Edmonton's Race For The Memorial Cup Begins Tonight

            Tonight the quest for the Memorial Cup Begins tonight. Its the Edmonton Oil Kings vs the Shawinigan Cataractes and the London Knights vs the Saint John Sea Dogs. Edmonton won their first WHL Championship since rejoining the league 5 years ago. The win marked the Oil Kings first WHL Championship title since 1972. Lead by captain Mark Pysyk (Prospect in the Buffalo Sabres organization) the Oil Kings were able to dominate the Portland Winterhawks with a 4-1 lead.''We know Shawinigan is a good team,'' Laxdal Coach of the ,Oil Kings, said Thursday as the coaches from the four teams in the 10-day tournament met with the media. "They've got a deep back end and a lot of speed up front.'I know they didn't have the playoffs they wanted, but they had a good season. And they'll have the crowd behind them. It'll be an outstanding game.'' Coach Laxdal also said, "We’re very proud of the kids,to bring back the Oil Kings name from the ’60s and ’70s and start it all up again and to be going to the Memorial Cup and having the league championship is outstanding.”

       "Chances are it will be the last year,” Pysyk said as the team prepared to head to Shawinigan, Que., for the four-team tournament.“I’ll probably end up in the American Hockey League next year, so to finish off with the WHL championship and maybe a Memorial Cup coming up, that’s definitely pretty special.” Pysyk knows this is a huge task ahead of them and is ready to lead his team all the way to the Cup.

Besides Pysyk, the Oil Kings defence is anchored by players such as 6-foot-5 Edmonton Oilers prospect Martin Gernat and 6-foot-4 draft eligible Griffin Reinhart, the son of former Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks defenceman Paul Reinhart (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/oil-kings-dig-deep-aim-for-the-top/article2435105/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2435105).

          The Memorial Cup is something that gives players a great feeling, what it'll feel like to eventually play in the NHL. This is the final chance for the remaining players in this years draft class to show what they got. However the Oil Kings will most likely lose Key Players like Pysyk, Kristians Pelss, and Keegan Lowe to the NHL this season. After this year, the Oil Kings will need to find new leadership to fill those loses. However the team isn't worried about that right now. All they have on their mind is to win the Memorial Cup. The Oil Kings have not played the Shawinigan Cataractes this season so this might lead to a very interesting series to see how these two teams play against each other.

          “We don’t know a whole lot about the other teams, other than Saint John won it last year, London is always a good hockey team and Shawinigan must have a pretty good framework if they’re hosting a Memorial Cup,” said defenceman Keegan Lowe. "They’re all going to be good teams, but we all play in different leagues, so whether we’re the underdog or the favourites, I couldn’t answer that. There’s no way of telling until we play the games.”Goaltender Laurent Brossoit said “You have to have a little (swagger), but you can’t have too much, We know how good we are, but we know how good they are, too.”

           As the players are very excited about their return to the Memorial Cup, they are ready to face-off tonight and attempt the run and the Cup. If they win this series, they'll move on to face ether the Knights, after the return of head coach Dale Hunter, or the Saint John Sea Dogs. This is set up to be another great series of hockey for the young guns.