel Division round-robin -- scoring 39 goals and allowing only 14 -- and moved into a best-of-seven quarterfinal against St. Hyacinthe. The Predateurs prevailed in five games, outscoring the Laser 32-7.
Granby came up against Chicoutimi in one semifinal and ousted the Sagueneens in five games. The Predateurs won the fifth game 12-1 and outscored the Sagueneens 38-17 overall.
That put Granby into the championship final against the Beauport Harfangs.
The series lasted five games, with the Predateurs winning the last game 4-3 and outscoring the Harfangs 24-16 in the series.
(Lachapelle refereed three of Granby's playoff games with the Predateurs winning each of them.)
Doig was selected as the most valuable player of the playoffs -- he had 32 points in 20 games -- in which the Predateurs finished with a 17-4 record.
Delisle led the postseason in assists (27) and points (40), just ahead of Gratton who had 26 assists and 39 points.
Centre David Brosseau caught fire in the playoffs, with 34 points, including 22 goals, in 22 games, while Goneau helped out with 33 points. Philippe Audet and Chouinard each had 30 points.
Henry posted a 2.08 GAA in 12 games; Deschenes, who would be the No. 1 guy in the Memorial Cup, went 2.98 in 14 games.
And the Predateurs, as the QMJHL representative, would be haunted by the fact that a Quebec-based team hadn't won the Memorial Cup since 1971 when Guy Lafleur led the Quebec Remparts to the title.
"I can't change the past,” Therrien told Sawatzky. "We've got a lot of pressure from the media in Quebec but we were able to deal with pressure all year.
"I know one thing . . . we're going to be the underdog here.
Frank Bonello, the top bird dog with the NHL's Central Scouting Service, said Granby "is about the best team Quebec has sent in recent years.”
The Predateurs opened with a bang, hammering Guelph 8-0 on May 11, with Deschenes turning aside 23 shots.
"I think we took a lot of doubts out of some people's minds,” Doig, who scored twice, told Bruce Cheadle of The Canadian Press. "They were questioning our defence. We wanted to prove right from the start our goalies are as good as any in this tournament.”
Therrien had his own theory.
"Lots of times with Quebec teams they get so impressed by the OHL and the Western Hockey League that they forget the recipe that got them here,” he said. "There was not any message in our game. I just asked our players to play the way they did all season.”
This was the worst loss for an OHL team since May 10, 1974, in Calgary, when the Quebec Remparts whipped the St. Catharines Black Hawks 11-3. It was also the first time a QMJHL team had shut out an opponent from another province in Memorial Cup play since the Cornwall Royals, an Ontario-based team that played in the QMJHL, blanked the Edmonton Oil Kings 5-0 on May 12, 1972, in Ottawa.
"We thought we were ready,” McGuire said. "A lot of credit goes to Granby for putting it to us. Our team didn't come out with a lot of energy. That's a mystery to me.”
Delisle and Goneau gave Granby a 2-0 lead before the game was four minutes old and the Predateurs were never headed as they skated to period leads of 2-0 and 6-0.
Audet totalled a goal and four assists, with Goneau scoring twice and singles coming from Delisle, Brunelle and Brosseau.
McGuire, with a PhD in psychology on his wall, knew he had his work cut out for him.
"It's my job,” he said, "to re-energize their enthusiasm level.”
He had to get it done in a hurry because the Storm was on the ice the following afternoon -- May 12 -- against Brandon.
And the Wheat Kings skated to a 2-1 victory before 4,862 fans.
Defenceman Ryan Risidore gave Guelph fans some hope when he opened the scoring at 4:36 of the first period.
But before the period was out, Brandon got goals from Darren Van Oene (8:24) and Dorian Anneck (11:01).
The teams then played through two scoreless, tight-checking periods.
Cloutier, who had been peppered with 41 Granby shots the previous day, was sharp against Brandon as he turned aside 31 shots, five more than Lehman.
"We have a chance to take this thing all the way,” Anneck, a right winger, said. "All we have to do is keep working hard.”
McGuire felt he had a tired hockey team on his hands.
"The lack of scoring chances might have had a little bit to do with fatigue,” he stated. "We played on adrenalin, but that's not an excuse. The Brandon Wheat Kings outplayed us for long stretches.”
In the Brandon room, Lowes admitted this wasn't a terribly exciting game.
"Guelph didn't set an OHL goals-against record for nothing,” he said. "They have a good system, but we had a territorial advantage. We had more puck possession and, because of that, it turned into a clutch-and-grab game.”
The Storm now was 0-2 and some people were writing it off.
"We're still a member of this tournament,” McGuire said. "We're determined to win the only game we have left. If we win that, we'll let the numerical people figure it out.”
That night, before a crowd announced at 4,862, Peterborough doubled Granby 6-3.
(Attendance for the tournament's first game wasn't announced, but tournament organizers revealed on May 14 that paid attendance for the first three games was 13,287. Factor in the announced attendance of 4,862 for Games 2 and 3, and that leaves Game 1 attendance at 3,563, which doesn't sound quite right. Old building . . . limited seating . . . you figure it out.)
Mike Williams gave Peterborough a 1-0 lead with a shorthanded goal at 9:06 of the opening period.
Audet pulled Granby even at 2:16 of the second, only to have Peterborough come back with two straight goals -- by Duerden at 6:09 on a power play and Mann at 8:52.
The crowd thought the rout was on, but the Predateurs tied it before the period ended when Doig got his third goal in five periods at 10:10 and Gratton added another at 14:44.
But that would be it for the Predateurs, who scored all their goals with the man advantage.
The Petes put it away with third-period goals by Mann, Steve Hogg and Duerden.
"We didn't put the puck in the net when we had our chances,” said Therrien, who pointed to the Petes' fourth goal, by Mann, as the straw that broke the Predateurs' backs.
Peterborough got a big game out of Bierk, who stopped 38 shots, five more than Deschenes.
"When I'm playing well I'm in position and a lot of pucks hit me,” Bierk said. "And you have to have some luck, too.”
One other note from that game: It was MacQueen's 100th victory as head coach of the Petes.
The tournament's fourth game, on May 14, would feature Peterborough and Brandon, the first time these teams had met since May 13, 1979, when the Petes beat the Wheat Kings 2-1 in overtime in the championship game.
Brandon and Peterborough had split two round-robin games in 1979, both of them one-goal games and the one won by the Petes going to overtime.
This time, it was the Wheat Kings winning in overtime. Schaefer, a product of Yellow Grass, Sask., scored the winner at 3:58 of overtime in front of 4,429 fans.
The victory clinched at least a semifinal berth for Brandon.
The winning goal came off a play that featured Schaefer, Dingman and Kelly Smart. Dingman grabbed the puck in the Brandon zone and lugged it through the neutral zone. He tossed the puck to Smart, who fed Schaefer as he was busting down the left side.
"(Dingman) was on his backhand,” Schaefer told The Brandon Sun. "He raised it and it landed flat on Smartie's stick. Smartie gave me the exact same pass over their defender's stick and it landed flat. I had a great opportunity to score and I put it in the top corner.”
Dingman scored the game's first goal, giving Brandon a 1-0 first-period lead.
Williams and Scott Barney, a 6-foot-4 17-year-old centre, scored in the first six minutes of the second period to give the Petes a 2-1 edge.
Redden tied it for Brandon just 45 seconds after Barney's goal.
The Wheat Kings had outshot the Petes 36-20 through two periods and only Bierk kept Brandon from holding the lead.
Bierk made 45 saves as he was again the Petes' best player.
"(Bierk) gave us a chance to win the hockey game that I didn't feel we deserved to win,” MacQueen said. "(The Wheat Kings) do a lot of the little things really well. They basically controlled the neutral zone and when they did cycle the puck we had to be very patient because their size and strength along the wall was very impressive.”
Dingman said: "I don't thing we ever got frustrated. We controlled the game the way we wanted . . . It was as good as we cycled it in a while.”
The Wheat Kings were back on the ice less than 24 hours later as they met the Predateurs on May 15.
And while the Predateurs had lots of jump, the Wheat Kings were a step behind as they dropped a 3-1 decision before 4,429 fans.
"My hat's off to Granby. I think they made us panic a few times based on how hard they worked,” Lowes said. "They deserve to be in the final.”
All the scoring was done in the first period.
The Predateurs grabbed a 2-0 lead on goals by Brosseau (3:57) and Delisle (8:20). Brown, with his first goal in two Memorial Cup tournaments, got Brandon on the board at 12:43 with the man advantage. And Audet got what turned out to be the game's final goal at 19:23.
"Fatigue might have been a factor,” Brown said. "There was a quick turnaround time but, at this point in the season, we can't use that as an excuse. In the league final with Spokane, three of those games were back-to-back.”
The individual star was Lehman, who kicked out 42 shots. By game's end, it was all he could do to get back to his feet after going down.
Both teams finished the round-robin with 2-1 records, but while Brandon would play in the semifinal game, the Predateurs were awfully close to a spot in the final.
"We came here with the big pressure because it has been 25 years,” Delisle said of the Memorial Cup drought in Quebec. "But we can win the Cup. We will win the Cup.”
There was on game left in the round-robin -- Peterborough vs. Guelph -- and the Petes would have to win handily to deny Granby the bye into the final.
On May 16, after Bierk's Skid Row brother, Sebastian Bach, sang O Canada, the Petes got it on with the Storm.
(The anthem is certain to go down in history as one of the most unique moments this tournament has seen. As TSN play-by-play man Paul Romanuk said: "Now that is an anthem.'' Upon finishing the anthem, Bach yelled: "Be loud! Be proud!”)
And, in the end, Peterborough posted a 2-1 victory before a crowd that was again announced as being 4,429 strong.
That meant the Storm went home with an 0-3 record, one of only three OHL teams to go winless in a Memorial Cup tournament. The others? The North Bay Centennials, who were 0-3 in 1994 in Laval, and the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, who were 0-3 in Quebec City in 1991.
But Guelph suffered the ignominy of setting a tournament record for fewest goals scored. The Storm scored only two goals in the three games, breaking the record of four goals set by Edmonton in 1972 in Ottawa. The Oil Kings played two games in the '72 tournament.
"Our inability to finish sometimes reared up and bit us during the year,” McGuire said.
After a scoreless first period, Guelph opened the scoring when Williams scored a power-play goal at 1:50.
The Petes then struck for two goals 27 seconds apart -- Corey Crocker at 4:05 and Mann at 4:32 -- and that was it for goals in this one.
Mann's goal was his 30th of this postseason.
The star, however, was Bierk. He finished with 30 saves, including 17 in the first period when the Storm played its best 20 minutes of the tournament.
The Petes' victory allowed Granby to clinch first place and set up a Peterborough-Brandon semifinal on May 18.
"It'll be a great game,” said McGuire. "I mean, bring a lunch, there might be overtime.”
For the fourth straight year, the host team qualified for the final when the Petes beat the Wheat Kings 4-3 before -- again -- 4,429 fans.
That was Peterborough's 19th Memorial Cup tournament game victory, tying the record held by Kamloops.
Brandon jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead, getting a shorthanded goal from Schaefer at 6:42 and a power-play score from Brown at 9:30.
"We always do things the hard way,” said MacQueen. "I just went in and told them it only takes two shots to get right back in the game.”
The Petes came back with the game's next four goals, scoring two in each of the last two periods.
Bolibruck got the home team on the board at 3:57 while the Petes had the man advantage. Jason MacMillan tied it at 14:53, scoring just moments after a Brandon penalty expired.
And, at 7:39 of the third period, perhaps the most unlikely player of them all, defenceman Andy Johnson, gave the Petes the lead. It was the first goal of the 1995-96 season for the 18-year-old first-year player from Fredericton, N.S.
"I don't usually do that a whole lot,” Johnson said of his journey to the front of the Brandon net. "I was there and the puck was lying there so I just banged at it.”
And broke Brandon's heart in the process.
"They hang in there very well; they're a very resilient group,” offered Lowes of the Petes. "It was anybody's game in the third and they found a way to net that third goal.”
Mann provided some insurance at 17:34 before Leclerc scored for Brandon with Lehman on the bench for an extra attacker.
In the end, Mann's goal -- on his second breakaway in a matter of minutes -- was the game-winner, his record-tying third of the tournament. Two players scored three winners each in the 1991 tournament -- Zac Boyer of Kamloops and Rick Kowalsky of Sault Ste. Marie.
"I tried to go top shelf on the first one and their goalie stopped me,” Mann said. "I thought if I had another chance, I'd stop and cut back to the forehand.”
For the second straight year, Brandon lost out to an OHL team in the semifinal game. A year earlier, the Detroit Jr. Red Wings had beaten the Wheat Kings, 2-1.
"This year it probably hurts more,” Lowes said.
Dingman, the team captain, offered: "It's tough to pinpoint. It doesn't matter. We just lost. It hurts.”
The game was hampered by poor ice conditions and fog patches, brought on by warm, humid weather. Things would only get worse the next day.
And so it was down to this -- Granby, which hadn't played since May 15, and Peterborough, which would play its third game in four days, would meet in the final on May 19.
"We have to use our speed and be physical,” Therrien said. "They're going to be tired.”
MacQueen agreed: "The whole key is if we can recover physically quick enough in order to compete with their speed.”
In the end, the Petes didn't get any help from playing at home. That's because the weather conditions outside resulted in horrid conditions inside.
The final, played in front of, yes, 4,429 fans, was stopped three times in the second period and on 10 occasions in the third to allow players to skate around the ice surface in an attempt to disperse the fog.
"It was dangerous,” Therrien said.
Bierk admitted to having his problems with the conditions.
"I couldn't see anything,” he said. "But more than that, what was worse for me, was there was so much water in my crease that every time I went down on my knees, I'd end up on my back or my side because I would just slide.
"But I don't want to make any excuses. Deschenes found a way to stop everything.”
Humidity meant the plexiglass surrounding the ice surface was coated with water, thus fans in the first few rows of seats had problems seeing.
Chances are they wouldn't have liked what they would have seen anyway.
The Predateurs, getting a tournament record second shutout from Deschenes, whipped the Petes 4-0, bringing the Memorial Cup to Quebec for the first time since 1971.
As the Predateurs stood at centre ice, yelling "Respect! Respect! Respect!” and waving the Quebec flag, some fans chose to boo the flag.
The booing upset Doig.
"That's kind of disappointing to see,” he said. "I think we really deserved to win it. The best team won. And I don't think they have the right to boo us.”
Therrien added: "The guys are proud to come from Quebec, just as a lot of people are proud to be from where they come from.
"We didn't come here to make politics. We came to play hockey.”
Which is exactly what they did.
After a scoreless first period, Audet got Granby rolling with a power-play score at 6:21 of the second period.
Chouinard, Brosseau and Goneau wrapped it up with third-period goals.
The only blemish on the Granby victory was an injury to his left knee suffered by Delisle in a knee-to-knee collision with Martone, who was uninjured.
As for the playing conditions, Goneau said: "It was just awful. We didn't like it; they didn't like it.”
Mann was named the tournament's most valuable player.
"It's a learning experience,” he said. "This is the first time we've been here. We've got to be happy to make it this far.”
The sportsmanship award went to Mike Williams, Mann's linemate. Deschenes was selected the top goaltender.
Audet led the tournament in points with eight and tied with Mann for the lead in goals, with four each. Williams and Gratton each had five assists.
The all-star team comprised Deschenes, Doig and Redden on defence, and Mann, Delisle and Audet on the forward line.
Deschenes became the first goaltender to post two shutouts in one tournament and the first to put up a shutout in the final. His four-game GAA of 1.75 was just off the record of 1.68 held by Trevor Kidd (Spokane, 1991) and Richard Brodeur (Cornwall, 1972).
"This was not only a good win for Quebec,” Jean-Claude Morrissette said, "it was a good win for Canada.
"Now we can once again say Canada has three outstanding junior leagues.”
What did it mean to the Granby players?
"It was 25 years,” Bouillon said. "When I took the trophy in my arms, I saw Guy Lafleur right away. I said to myself, ‘This is it, it's not a dream any more.' ”
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(This is the final chapter in the history of the Memorial Cup, only because I completed the project after the 1996 tournament. I hope you have enjoyed it. Thanks to all who have e-mailed me about the series.)