It isn't often that professional hockey teams fold in the middle of a season, but the team with the jersey to the left - the UHL's Mohawk Valley Prowlers - were one of the few pro teams who did fold midway through their campaign. The team only lasted in Utica, New York from 1998 to 2001, so it's not like they had a massive impact on the community in their short existence. However, there are a few notes to examine when it comes to the Prowlers calling Utica home for parts of three seasons. Let's look at the Prowlers announcing their financial issues and what happened from there.
According to a report from The Associated Press on February 8, 2001, the Prowlers sought bankruptcy protection, depending on who you believe, sometime between Friday, February 2 through Tuesday, February 6 after telling a judge that the team was "spending more than 40 percent than it takes in". Citing total assets of $1.7 million and liabilities of $3.94 million, it's not hard to see why the team was suffering as it was spending $1.40 for every dollar made.
With the announcement, the players on the Prowlers' roster voted to strike in knowing that they likely weren't going to be paid until the bankruptcy matter was resolved. Rumours of missed salary payments totalling $40,000 and missed rent payments forcing players to be evicted from their apartments gave the players all the necessary motivation they needed not to play, and the team had no way of borrowing money to make their payroll while under bankruptcy protection despite owner Jack Tompkins saying that the players were owed only $5667 due to creditor protection. As a result of the team being unable to honour their contractual obligations to the players, the entire roster was declared as creditors owed money. Would ever get the money owed?
As the headline from the Syracuse Herald American stated, the Prowlers were forced to use replacement players for their scheduled game on February 11, 2001 against the BC Icemen. For those wondering, the "BC" stands for Broome County as the Icemen called Binghamton, New York home, but they took the ice against a Prowlers team that literally was made up of whoever the Prowlers could find who wasn't under contract. The end result was an 18-4 blowout by the Icemen, and Prowlers' management vowed that Wednesday's game against the Icemen would also see replacement players take the ice in Prowlers uniforms. Based on those results from Sunday, it would appear that their Prowlers needed professional players back.
It seems that Mohawk Valley wasn't done dealing their contracted players, though, as the Prowlers traded 12-goal, 35-point centerman Harold Hersh to Quad City on Monday, February 12. That's one way to satisfy one creditor as Hersh would finish the season in Quad City where he'd score 16 points in 19 games before adding six points in 11 games en route to a UHL championship!
The AHL's Lowell Lock Monsters would pick up a player from the Prowlers as well as they added noted bruiser Andre Payette from Mohawk Valley. Tye 6'2", 205-pound Payette had already made a name for himself in the UHL, scoring nine goals and 18 assists while racking up 244 PIMs in 45 games. Lowell added Payette to their lineup to replace noted pugilist Kip Brennan who returned to the OHL's Sudbury Wolves after it was discovered he still had junior hockey eligibility.
Apparently, business continued as if nothing ever changed for the Prowlers as they waived Quintin Brickley who never even played for them while claiming John Dowd from New Haven. On the other side, former leading scorer Jay Mazur, who was delcared a free agent following the bankruptcy filing, signed with New Haven to strengthen their lineup. Clearly, things were starting to crumble in Mohawk Valley, so it seemed like the inevitable was on the horizon.
On February 22, the final nail in the coffin was hammered as the Mohawk Valley Prowlers closed their doors on the season and on the franchise. With the team officially in bankruptcy proceedings, trustee Michael Balanoff oversaw the proceedings of how the team would repay its creditors which, as the article states, included over 1000 season-ticket holders. Of course, players were also included in the list of creditors, but any players still under contract and on the Prowlers payroll were officially made free agents by the UHL and were able to sign with any team of their choosing. Most players went on to find a new team by the start of the following season, but there was one replacement player whose statistics caught my attention as I was researching another story. Depending on when, he may have been part of the 18-4 loss against the BC Icemen back on February 11.
This young man is Terry Craven. In this picture taken on February 21 as the Prowlers cleared out their lockers following the announcement of the team folding, the 24 year-old had played a total of seven professional minutes of UHL hockey - one with the Asheville Smoke and six with the Mohawk Valley Prowlers. He had 24 NCAA games to his name with the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts where his GAA and save percentage weren't going to get him scouted by NHL personnel, but he could be a decent goalie with a little seasoning in the UHL.
I'm not here to bring down Terry Craven in any way because he clearly got stuck in an untenable situation. Playing for the Prowlers while the franchise crumbles is not one that any player would want, but Craven's numbers are hard to ignore. Consider the following:
In his six minutes of standing in the blue paint for the Prowlers, he surrendered five goals on 11 shots and suffered his only professional loss at the UHL level or above in terms of his professional career. That is heartbreaking to read for a kid just trying to find his way into pro hockey, but Craven's record will show his Prowlers time with an 0-1-0 record, a 46.75 GAA, and a .545 save percentage. Just brutal!
There is a bright spot, though: Craven did get picked up as a goaltender for the ECHL's Lexington Men O'War in 2003. He spent two minutes on the ice in the ECHL with Lexington and made one save, but the Men O'War clearly saw something in Craven by bringing him in as an EBUG after spending nearly two years out of hockey!
Terry Craven's story won't be a 30-For-30 on ESPN or a Netflix special, but he did get nine minutes of professional hockey under his belt. Two-thirds of that time came in a Prowlers jersey where he was thrown to the wolves, but Craven did spend two minutes in an ECHL game where he officially made one save and finished with a 0.00 GAA and a 1.000 save percentage. The Prowlers franchise may have died in 2001, gone for good, but Terry Craven wasn't quite done.
Sometimes, out of the worst situations, good things happen. While Terry Craven never had a long or propserous professional hockey career, he did stop one puck in the ECHL with the Lexington Man O'War which is more than a lot of other good goaltenders can say they did. Who knows if that would have happened had it not been for the UHL's Mohawk Valley Prowlers franchise hemorrhaging money.
As we know, the NHL has mandated that every team has to have an Emergency Back-Up Goaltender, EBUG, available this season. We've already seen fun stories about Peter Thome getting his shot and the return of the first NHL EBUG to win a game, but there was an EBUG sighting on another team long before David Ayles stepped onto the ice for the Hurricanes. Pictured to the left is that EBUG, and his name is Joe Franke who was pressed into action on December 14, 2002 as the Fort Wayne Komets and Elmira Jackals battled in the ECHL! How did this happen? Who is Joe Franke? Is he officially the first EBUG in modern hockey? Let's find out as we look at this awesome hockey history!
Franke wasn't on the Fort Wayne roster that night or any other night as an everyday goaltender. Instead, Franke was hired in 1978 by the team as their full-time equipment manager, but that didn't stop him from getting his name on the line-up sheet as a netminder more than 30 times in his illustrious career before he stepped away from the organization in 2020! And that leads us to December of 2002.
Again, the Komets put out an incredible video about this significant moment in their history and in hockey history, so I'd be remiss if I didn't post it here. Here is the video about Joe Franke's big night!
Pretty incredible video, right? Franke went in with eleven minutes remaining in the third period with Fort Wayne and Elmira tied 1-1. But how did Franke even get the chance to head out onto the ice?
As mentioned in the video, Komets starting goaltender Tom Lawson was called up to Milwaukee by the AHL's Admirals as they were battling a rough stretch with injuries and recalls by the Predators. As such, that left Pokey Reddick as the lone netminder for Fort Wayne despite him struggling with a virus. Cory Campbell, Scott Rideout, and Parris Duffus were the only other goalies used by the Komets that season, and none were available for their game against Elmira, forcing Franke into stand-by mode in case anything happened.
With Reddick cramping up in the third period and unable to play, Franke was sent to the dressing room to get ready as he would be needed to stop pucks. Minutes later, Franke would emerge down the tunnel wearing #35 in full gear as he stepped onto the ice. Shortly after he took his spot in the crease, Colin Chaulk scored for the Komets and Franke, unbelievably, earned an assist on his goal!
With Fort Wayne leading 3-1 after scoring a second time in the final frame, all the Komets had to do was shut down the Jackals for the win. However, the Jackals would rally for two goals late to tie the game at 3-3, and this UHL contest needed a shootout to determine the winner. Could Franke shut the door in the skills competition?
After both shooters failed to score in the first round of the shootout, Fort Wayne scored three times - Dustin Virag, Colin Chaulk, and Kelly Perrault - while Franke stopped Aaron Phillips in Round Five to give Fort Wayne the 3-1 shootout win for the 4-3 victory in the game! As such, Franke earned the win, picked up an assist, and stopped four of six shots plus four more in the shootout! How awesome is that debut?
While he's not the first EBUG in hockey history, Joe Franke might be the first EBUG to win a game at any professional level in modern hockey. Picking up an assist is also pretty cool for any goalie, but imagine getting an assist in your only game as a professional goalie! Well done, Joe, in crossing off two major stats in one fell swoop!
Just for fun, the Komets, as mentioned in the video, won the UHL championship that season, and that would add a second championship ring to Franke's jewelry box as he had also won a Stanley Cup with the 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins! He'd also add three Turner Cup rings from the IHL and a Central Hocley Lague championship ring during his time with the Komets, but his eleven minutes in net will never be forgotten in Fort Wayne, Indiana!
I know it won't happen, but maybe the Komets should retire #35 in honour of Joe Franke's tenure and his one big win in a Komets net!
With the regular season coming to a close in the "land down under", six teams would know who was playing whom next week in the AIHL Playoffs. They're competing for the trophy to the left - the Goodall Cup - which was most recently won in 2025 by the Melbourne Ice. There were interesting games played this weekend with playoff spots on the line, and the defending champions were one of those teams. With every team approaching its 30th game of the season, let's take a look at who qualified to play next week, which teams earned byes to the semifinal, and which teams are the likely favorite to play in the one-game, winner-takes-all final on August 30 at O'Brien Icehouse!
Newcastle Northstars
We'll start with the Northstars who have seemingly been at the top of the AIHL standings all season long. The Northstars needed a win to guarantee themselves a top-two finish, and two wins would lock up the top spot in the AIHL. They were facing the eight-place Central Coast Rhinos and the seventh-place Sydney Bears who were fighting for their playoff lives. Would they earn the top seeding?
The Rhinos weren't about to roll over and allow Newcastle to have three points for free as the teams were tied at 0-0 through 20 minutes of play. Two quick goals by the Rhinos before the second period was five minutes old put the Northstars back on their heels a bit, but they'd get one of those back 56 seconds after the Rhinos' second goal. The second period would end in that 2-1 score with Central Coast needing just 20 more minutes for a big win.
Good teams find a way to win, though, and the Northstars would draw even when Evgenii Skachkov scored his 40th goal of the season midway through the third period, and Aziz Baazzi pushed Newcastle ahead by a 3-2 score with his goal with just over five minutes remaining. The Rhinos simply couldn't find an answer to that goal as Newcastle took the 3-2 game and moved closer to securing first-overall in the standings. Big shout-out to Rhinos goaltender Anand Oberoi who made 55 stops in the loss and deserved better.
Sunday's game against the Bears was made a little easier based on other scores on Saturday, and the Northstars needed just a win in regulation or in extra time to secure top spot. Despite the Bears jumping out to a 3-0 lead through 20 minutes, the Northstars found the back of the net in the second period, but still trailed 5-3 when the horn sounded. Just as they did one before, though, they crushed dreams with a five-goal third period to capture the AIHL's top spot with an 8-5 win over the Sydney Bears for their 21st win.
Canberra Brave
The Brave had a shot at wrapping up first-place with wins and a little help, but we know the Northstars already had secured a share of first-place by Saturday evening. The Brave also needed to win to hold off the Melbourne Mustangs who had one remaining game, and that was against this Brave team. Canberra controlled their own destiny in this weekend's games, so could they capture a bye to the semifinal?
Canberra had the pleasure of dealing with the sixth-place Melbourne Ice on Saturday, and the Ice were battling for their own playoff lives as they held the final playoff spot. After a first period that saw Melbourne take a 2-1 lead followed by a scoreless second period, the Brave fell behind 3-1 before scoring twice in the final 35 seconds of the game to push this game to overtime at a 3-3 score! Dominic Canic and Justin Maylan were the heroes there, but this game wasn't done.
Overtime solved nothing, so a shootout was needed to find a winner. Ice netminder Tatsunoshin Ishida stopped both of the Brave's first two shooters while David Booth scored for the Ice. Melbourne's Kolton Shindle would end this game as the third Ice shooter when he beat
Joel Hasselman, giving the Ice a 4-3 shootout win over the Brave! The shootout loss pushed the Brave ahead of the Melbourne Mustangs by one point, but Sunday's game now loomed large when it came to determining second-place in the AIHL! See below for Sunday's game!
Melbourne Mustangs
Melbourne already knew that they could not catch the Northstars following Newcastle's win on Saturday, so second-place was the goal for the Mustangs. With the Brave ahead by one point, the Mustangs were in must-win mode as a regulation or extra-time win would push them past the Brave and into second-place. The Brave, for their part, also had to win as a loss would allow Melbourne to leap past them, but an extra-time loss would see Melbourne move into second-place by virtue of total wins. There was high-stakes hockey drama on Sunday afternoon at the O'Brien Icehouse in Victoria, Australia!
The Brave found themselves reeling after another slow start as they trailed by a 3-0 score at the end of 20 minutes, but they'd score three goals of their own to put the Mustangs on their heels at the end of the second period. After Spencer Cox put the Brave up 4-3 just 53 seconds into the final frame, the two teams would battle for the next 18 minutes until Cox was sent to the sin bin for holding. On the power-play, Mustangs defender Brody Crane fired a wrist shot that got past Joel Hasselman and dented twine with 30.6 seconds remaining, and this game was tied at 4-4 and heading to extra time!
In overtime, the Brave were cursed by another penalty as Casey Kubara was sent off for tripping with 92 seconds remaining in the game. Knowing they had to win to secure second-place, the Mustangs threw caution to the wind and brought goaltender Noah Giesbrecht for a fifth attacker. Would this gamble pay off for the Mustangs?
Defender Philippe Caron send the Melbourne crowd home happy as he tees up his twelfth goal of the season to give the Mustangs the 5-4 victory over the Brave and, more importantly, moves the Mustangs into second-place in the AIHL standings! What a comeback!
Perth Thunder
The Thunder knew they would either be in fourth-, fifth-, or sixth-place as the season wound down thanks to the gap that opened up in the standings between the top-three teams and themselves. Thanks to a few key wins down the stretch, Perth only needed one win this weekend to lock up fourth-place. With a pair of games against the last-place Adelaide Adrenaline, Perth knew what it had to do.
Perth grabbed a 1-0 lead through the first period on Saturday before the teams traded goals in the second period. The Thunder would score two shorthanded goals and a power-play goal in the third period, however, to salt this game away as the 5-1 victory moved them to 48 points where none of the Sydney Ice Dogs, the Sydney Bears, nor the Melbourne Ice could catch them in the standings.
That made Sunday's game against the Adrenaline all for naught, but the youngsters who make up Adelaide's roster showed up to close out their season with a win! The Adrenaline built a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes and a 5-0 lead through 40 minutes en route to a 5-1 victory for their third win of the season and something to build on for the 2027 season! Perth, however, will be the fourth-seeded team.
Sydney Ice Dogs
The Sydney Ice Dogs controlled their own destiny going into the final weekend of play. They wanted to win both, of course, to give them the best chance of making the playoffs, but they could also use help when it came to the Sydney Bears and the Melbourne Ice. The Ice and Bears, thanks to scheduling, had just one game remaining on their calendar, so the Ice Dogs had the advantage here. All they had to do was get ahead of Melbourne, and they'd bump the defending champions out of the playoff picture! Could they actually do that? Two games against the ninth-place Brisbane Lightning certainly helps!
Rarely do I get to say that these two teams combined for 36 goals this weekend, but things went a little crazy in Brisbane between the Ice Dogs and Lightning. Saturday night saw Sydney establish a 5-2 lead in the first period, and it's a lead they would not relinquish despite Brisbane;'s best efforts in a 13-10 victory! That win put them a point back of the Ice after Melbourne's shootout win, so there was more work to do on Sunday if the Ice Dogs wanted in on the playoffs.
If you thought that the coaches may have had a chat with their players about playing defence, think again. The Lightning built a 4-1 lead through 23 minutes of play, but the Ice Dogs knew the stakes of this game. They rattled off seven goals in just over 27 minutes of play while only surrendering one more, and the Ice Dogs defeated the Brisbane Lightning by an 8-5 score to leapfrog the idle Melbourne Ice into a playoff spot! Other games still needed to be completed to know where the Ice Dogs would ultimately finish, but Sydney punched their ticket to the playoffs with this win over Brisbane!
Sydney Bears
The Sydney Bears were scoreboard watching when it came to the Ice and Ice Dogs. Their last game was on Sunday against the Northstars, so they were hoping that Brisbane could do them a favour and keep the Ice Dogs from climbing the standings. What made Sunday's game weird is that the Bears knew what their status would be after Melbourne's game on Saturday, and because they actually had a 0.5-point lead over the Ice in the standings thanks to a weird decision made by the AIHL. In short, the Bears were already in the playoffs thanks to that half-point regardless of what the Ice did on Saturday.
As we saw above, the Northstars ended the Bears' season on a losing note by an 8-5 setback, but that loss was also more costly than just a loss in the standings. The loss allowed the Ice Dogs to jump the Bears in the standings as well, leaving the Ice Dogs in fifth-place and the Bears in sixth-place. The defending champions in the Melbourne Ice were officially eliminated by the Ice Dogs' win on Sunday.
The Playoff Picture
With the six teams officially known for the playoffs, the AIHL released the following graphic for fans to follow over the next two weekends.
The Perth Thunder and the Sydney Ice Dogs will meet next Friday with the winner moving on to play the Newcastle Northstars on Saturday while the Canberra Brave and Sydney Bears will meet on Friday with the winner of that game earning the right to play the Melbourne Mustangs on Saturday. Obviously, the winners of the semifinal games will meet in the final on Sunday, August 30 at 2pm Australian time, and that game will be broadcast on ESPN!
There's no doubt that playoff hockey is the best hockey, but, when playoff lives are on the line, heroes emerge and bold teams prevail. We saw the Mustangs and the Ice Dogs win their way into better playoff seedings, and now we'll see which of the six remaining AIHL teams can win their way to championship glory on August 30! Three-straight wins is all that stands between one team and a celebration!
I have spent more than enough time at a ballpark this season to know that baseball can be a funny game. Whether it be hot streaks, cold streaks, wild pitches, or diving catches, baseball, like hockey, is a game of momentum. If one has it, usually good things happen while those that don't are often looking for a momentum change. Lots of hockey players play baseball in the summer as there are several skills that cross-over between the two sports, and we've seen good hockey players like Tom Glavine, Justin Morneau, and Larry Walker opt for the summer sport over the winter one. We can add another name to the former-hockey-player-turned-pro-baseball-player list as former Alberta Pandas forward Madison Willan is a full-time infielder for the New York Heights of the brand-new Women's Pro Baseball League!
Make no mistake that it was a treat to watch Madison torch defenders and victimize goalies on a regualr basis for the Pandas, but her first sports love was clearly baseball. I first caught wind of Madison's talents on the diamond back in 2019 when she helped Team Canada earn a spot at the COPABE Women's Baseball World Cup Qualifier in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Canada earned a bronze medal there, but Madison made a name for herself with her excellent defensive play with the glove while being lethal at the plate for Team Canada!
Of course, hearing about how good she is second-hand doesn't mean anything unless there's some sort of evidence to prove that hearsay, but I got to witness how good Madison is in-person when she made her way to the 2022 Women's Invitational Baseball Tournament in Stonewall, Manitoba with Team Alberta. Unexpectedly, Madison pitched in the game I saw between Alberta and Nova Scotia, and she tossed a two-hit, complete-game 5-0 shutout where she hit a ground rule double for an RBI. It's pretty clear that Willan has the tools.
With Madison being part of Team Canada every year since 2017, it was almost certain that she'd get some looks from the upstart WPBL during their draft that happened on November 20, 2025. New York would make her pro baseball dreams come true when she was selected with the 15th selection of the second round as the 35th-overall selection! Officially, Madison was now a professional baseball player, and she'd be moving to New York to play for the Heights!
The WPBL kicked off its season on August 1, 2026 with a game between the visiting Los Angeles Queens and the host New York Heights. It didn't take long for the scoring to get started as the Queens put up two runs in the top of the first inning. New York would answer in the bottom half of the inning with Willan playing a role!
Willan would hit the 0-2 offering to left field for the sacrifice fly, allowing Kylee Lahners to tag up from third base for Madison Willan's first professional RBI! That run would push New York ahead by a 3-2 score, but they would eventually fall to Los Angeles by a 10-8 score in the first-evr game for the WPBL, but Willan 0-for-1 on the day with a walk and that RBI shown above as she played third base in the game!
We\ll jump ahead to August 8, 2026 when the Boston Hunters were visitng New York. New York came in at 1-1 while Boston was 0-2 early in the season. With fellow Canadian Raine Padgham on the mound for Boston, Willan stepped into the batter's box in the second inning with New York leading 1-0 with baserunners on first and second base.
Willan goes up the middle with a parachute single for her first professional hit in the WPBL! Unfortunately, Boston would rally for a 9-6 win over New York after being down six runs on the day, but Willan went 1-for-4 with one strikeout on the day for the Heights!
Madison would be a pinch-runner on Sunday's game against the Hunters, helping the Heights defeat the Hunters by a 7-6 score. Boston would exact some revenge on Thursday, August 13 with a 6-1 win over New York where Willan went 0-for-3 with a walk while playing second base. They'd drop a second-straight game to San Francisco by an 11-6 score on August 15 that saw Willan go 0-for-0 with a walk after taking over at shortstop when Keira Izumi went into pitch. Boston would record another win over New York on today, but Willan wasn't in the lineup. As it stands, Willan is 1-for-9 on the season with a .111 average, but she has recorded three walks compared to one strikeout to push her on-base percentage to .308!
It's actually pretty awesome to see Willan doing her thing on the diamond, and you can watch her and her teammates over on YouTube as the New York Heights battle the Boston Hunters, the San Francisco Fireballs, and the Los Angeles Queens. It's honstly pretty good ball with lots of balls in play, so it makes for entertaining baseball! I'm hoping Willan catches fire, goes on a tear, and helps the New York Heights reach chanpionship heights in this inaugural season!
I have no idea what she plans to do this winter, but maybe she could be the first two-sport professional woman in the modern era if she tries out for the New York Sirens! Ok, that probably won't happen, but it's super cool to see Madison Willan playing professional baseball after her university hockey career. Keep up the great work, Madison!
Full marks to any hockey fan who can name the jersey to the left because I certainly could not when I first saw it. If you are old enough to remember Roller Hockey International as a hockey fan, you may remember the Denver Daredevils wearing these jerseys. I certainly did not, but we didn't get many roller hockey games broadcast in Canada and there was no local team in Winnipeg. The Daredevils lasted just one season in RHI where they weren't all that great, but we need to talk about the head coach in their lone season of wheeled hockey action because he's well-known in Winnipeg hockey circles.
Specifically, I want to bring to your attention this snippet of news.
You're reading that correctly as Winnipeg Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff was the head coach of RHI's Denver Daredevils for one season! Can anyone picture Cheveldayoff behind the bench of a pro roller hockey team? I can't see him enjoying that experience at all.
It happened in the summer of 1996, though, and the Daredevils went 8-17-3 with those three games being losses in overtime. They only had two NHL players on their roster in Stephane Roy who played 12 total games with the Minnesota North Stars and Derek Laxdal who played 67 NHL games with the Leafs and Islanders. They mostly had players who found success in minor-pro hockey like Jay Neal, Kevin St. Jacques, and Darryl Olsen, but the Daredevils struggled.
Their first game was a 13-7 loss to the Vancouver Voodoo on June 1, 1996 which means that Brandon Sun snippet was filed two months after Cheveldayoff coached his first game and one week before he coached his last game on August 16, 1996 when Denver beat the Oakland Skates by an 11-10 score. With the Daredevils finishing at the bottom of the five-team Pacific Division standings, there wouldn't be a playoff run for the first-year, Mile-High roller hockey team.
Denver would finish as the third-worst team in the RHI that season, ahead of the 3-22-3 Ottawa Loggers and the 7-17-4 New Jersey Rockin' Rollers. The Long Island Jawz, who expanded into the RHI at the same time as Denver, finished with a 16-9-3 record, so it's pretty clear that whoever put together the Daredevils' roster didn't exactly build the most talented team. That may have included the 26 year-old head coach who had no roller hockey experience at that time.
Obviously, I have no access to the Winnipeg Jets nor any of their front-office staff, so I'm hoping that someone from those who have been granted access can sit down with Kevin Cheveldayoff and pick his brain about his one season in Denver coaching roller hockey. The Daredevils would cease to exist after their one summer in the Mile High City, but there's a fun connection to explore between the NHL's Winnipeg Jets and Roller Hockey International's Denver Daredevils!
With the calendar flipping to August and the summer entering its later stages of the season, summer hockey leagues and camps will begin to give way to full seasons once more. When the seasons are flipped, though, teams who play through the winter in the southern hemisphere will get to look forward to warm summer days like we're experiencing now. That's the case for the New Zealand Women's Ice Hockey League as the NZWIHL crowned a champion today despite the game being televised during the wee hours of Saturday in North America! Which teams made the final and what were the storylines? Let's take a dive into the NZWIHL!
The two teams shown above were your finalists from the four-team NZWIHL as the Auckland Steel and Wakatipu Wild earned their way into the final game to determine the 2026 NZWIHL championship. The Wild beat the Dunedin Thunder on Saturday to book their spot in the final while the Steel dismissed the Canterbury Thunder earlier on Saturday to claim their berth as well. Dunedin, it should be noted, beat the Thunder in the bronze medal game on Sunday afternoon.
Auckland came into the final as the favorite thanks to posting an undefeated regular season where they went 11-0-1-0 for 35 points. That one overtime win came back on July 25 when the Steel needed 57 seconds beyond regulation time to win 2-1 over Dunedin. Jasmine Horner-Pascoe scored her 14th goal in overtime for that win, and she'd finish second in team and league scoring with 26 points. League leader Katya Blong had 35 points, third-place leader Lauren Askenazy had 21 points, and fourth-place leader Brooke Patron had 17 points all for Auckland. In short, they scored a lot and won a lot.
Wakapitu struggled to find their rhythm this season, posting a 2-6-1-3 record for 11 points and finishing in third-place. Kelli Burstein ha a good season with ten goals and 14 points, but no other Wild player scored more than seven points. New Zealand-born Jordan Wichman was 2-3-1-0 this season with a 2.75 GAA and a .921 save percentage, but it's hard to win games when the Wild only averaged 2.00 goals-per-game. However, a four-goal outburst by Burstein powered the Wild to a 5-1 win past the Thunder in their playoff game for an unexpected chance at Sunday's NZWIHL championship!
Would the Wild have enough left in the tank to upset Auckland?
That question was answered early in Sunday's championship game as Auckland scored three times in the opening ten minutes and five times in the first frame to pace the Steel to a 5-1 lead after twenty minutes. The teams would trade goals in the middle period before Auckland tacked on two more in third period to skate to the 8-2 championship win as the 2026 NZWIHL season came to a close!
Highlights from the NZWIHL championship game can be seen below!
What's fun in all of this is seeing a player like Katya Blong do well as she skates with McGill where she's earning her kinesiology degree. Blong looks like she's going to be one of New Zealand's best players for a long time, and it's awesome to her skating in the Canadian university circuit. Brooke Patron was a Saskatchewan Huskies defender for four seasons and she appears to be helping the NZWIHL and the Steel with her skills. Goaltender Alexa Gibson seems to be enjoying life in Auckland after skating for the Ottawa Gee-Gees!
Even cooler is that Lochlyn Hyde, who splits the goaltending duties with Gibson, has jumped into the NZIHL - the men's league - on occasion when teams have needed a goaltender. To date, Hyde has played three games in the top division where she has a 3.50 GAA and an .885 save percentage, and has helped out the second-division league twice where she's officially 1-1-0! How cool is that?
On the other side, Wakatipu had no players who suited up in U SPORTS, but Kelli Berstein did play for the University of Minnesota. However, the gap in skill between these two teams was evident in the final as Auckland outshot Wakatipu 38-22 and controlled the play a lot. I get that no one is going to tell Auckland to break their team up to disperse talent across the other three teams, but the 14-point gap between Auckland and second-place Dunedin is hard to fathom in a four-team league. Something has to change for New Zealand hockey to continue to develop good players for international competitions.
Congratulations to the Auckland Steel on winning their fourth-straight NZWIHL championship! It's their eighth championship overall in the NZWIHL, and I imaging they'll be gunning for a fifth-consecutive and ninth-overall championship in 2027 if everything goes well. Perhaps we'll see another team step in and claim victory, but another solid season is in the book for Kiwi hockey, the NZWIHL, and its players!
While I legitimately had no team in the Stenley Cup Final I wanted to see win, there was a team that I definintely didn't want to see win. That made me a Carolina Hurricanes fan by proxy, and the Hurricanes showed everyone that they were for real this year with a convincing 3-0 win tonight to capture the Stanley Cup in six games over the Vegas Golden Knights. After running into and being bullied by the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference Final the last few years, the Hurricanes showed that they learned from those series by bringing their version of grit and sandpaper into Vegas tonight where they grinded out a solid 3-0 shutout of the Western Conference champions to earn the right to be called "2026 NHL Stanley Cup Champions"!
Whether it was Jordan Staal's record-tying effort of scoring five goals in five consecutive games in the final, Brandon Bussi jumping right in where he left off with outstanding goaltending after relieving Freddie Andersen, the Hall-Blake-Stankoven line bring all sorts of chaos, the likes of Jarvis, Ehlers, Aho, and Svechnikov flying up and down the ice, the defensive prowess of Jacob Slavin, Sean Walker, and K'Andre Miller, or the coaching of Rod Brind'Amour and his staff, everyone on this 2026 version of the Carolina Hurricanes seemed to contribute.
I'm not making light of the fact that Vegas pushed Carolina in this series. Vegas took Game One by a goal, and Carolina responded with an overtime win in Game Two. Vegas won Game Three in double-overtime, and Carolina responded with a two-goal victory in Game Four. Vegas flipped the script in the best-of-three series that was remaining by winning Game Five, and they had their best showing in the final in Game Six with the three goals and the shutout tonight.
Much chatter was given to the "dark days" of the Hurricanes' rebuild when they missed the playoffs for nine-straight years and what it took to get back to winning their second Stanley Cup. They went through Kirk Muller and Bill Peters as head coaches before giving Rod Brind'Amour his shot behind the bench, elevating him from assistant coach to head coach in 2018. Staal, Slavin, Aho, Svechnikov, and Jordan Martinook are the players who have been in Raleigh the longest, so getting to this point as champions by adding and retaining the necessary players and staff to win has been a long process.
Every player tonight said that the long process was entirely worth it.
For me, it was awesome to see Nikolaj Ehlers win the Stanley Cup tonight after all he's been through. Like Paul Maurice did after his time in Winnipeg, "Fly" had fond memories of his time in Winnipeg that led him to the promised land elsewhere. Sportsnet's David Amber and Elliotte Friedman spoke to Ehlers after winning the Stanley Cup.
How is it that we've seen two recent Stanley Cup champions speak fondly about Winnipeg yet neither champion is a member of the Winnipeg Jets? I'm not going to turn this article into dissection of the Jets, but it seems clear that Nikolaj Ehlers wanted to hoist the Stanley Cup in the Manitoba capital. Good on him for finding a place where he could! He'll always be one of my favorite 2.0 Jets!
They swept Ottawa. They swept Philadelphia. They lost Game One of the Eastern Conference Final to Montreal after an eleven-day layoff before roaring back to life and winning four-straight games. They lost Games One and Three in trying to figure out the Vegas Golden Knights before winning three-straight games to eliminate the Western Conference champion. They went 16-3 in the playoffs, outscored their opponents 66-39 in those 19 games, and were 5-1 in overtime games. Tonight, they are the NHL's best team with the honour of raising the Stanley Cup for the second time in franchise history.
The spoils always go to the victors, so a deserving congratulations go to Carolina Hurricanes, the 2026 NHL Stanley Cup champions!
Overtime in hockey is the one place where it doesn't matter how the previous sixty minutes were played. Sure, they have "sudden death" in the NFL, but hockey has the drama of being one shot away from victory. Playoff hockey bakes the drama in even more with wins and losses in overtime often affecting the outcomes of series. Ask the Montreal Canadiens in 1993 when they won ten-straight overtime games en route to winning the Stanley Cup. But there's another team that has an outstanding overtime record in the playoffs as well.
If you haven't been following the ECHL's Kelly Cup Final, the Kansas City Mavericks ran roughshod over the Florida Everbaldes in Games One and Two by scores of 6-0 and 5-2. It looked like the magic that the Everblades had in the playoffs leading up to this series had disappeared, but the ECHL's unique 2-3-2 set of games meant there was still a chance that Florida could get back into the series with at least two home wins in three games. Would that happen?
Including tonight's final, the Everblades are right back in the thick of things as they made it a best-of-three series by winning Games Three and Four on home ice! The Everblades won Game Three by a 2-1 overtime final, and they scored a 3-2 overtime win tonight thanks to Hudson Elynuik scoring at the 10:36 mark, tying the series at 2-2. Game Five goes tonight in Estero, Florida, and Kansas City may want to avoid going to overtime because the Everblades have made it clear that any period played after the third period ends is "Evertime".
People will look at the statistics and say, "Teebz, Florida is 2-1 in overtime in these playoffs" which is entirely correct. However, since 2022 when the Everblades began their championship dynasty, they have dominated overtimes to the tune of a 20-5 record in extra time! That's an incredible run of winning in sudden death, and it seems they're finding ways to keep that incredible record going this season!
In 2022, the Everblades were 6-1 in overtime as they won every game that ended in the fourth period, but lost the only game that went to a fifth period. For those wondering, that loss came to the Greenville Swamp Rabbits when Nikita Pavlychev scored at 8:51 of double-overtime in the first round to make it a 3-2 series, but Florida would finish off Greenville in Game Six en route winning the Kelly Cup.
2023 would see Florida win their second consecutive Kelly Cup, and they went 5-2 in overtime in that season. The key here is that they were 2-0 on double-overtime games in 2023, improving their record to 2-1 in five-period contests. The Jacksonville Icemen beat Florida in Game Four of their second-round series while the Newfoundland Growlers beat them in overtime in the conference final. It should be noted that both double-overtime wins came against Newfoundland as well as the Everblades won that series in six games and 23 periods.
2024 saw the Florida Everblades become the first ECHL team to three-peat as they captured the Kelly Cup again. They only played four overtime games in those playoffs, going 3-1 in those games. Two of those games came against the Jacksonville Icemen who lost Game Two by a 2-1 overtime score before hanging a loss around Florida's neck in Game Three with a 4-3 overtime win. Florida would eliminate the Orlando Solar Bears in Round Two with a Game Five 2-1 overtime win, and they'd win the Kelly Cup with a Game Five 4-3 overtime win over Kansas City! Matt Wedman was the hero in that game!
2025 saw the Trois-Rivières Lions end the dream of a fourth-straight Kelly Cup for the Everblades, but they still did something incredible when it came to overtime. The Everblades met the Jacksonville Icemen for a fourth-straight year and second-straight first-round series, and the Everblades swept the Icemen out of the playoffs by winning four-straight overtime games! This marked the fourth-straight year that Florida also eliminated the Icemen, moving them to 5-0 in playoff series versus Jacksonville with a 27-7 record versus the Icemen all-time! Before falling to Trois-Rivières in the conference final, Florida had won 14 consecutive Kelly Cup playoff series!
The setback of losing that series last season seems to have pushed Florida to new heights this season as they're back in the Kelly Cup Final and are tied with the ECHL's top regular-season team. Their overtime record took a hit in the Eastern Conference Final this season as Wheeling beat them 3-2 in overtime in Game Four, but that was the only setback Florida suffered in that series and in overtime so far in these playoffs. Combined with the two wins on Wednesday and tonight in overtime, they're 2-1 this season in the extra frame!
Since 2022, Florida is now 62-26 in playoff games including being 20-5 in overtime games and 2-1 in double-overtime games. They have won 32.3% of their playoff games beyond sixty minutes en route to three-straight Kelly Cups and four Final appearances in the last five seasons. What might be even scarier is that of those 25 overtime games played, the Everbaldes are 10-2 at home and 10-3 on the road. It doesn't matter where they play overtime - they simply just win!
Game Five goes tonight at 7pm ET, and it would be in Kansas City's best interest to find and hold a lead. If Game Five goes to overtime, there's a better-than-good chance the Florida Everblades will win, and they'd have two shots to capture their fourth Kelly Cup in five years heading back to Independence, Missouri on Monday.
The four countries shown by their flags to the left will be playing IIHF hockey next season, but the reality is that two countries will be moving down to the Division-1A tournament while two countries will join the top-14 teams playing for the IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship. If you've been following the action, you may already know who is being relegated and promoted, but these four countries are the nations in question. Who's dropping down? Who's going up? Let's find out!
Great Britain came into the IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship as the 17th-ranked nation on the planet. They found themselves in a tough group that featured USA, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, and Latvia, but there was hope that they could qualify for a quarterfinal spot if they caught a few breaks against Austria and Hungary. If they could upset Latvia or Germany, Great Britain would likely not only qualify for the medal round, but they'd jump up in the IIHF rankings as well.
Things quickly changed for Great Britain after they dropped a 5-2 decision to Austria on May 16. A 5-1 loss to the USA, a 5-0 loss to Hungary, and a 4-1 loss to the Swiss put them in jeopardy of battling to stay out of relegation territory, but it didn't get any better in a 4-0 loss to Finland. Tack on a 6-0 loss to Latvia and a 6-3 loss to Germany, and the British went winless in Switzerland as they would be the Group A team who was relegated to the Division-1A tournament.
Defender Nathanael Halbert led the British in scoring with a goal and two assists from the blue line, and goaltender Mat Robson went 0-4-0 with a 4.94 GAA and an .875 save percentage. Veteran Liam Kirk led the way with 19 shots in the tournament, and Halbert had the best seat in the house most often as he served 10 penalty minutes.
Italy began the 2026 IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship as the 20th-ranked nation on the IIHF World Rankings, and they were in Group B with the likes of Canada, Sweden, Czechia, Slovakia, and Denmark. Italy likely was looking at the games against Slovenia and Norway as the ones they had to win if they hoped to avoid relegation. Without any NHL talent on their roster, this had to be a solid team effort from the Italians if they wanted to finish in a quarterfinal berth and remain as part of the top tournament. Otherwise, they'd be in a tough spot.
Canada handed them an expected loss by a 6-0 score on May 16, and Slovakia doubled the number of losses with a 4-1 decision. Italy entered the game on May 19 against Norway looking to reverse those fortunes, but the Norwegians played well in a 4-0 win. That Italian loss was followed by a 3-1 loss to Czechia and a 3-0 loss to Sweden. Needing a win desperately, the Italians gave Denmark everything they had, but fell short in the shootout by a 3-2 score. A final 5-1 loss to Slovenia resulted in Italy being the Group B team who is relegated to the Division-1A tournament next season that still needs a host.
Forward Tommy Purdeller had two goals and three points while forward Mikael Frycklund had three assists as the co-leader in points for Italy. Goaltender Davide Fadani was the only goalie to earn a point for Italy as he lost in the shootout while fellow netminder Damian Clara was 0-3-0 with a 3.35 GAA and a .921 save percentage. Defender Phil Pietroniro led the team in shots with 21 and forward Tommaso de Luca served three minor penalties to lead Italy in PIMs.
A country familiar with the teams in the top IIHF tournament will make its return as Kazakhstan earned a promotion back to the big dance. The 15th-ranked team in the IIHF rankings faced off against Lithuania, Japan, Poland, Ukraine, and France in the Division-1A tournament held from May 2-8 in Sosnowiec, Poland, and the Kazakhs emerged undefeated as they went 5-0-0 in the event. Two of those wins did come in the shootout, but Kazakhstan earned enough points for promotion to the 2027 IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship in Germany next May!
Kazakhstan's run in Sosnowiec saw them down Lithuania 4-1 on May 2, beat Japan 6-0, knock off Poland 3-2, defeat Ukraine 5-4 in the skills competition, and defeat France in the shootout as well. They scored the most goals in the tournament despite only scoring once on the power-play in eleven attempts, they tied Ukraine with the fewest shorthanded situations with eight, and they took the least amount of penalties with just 16 PIMs in the tournament on eight infractions.
Forward Artur Gatiyatov had a goal and four helpers while forward Arkadiy Shestakov had five helpers to tie for the team lead in scoring. Goaltender Andrey Shutov went 3-0-0 with a 1.30 GAA and a .933 save percentage as the top stopper, forward Vsevolod Logvin led with 17 shots, and defender Dmitri Breus was the goon with four PIMs.
Perhaps the one nation that should be celebrated for being promoted after everything the country has been through is Ukraine. It's hard not to be inspired knowing that this hockey team was able to focus on winning in Sosnowiec, Poland while friends, colleagues, and family are fighting for their lives back home. Ukraine certainly had a bumpier ride in getting to their promotion as the 27th-ranked team in the IIHF rankings went 3-1-1 in their five games, but that got them ten points and promotion from the Division-1A tournament!
Ukraine opened their tournament against the hosts on May 2, and Poland won that game by a 3-2 score. Ukraine would bounce back with a 2-1 win over Lithuania and a 3-2 win over France before dropping a 5-4 shootout decision to Kazakhstan. Ukraine capped off their tournament with a 3-1 win against Japan, and that was the victory needed to earn their promotion! Ukraine scored the second-most goals in the tournament, had a 5-for-17 power-play, and killed seven of eight shorthanded situations. They did commit twelve infractions, but were the second-least penalized team in the event.
Forward Danil Trakht led the tournament in scoring with four goals and four assists while forward Olexi Vorona had six helpers to tie for the lead in the tournament. Goaltender Bohdan Diachenko played every second for Ukraine, going 3-1-1 with a 2.17 GAA and a .923 save percentage. Olexander Peresunko led Ukraine with 15 shots, and both Yevgen Fedyeyev and Artem Hrebenyk sat for four minutes.
Both Kazakhstan and Ukraine will visit Mannheim and Dusseldorf, Germany as part of the 2027 IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship that's scheduled to run from May 14-30. Great Britain and Italy will await an announcement from the IIHF to know where they're headed for the 2027 IIHF Men's Division-1A World Hockey Championship, but it would seem they'll be joined by France, Poland, Lithuania, and the newly-promoted Estonia. Unfortunately for Japan, they'll be relegated to the Division-1B tournament, replacing promoted Estonia.
The quarterfinals for the 2026 IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship will be set after tomorrow's games, and we could see some intriguing matchups if things go as expected. Of course, that's why the games are played and upsets are a possibility, so we'll see who qualifies for the medal round at the IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship!
I'm not here to point out the embarrassing act that the Barrie Colts pulled following their OHL semifinal win. It was all over sports highlight shows, and Colts head coach Dylan Smoskowitz apologized for the behaviour that he said he encouraged. What makes that look even worse in hindsight at this point, though, is that the Colts' season came to an end tonight as they were swept in the OHL Final by the Kitchener Rangers. Again, I'm not here to rip on the Colts for what they did, but karma seems to have responded to the behaviour shown with tonight's result.
I'll credit Smoskowitz for accepting responsibility for what happened in that press conference. It doesn't mean I have to like how they acted, but Smoskowitz deserves a nod for taking the heat, apologizing to the media, and accepting that he cost the Colts $15,000 after the OHL issued the team a fine for that behaviour. He messed up, he admitted he did and was the ringleader, and he didn't shy away from the scrutiny. At the very least, I can respect that.
The Colts ran into an unstoppable force in the Kitchener Rangers in the final, and they gave the Rangers everything they had. Two games went to overtime, but the Rangers prevailed in each of the four games to complete the sweep. Tonight's 4-2 game was, at one point, a 2-2 contest with twelve minutes to play, but the Rangers found the lead when Christian Humphreys tipped Carson Campbell's shot past Colts' netminder Ben Hrebik, and it was all defence after that.
The Colts worked hard in the final. The Colts gave it their everything when it came to trying to topple the Rangers. The Colts came up short, though, and their season has come to an end tonight.
I'm not one to lend credence to things like superstitions or 'hockey gods". They're fun little aspects that people can talk about, but I do believe that luck favours the prepared, hard work gets rewarded, and there is balance in the universe when it comes to everything. Yes, weird things happen and coincidences are real, but I don't have a deep belief in the "supernatural" of hockey. It's just not real.
In saying that, it's hard not to have a smirk and suggest that the "hockey gods" weren't happy with the Colts' press conference after the Colts knocked off the favoured Brampton Bulldogs. One might call it karma after the Colts disrespected the game with their behaviour, but, no matter how you slice it, the end result was that the Colts ran into a talented Rangers team that lost two games in these playoffs and are now on a six-game winning streak entering the Memorial Cup.
The Barrie Colts will likely take a few days to process this loss before coming back to clean out their lockers, and I suspect there will be a handful of interviews with reporters at that time. A handful of players will clean out their lockers for the last time in their OHL careers, and there likely will be some reflecting on the years spent battling through Ontario. It might be the last time some of these players see one another as their paths go in different directions.
One thing I doubt any coach or player will utter is their team motto. That lesson was learned in the week after the press conference, and it was reinforced by the Kitchener Rangers' sweep of the Colts. All of Barries's returning players will go into the summer knowing that "no one cares" about their second-place finish in the OHL, and they'll need to find another gear and "work harder" next season.
While the tournament hasn't likely been on anyone's radar outside of the teams, families, and organizations playing, I have been watching the 2026 Canadian National Para Hockey Championship all week. One of the things we pledged to do on The Hockey Show was to give sledge hockey in Manitoba and, by proxy, in Canada a bigger stage, and there is no bigger tournament in Canada than the National Championship! Team Manitoba packed their gear, hopped onto an airplane, and headed for Boucherville, Quebec on the south side of Montreal where they were hunting for medals against the six teams who rounded out the competition! They battled hard all week, played with pride, and represented Manitoba extremely well as the faced some excellent provincial teams in their quest for hardware.
The six other teams making up the tournament included Quebec, Atlantic, British Columbia, Ontario, a Quebec development team, and Saskatchewan which was actually made up of players from both Saskatchewan and Alberta. It should be noted that Saskatchewan was making their first appearance at the National Championship, so this is a huge step forward for the players from Alberta and Saskatchewan. No one expected them to win, but the experience in seeing some of Canada's best provincial teams should help them in the long run.
Quebec came into the tournament as the reigning four-time champion, so they were looking to add to their dynasty. Quebec funds their parahockey teams and leagues very well, so it should be no surprise that they are the team to beat every year. They were going to have to earn their fifth-straight championship, however, as a number of strong provincial teams made their way to Boucherville for the competition, so let's see how Manitoba did at the tournament!
Manitoba met Ontario in the morning game on Thursday, and we were witness to a tight-checking game. Manitoba, though, found a few breaks and got pucks to the net, allowing them to take the morning game over Ontario by a 3-1 score with Cohen Klassen earning Player-of-the-Game honours. With Quebec defeating Team Atlantic, Manitoba began to prepare for the 0-1 Atlantic team in the evening.
Without dropping too much foreshadowing, Manitoba met Atlantic at 7:00pm ET in what was one of the best games of the opening day. It was clear that the two teams matched up very well as this game went back and forth, but it would be Atlantic who prevailed in the end by a 4-3 overtime score over Manitoba to send both teams into Friday with 1-1 records. Rainey Delaurier was named as the Player-of-the-Game, and the team began to prepare for Team Saskatchewan.
Before we discuss the Saskatchewan-Manitoba game, I would like to editorialize a little by saying that goal differential as a tie-breaker is always a bad idea. I understand the reason for it, but no team likes delivering a blowout score and no team likes being on the receiving end of a blowout. With Manitoba, BC, and Atlantic all entering Day Two at 1-1, Manitoba needed to put some space between them and the other teams when it came to goal differential. No one should like it, but Manitoba beat Saskatchewan by an 18-0 final score in the early Friday draw. Chris Frank earned Manitoba's Player-of-the-Game.
Manitoba's biggest test would come on Friday evening as they met the defending champions in Quebec. I watched this game in its entirety, and it's pretty easy to see why Quebec has won four-straight championships: they're fast, they're well-organized, and they can shoot. It wasn't a case of Manitoba wasn't ready to play, but moreso a case of Quebec just being on another level as they won virtually every race to loose pucks, they backchecked like demons, and they tore down the ice in transition. In the end, Quebec looked unstoppable in a 7-0 drubbing of Manitoba where goaltender Logan Bilodeau was named Player-of-the-Game after making a pile of stops.
Manitoba's 2-2 record earned them a date with Ontario on Saturday morning to advance to the semifinals, so they needed to come out and play strong again. This game was a back-and-forth affair as both sides showed some good jump in the offensive zone while making plays in their respective defensive ends. Despite both teams having chances, it would be Manitoba who found a little extra as they came out of this game with a 4-3 victory! Elijah Armbruster took Player-of-the-Game honours as Team Manitoba earned the unenviable semifinal against Team Quebec. Would we see Canada's juggernaut slayed?
The answer to that question was a resounding "no" as Quebec scored early and often in the semifinal to earn a berth in the gold medal final for the fifth-straight year. Again, it's not that Manitoba played poorly or missed assignments against Quebec. It's simply a matter of Quebec being that much better than everyone else. The final score in this one-sided affair was 14-0, and Manitoba would aim for a bronze medal in the final game of their tournament on Sunday. Goaltender Paul Hamm was Manitoba's Player-of-the-Game in this contest!
It was a 10:00am ET draw for the bronze medal game, and Manitoba would square off against Team Atlantic after they fell 3-1 to British Columbia on Saturday night. After the Atlantic took a 1-0 lead into the intermission, Manitoba would answer back early in the second period when Elijah Armbruster went high on the blocker side to tie the game. That seem to light a fire undr Team Atlantic as they scored three-straight goals to take a 4-1 lead into the second intermission, and this forecasting of two evenly-matched teams seems like a lie.
However, Manitoba scored two goals midway through the third period to narrow the gap to 4-3, and it seemed like we were in for a heckuva finish. That's where Isaac Armbruster made his impact on the game as he notched a goal with three minutes to play to tie the game at 4-4! No one else would dent twine over those last three minutes, so we were off to overtime with a medal hanging in the balance!
Overtime would be a ten-minute period played at three-on-three which makes no sense, but I don't make the rules. If no goals were scored, we'd see a shootout to decide the medal, and no one wanted that. The good news? We didn't have to worry about the shootout. The bad news, however, is that Team Atlantic would replicate the same result we saw on Thursday as they struck in overtime to win the bronze medal by a 5-4 score! It's not how Manitoba wanted to finish, but they should hold their heads high as this was an excellent game! Cole Maydanuk earned Manitoba's Player-of-the-Game honours.
Quebec and British Columbia would battle for gold, and it would be Quebec who earned their fifth-consecutive championship after defeating BC by a 2-0 score. What might be scarier is that Quebec, in their six games, outscored their opponents by a 39-0 count, so clearly they will wear that juggernaut title for another year with another gold medal. In the end, though, this was an incredible tournament for all seven teams when it came to how entertaining and exciting the hockey action was all week! Every team should be proud!
The final standings for the 2026 Canadian National Para Hockey Championship are as follows after the dust settled today:
Quebec
British Columbia
Atlantic
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec development team
Saskatchewan
We need to get caught up with Team Manitoba at some point, so expect an episode of The Hockey Show dedicated to them in the near future. I know they probably don't want to talk about missing out medals, but they represented Manitoba well and we're still proud of their efforts. I was hoping and expecting Hockey Manitoba to post something about the team this weekend, but that didn't happen. At what point does Hockey Manitoba support this program and team?
What I do know is that Manitoba's parahockey team is made up of some of the best people in hockey that Manitoba has to offer, and every Manitoban should be trying to see these amazing athletes in action. They may not have brought home a medal from Nationals this year, but the athletes and coaches of Team Manitoba have the competitive sledge hockey scene trending in the right direction.
I had a number of errands I needed to get done tonight, so my ability to watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs was interrupted by life. As much as I try to prevent this from happening, life occasionally gets in the way and needs to be dealt with accordingly. Being that I was running around tonight, I put the car stereo to good use by tuning into Game Two of the AHL Calder Cup series between the Milwaukee Admirals and the Manitoba Moose, but I also used Bluetooth to listen to Game One of the ECHL Kelly Cup series between the Indy Fuel and the Fort Wayne Komets! Manitoba was in must-win terrotory after dropping Game One by a 4-1 score in their best-of-three matchup while Fort Wayne and Indy opened their series in Fort Wayne, Indiana this evening. It almost felt like I was back in my university days, listening to the Moose on the radio with frequent visits from their IHL counterparts in Fort Wayne and Milwaukee! So how did these three former IHL teams do tonight?
We'll start in Winnipeg where the Admirals and Moose met. A win by Milwaukee would see them advance to play Grand Rapids while a Manitoba win would push this series to a third and deciding game on Sunday. Ryna Ufko beat Dominic DiVincentiis while shorthanded early in the second period to put Milwaukee ahead, but Parker Ford erased that lead 2:11 later when he beat Matthew Murray to make it 1-1.
A tight-checking game meant things didn't open up in the third period, and it seemed like we were heading for overtime. Oasiz Wiesblatt would be whistled for an elbowing penalty with 1:52 left in the frame, and I'll let Moose broadcaster Daniel Fink handle the rest.
With 43 seconds reamining in regulation time, Moose forward David Gustafsson tipped Brendan Yager's shot past Murray, pushing the Moose to the 2-1 win in Game Two. There was all sorts of rough stuff at the end of this game between the two former IHL foes, but they'll play one more time this season when they meet in Game Three on Sunday afternoon at Canada Life Centre with another former IHL foe in the Grand Rapid Griffins waiting for the winner of this series.
If that wasn't enough IHL references for one article, we'll keep going because the ECHL's Kelly Cup Playoffs began tonight, and the Central Division-winning Fort Wayne Komets, formerly of the IHL, were in action as they hosted the Indy Fuel in Game One of their series. Fort Wyane was playing in their 606th playoff game this evening over their 74-year history, hunting for their 319th win. Indy, meanwhile, wasn't an IHL team and had only two playoff wins in their entire history. Both sides would add another chapter to their histories tonight!
Komets forward Brady Stonehouse would get things started late in the first period when he beat Indy netminder Mitchell Weeks while shorthanded to put the Komets up 1-0. There were handful of chances by both sides as the game moved through the middle frame, but both Weeks and Komets goaltender Nathan Day were putting up walls at both ends of the ice. We wouldn't see the score change until early in the third period off a turnover at center ice, and I'll let legendary Komets announcer Shane Albahrani handle this one.
Matthew Brown would finish off the passing play after the turnover at center ice, and the Komets would take a 2-0 lead on his goal. Austin Magera would add a power-play goal with just over five minutes to play, and Nathan Day stopped 30 Indy shots as the Komets took Game One by a 3-0 score to go up 1-0 in the best-of-seven series!
With their 319th playoff win in the books, the Komets will look to go up 2-0 over Indy tomorrow night before the series shifts to Fishers, Indiana for three games. The ECHL plays all their series as 2-3-2 series to reduce the travel costs for teams, so the Komets will want to sweep their home games in order to go into enemy territory in good standing. The winner of this series will play the winner of the Bloomington Bison-Toledo Walleye series in the next round.
Clearly, it was a good night for two former IHL teams in Manitoba and Fort Wayne as they picked up big wins in their quests for trophies. Milwaukee is still in the hunt despite the loss tonight, and with the Grand Rapids Griffins waiting for the winner and the Chicago Wolves in the other Central Division series there are IHL fingerprints all over the Calder Cup Playoffs. Fort Wayne is the lone former IHL team in the Kelly Cup Playoffs, but they look like a contender there as well.
Listening to these two games on the radio as I drove around the city completing tasks made it feel like 1997 all over again when Manitoba, Milwaukee, and Fort Wayne were juggernauts in the IHL. Some would say those were the "good ol' days" of minor professional hockey!
By now, everyone has heard the comments made by various Winnipeg Jets as they cleaned out their lockers, and it seemed like there general consensus that the Jets have to get younger and faster. Whether that happens will be seen in the future, but there was a good display of how old and slow plays against younger and faster tonight as the Minnesota Wild opened their series against the Dallas Stars by punching them square in the mouth via their 6-1 win. This game was over before the halfway point with Minnesota building a 4-0 lead, but what surprised me was how the Wild made the Stars look much slower on the ice comparatively.
In short, Dallas could be in real trouble in this series.
Of course, it's just one game and this series isn't anywhere close to being over, but the Minnesota Wild looked like they had been shot of a cannon comparably to Dallas. It's said that teams have to be good to lucky, and we saw Minnesota get a couple of goals in that fashion that had the Stars reeling. If the hockey gods were smiling on Minnesota today, it's likely because they won a ton of puck battles, they were first to a lot of loose pucks, and they kept Dallas on their heels with their forecheck and speed. This wasn't lost on the Stars.
"First 30 minutes, we didn't win enough battles," Dallas Stars forward Mikko Rantanen told Taylor Baird of NHL.com. "They were just that little bit stronger in the battles and that's why they were able to make us defend more than we want to. Just got to be stronger."
Dallas head coach Glen Gulutzan also made mention of losing battles.
"When you're not winning anything and you're not winning your races, you're not winning your 50-50s, you put yourself at risk for what happened," Gulutzan explained to the gathered reporters in the postgame press conference. "Deflections, a shot from the half-wall that goes off a guy and goes in, one from behind the net. Because you're in vulnerable spots because you're not winning battles. Like I said, to a man I think we can all be better in that area."
Stars defenceman Miro Heiskanen tried to sum up what needs to happen in Game Two, saying, "Have to play a little harder, close the gaps a little quicker, and not give them that much time. I think those are the keys. It's a long series."
On the other side, Minnesota Wild head coach Jon Hynes spoke of his team's preparation as a key leading into this first playoff game.
"We prepped for a couple days coming into this one," Hynes said of his team after their Game One win. "Now, we will gather information from this game and continue to move forward. For me, it’s game to game and day to day. We want to continue to get better. We won and they lost. It's not so much being satisfied where you're at or that's what it is. We need to continue to find ways to get better."
If there are things that don't need to be improved in any major way, Minnesota's transition defence was on display for sixty minutes as they continually caused Dallas headaches. When Dallas came down the ice, there was zero room to manoeuver, resulting in turnovers and Dallas having to retreat. Speed, positioning, and understanding the assignment gave Dallas fits in getting down the ice today.
Minnesota moved the puck very well in all three zones, and they rarely struggled to find space on the ice. Dallas missed assignments, Dallas missed both stick- and bodychecks, and Dallas chased the puck far too often. How does Joel Eriksson Ek stand so open on the power-play in the middle of the slot twice, resulting in two goals? How does Kirill Kaprizov not get pasted into the boards every time he touches the puck? Dallas has to mind the details to win in this series!
Dallas will get set for Monday night's Game Two by focusing on the details that they clearly ignored today. I expect the Stars to finish checks, drive the Minnesota net more, and pay attention to defensive assignments. On the flip side, though, Minnesota will take today's game as the first step they need to get to the second round, continue to play at a high level, and focus on making Dallas's trip to St. Paul less fun by taking both games in Dallas. Game Two should be intense!
Like the St. Louis-Winnipeg series last year, whoever wins this series may come out worse for wear based on the bumps and bruises they'll sport. Minnesota is 25% of the way there with their big win tonight, but they still need three more against a team that has played in the Western Conference Final in the last two seasons. Expect a tougher Dallas team to clock-in on Monday for Game Two of this series!
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