NEUGSIE’S CENTENNIAL CUP WRAP FOR WILLY’S TAPHOUSE

By: Jamie Neugebauer
Voice of the ND Hounds/DUBNetwork.ca MJ Warriors Beat Writer

1. Who We Thought They Were: Rod, and others, asked me what the best match-up at the recently-completed Centennial Cup was, and my joke answer (not really) was “Brooks split-squad game”? The Albert Junior Hockey League champ Bandits bashed their way to the Centennial Cup title many – including myself – were willing to hand them before the event in Estevan started. Brooks won the championship game over the Ontario Junior champion Pickering Panthers 4-1 on May 29, in a contest in which they scored four—straight goals after the Panthers took the early lead, but could not hold the fort. Coach Ryan Papaioannou’s men scored 44 goals and gave up 10 over the six games, and rarely looked to break a sweat. They had 17 Division I commitments on their roster, and routinely healthy scratched one because seven of them are defencemen! I could go on and on about this team, built with zero Major Junior experience, and guys from Junior B, plucked from all over, mixed with young stars and grizzled vets, and overall, WHAT. A. TEAM. Fun to watch, and deserve their dominance. Yes, I, like you, wish they could face the British Columbia Hockey League champion Penticton Vees, but it’s not going to happen. The BCHL should have been there, but you’ve probably heard that story already.
2. Dom: I spoke afterward (and during the tournament on several occasions) to the one kid I know on Brooks, Arizona State committed defenceman Dom Campione, and asked him if he found it a little odd to be at a “national championship” knowing his team was miles better than anyone else? He kind of shrugged, concerning the competition, and then just reiterated how much of a blast he and his teammates had. Maybe it was a stupid question, but I guess my head is full of questions of all kinds! Great kid, whom I understand will be back in Brooks next year, and the sky is the limit for his skill level after he spent the year playing it safe and mature on the blue line. Dom made his name at Notre Dame U18s with his incredible skating, and an almost-reckless-yet-often-successful aggressiveness as a defenceman, and for him to adapt his game to get in this line-up is awesome. I think he’ll look to get a little bit back to that wow factor that got him to where he is next season, which is great news for Bandits fans!
3. The Pick Show: I was, as I wrote last week, gratified to see the Pickering Panthers, a team from my old stomping grounds in the OJHL, do so well. Coach Rob Pearson, his Lieutenant Scotty Nicholson, and his staff clearly did an awesome job, and navigated a tough route that included a quarterfinal against Flin Flon, a semi against a high-flying, rested Dauphin squad, and then a showdown with the mighty Bandits. I got to spend some solid time with my buddy Frank Littlejohn and his wife, whose son Lucas is an outstanding 2004-born defenceman on the Panthers, and in general, the Pickering organization just oozes with class all over it! I really enjoyed following them, and on the air dubbed them the ‘Cardiac Cats’ in honour of their late-rallying tendencies. They were a veteran team with a lot of work to rebuild for next year, but I wouldn’t put it past Pearson and Nicholson to build another monster.
4. A Word For Willy: I love looking closely at the goalies, and concerning the ones I know personally at the event, the one I liked the most did not even make the quarterfinal. William Desmarais of the Ottawa Jr. Senators was not big at maybe 5’9”, but lightning-fast, super composed, and was an all-around rock for his club. Granted they were without their best forward for most of the event, captain and Maine commit Thomas Freel, but either way, they simply could not back up their regularly solid performances with enough offence. I thought they played really well as a team and gave up the fourth-fewest goals-against-per-game (enter Desmarais), but only the Soo and Red Lake scored less, and so it was kind of a hard-luck case for their incredible goaltender. I recommended him to one USports coach I spoke to without any reservation.
5. The Estevan Story: What to say about the Bruins? Well, the city of Estevan did an unreal job putting on a first-class event, everyone was incredibly kind (especially Pistol Pete Seregella), and from what I hear Hockey Canada is equally impressed. The team struggled it has to be said, but I know the town hungry for a winner will forever be grateful to this great team, that gave it its first SJHL championship since 1999. I spoke to Estevan coach Jason Tatarnic a few times and agreed that they are in pretty great shape for next year too, as not only do they have a lot of talent back but recruiting after a championship is probably the easiest time to recruit (maybe except recruiting for a Centennial Cup year)…At any rate, Tatarnic and his staff proved they have connections all over Canada, so I expect the Bruins will be right back at ‘er in 2022-23.
6. The Flin Flon Story: Really could have gone either way between Flin Flon and Pickering in their quarterfinal, and from Cal Schell, on out this group more-than represented their town and the league extremely well. Everyone did their video, and other teams did a pretty solid job on the heretofore at-times unstoppable Drew Kuzma-Zack Smith-Jaeden Mercier line, and so Jacob Vockler and his unit did a more-than-decent job filling that offensive void. Cal Schell was great again, and they just learned the way the Centennial Cup is for everyone but Brooks – the margins of error are tiny. Pickering rallied from down two in both games against SJ teams, and in both of its playoff games (hence the Cardiac Cats), so I guess the Bombers were in the way of destiny? Either way, the SJHL’s top Dman Xavier Lapointe was named the tournament’s best defenceman as well, and deservedly so, and there is just so much to build on for Mike Reagan moving forward. Remember this was the SJ’s No. 5 seed!? Wild.
7. Draft Deets!: To turn the page on the SJHL season, the draft is set for June 10, and it looks like I’ll be involved somehow! The format is interesting: six rounds of the heretofore undrafted 2006 birth years, and then two rounds of the 2007s, and I generally love the idea of focussing the draft on the 15-year-olds, who have had a year of U18 for the most part! Rod’s buddies at IKS Media are involved and did an incredible job streaming the Centennial Cup for Hockey Canada, I should add, so you know it’s going to be great! More things to consider about the draft: players from the zones of the 12 SJHL franchises are auto-protected for their clubs, so really there will be a lot of kids taken from teams that have Western Hockey League teams! Only Saskatchewan kids are taken, and it is an extra-interesting one in that the top kids available don’t usually get picked because they are usually locked to end up in the WHL! Should be interesting. I and Rory McGouran saw a lot of 06s and 07s last summer at a showcase event we broadcasted, so it’ll be interesting to go back into some of that prep and update it!
8. Oil Kings Crush: I said ALL YEAR that the Edmonton Oil Kings wouldn’t be touched in the ‘Dub’, and so far, they haven’t. They cruised past a loaded-but-young Winnipeg ICE team in the last round, and will face a defence-first juggernaut in the Seattle Thunderbirds in the final; a team whom I thought were underdogs against Kamloops. They have so many weapons, I still call them my Memorial Cup favourites!
9. What To Think?: I don’t know what to think about the Blue Jays. Yeah, they are winning a lot these days, but they are winning so many one-run games, and not playing great, and usually, that balances itself out. When Vladdy is hitting, Bo isn’t. And vice versa. When Teoscar Hernandez is hitting, Lourdes Gourriel Jr. isn’t. And vice versa. I still don’t know what to think of them, except that it’s still too early to have a concrete thought!
10. Thank You!: This will be the last Neugsie Around the Rinks column of the foreseeable future, so I’d like to thank you all for reading, and Rod for having me on the site! I also want to thank my column presented by Willy’s Taphouse, the best pizza on planet earth! Hope you enjoyed it this year!

(Follow Jamie on Twitter at @Neugsie)

(Photo: Wanda Harron Photography)