Vancouver Giants Win Memorial Cup

 

Michail Boncea (HV)

 

Vancouver Giants were led by Milan Lucic who played his trademark style game of hitting every player in his sight, while managing to challenge and beat in a fight Medicine Hat heavyweight Jordan Bendfekd. At the end of the game Milan Lucic not only won the Memorial Cup but as well Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy as the MVP of Memorial Cup. It was a physical game that in the end Vancouver outshot Medicine Hat Tigers 39 to 15. With a few minutes left in the game Medicine Hat Tigers took a number of penalties and this prevented them from making any possible comeback.

 

Maybe it was the sold out PNE Building with 16,281 very vocal and loyal fans cheering on almost non stop Vancouver, but Vancouver looked like a team possessed to try to win the Cup. The Vancouver fans by the end of the game got their first major Hockey Cup win in years. They deserve it, since they were full of energy and passion as can be seen especially after Vancouver’s Mario Bliznak scored their second goal of the game and the crowd pretty much stood up from that moment on till the end of the game totally cheering Vancouver on with ”we want the Cup” chant.

 

The rivalry between Vancouver and Medicine Hat was no secret since their Memorial Cup Final meet was their teams 9th meeting against each other in less then 1 month. What made it special this Memorial Cup was the fact for the first time since 1989 there were 2 WHL teams in the Memorial Cup final. It is because of the fact both teams were from WHL that the final was though physically since that’s the WHL style of play.

Photo: Vancouver Giants # 21 Festerling, Brett raising the Cup above his head. © Michail Boncea (HV)