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adamantium · 05-16-2022, 11:45 AM

Season 43. The clock ticks down in the final seconds of Game Five of the SMJHL Finals. The St. Louis Scarecrows, after going down 3-0 in the series and managing a massive 4-2 win at home in Game Four, are down 4-2. They have pulled their netminder, Aleister Cain, in an attempt to bring their score close enough to have some hope for a forced Game Six back at home in Missouri. But as the seconds tick away, so does their spirit.

The clock hits zero. The horn sounds.

The Vancouver Whalers have, after three straight years of regular-season dominance, finally won the most coveted trophy in all of Major Junior hockey.

But it didn’t start like this. And it took two years of pain, including a gut-wrenching Game Six finals loss to Kelowna the year before, before they finally managed to get it right.

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Season 41

Teddy Phelps, in his last season as Head GM of the Vancouver Whalers, along with Co-GM Bastien Marchessault, begins a run of seasons that will ultimately go down in Whalers history as some of the biggest “what-ifs” in the team’s existence.

The team finishes the regular season at a record standing of 31 wins, 15 losses, and 4 overtime losses, good for 66 points and the best record in the league on wins, winning them the Laurifer trophy. They’ve got only two players that manage to hit the 40-point or above mark: Kolja Seppanen, who, at 63 points on the season, is head and shoulders above every other player on the team, and Jean-Luc Picard (48), who sits nearly ten full points above the next best scorer on the team. The Whalers have a man in the top ten in nearly every individual category across the league and go into the playoffs having earned a bye with their league-best record.

But in the second round, things immediately go sideways.

Vancouver is tasked with the Montreal Militia as their second-round opponent, the only team other than their bitter rivals in Kelowna (who are in the middle of a dynasty run, when all is said and done) who have managed to give them serious trouble in the regular season. But the league-best Vancouver Whalers are surely up to the task.

They lose the first three games of the series in incredibly close matchups, including an overtime loss in Game One. They manage to muster the ability to put up a 2-0 shutout in Montreal to force a game five at home in Vancouver. They lose a 2-1 decision to the Militia. The city suffers the embarrassment of a second-round exit after a bye in just five games.

The Militia go on to lose in the finals in Game Seven to the powerhouse Kelowna Knights.

The city of Vancouver, and its Whalers, attempt to pick up the pieces and look toward the next season.

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Season 42

Teddy Phelps, after a long run of seasons, steps down from his position as General Manager of the Vancouver Whalers. Bastien Marchessault, his Co-GM, steps up to the position.

This season, the Whalers take a step forward. This year, they’ve got six different players to hit above the 40-point marker: Eriks Skalbergs (52), David Kastrba (47), Alex Andani (43), Buck Maverick (41), Kristaps Ball (40) and Geoff Moore (40). Once again, Vancouver remains dominant in most individual categories--if not the best player, then not far behind and with multiple players in the top ten. They finish the season at 36 wins, 12 losses, and 2 overtime losses--good for 74 points and, once again, the league-best regular-season record by two points. The Whalers add a second straight Laurifer trophy to their cabinets.

But there’s still one missing.

When playoffs start, they’ve earned another first-round bye. This time, they won’t let the rust stick during their break. And their first-round opponent is one that brings back memories.

The Montreal Militia, in the second round once again. This time, though, the Whalers know their opponent inside and out. They haven’t allowed a single regulation loss all season to the Militia, and their only loss comes in a shootout. The Whalers drop the first game 4-3 in overtime. It’s a mirror image of Game One last year.

This is a different Whalers team.

The Whalers continue to win the next four games in dominant, if very close, matchups. They slay their dragon in round two and eliminate the Montreal Militiain swift timing. That season-best record, that number of guys who are finally clicking and putting it together, it all finally starts to come together. The only thing standing in their way is a Kelowna Knights team in what will be the last year of their dynasty.

The Whalers, as they’ve seemed to in these last post-seasons, drop Game One at home. A 3-1 loss to a dominant and veteran Kelowna Knights team. But they didn’t come this far to fail here. In Game Two, in Vancouver, they pitch a 3-0 shutout behind a dominant performance from goalie Greg Santos, who stops all 40 shots put on him. In a foreboding omen, the Whalers only manage to put up fifteen total shots in sixty minutes. In Game Three, the Whalers rally back from 5-3 with two unanswered goals to take it to overtime and win on the back of Jack Kennedy’s first playoff goal to take Game Three in a 6-5 barnburner.

But in Game Four, the momentum starts to shift. The Knights win Game Four 2-1 in overtime. They win Game Five, away in Vancouver, 2-1 in regulation. The series lies at 3-2 going back to Kelowna. In Game Six, Vancouver takes a 2-1 lead after the first. In the second, the Knights tie it back up at 2-2. The third, hard-fought, ends scoreless. Game Six heads to overtime. For the Kelowna Knights, a win here seals the series and earns them their third straight Four-Star Cup win, an unheard-of feat in Major Junior hockey. For the Vancouver Whalers, it means forcing Game Seven and heading home to play in front of a crowd that is hungry for a cup, making good on their statistical dominance in the last two years. When the puck drops, there is so much on the line.

And at five and a half minutes into the first overtime period, Ryan Gardiner scores his fourth goal of the playoffs and seals a third-straight cup win for the Kelowna Knights.

The arena in Kelowna explodes.

The air in the city of Vancouver is sucked out of the atmosphere.

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Season 43

What will be Bastien Marchessault’s second and last season as General Manager of the Vancouver Whalers starts with a resounding thud as they drop their first two games in high-scoring affairs to St. Louis and Halifax. But if this Whalers team has learned anything, it is that adversity toughens them. To play through adversity is the Whaler way.

The Whalers roster is, as ever, balanced. Only two players on the roster fail to reach double digit points, rookies with little playing time. They have four players above the 40-point mark--Andrew Martin (48, and a midseason acquisition from Colorado), Eriks Skalbergs (44), Herb Robert (44), and Carlo Russo (41)--but have eight players above 30 points, and nearly the whole team above 20. They finish the year with 34 wins, 13 losses, and 3 overtime losses, good for 71 points and, for the third straight season (and a dominant, eleven-point lead in the standings), the league-best record. Vancouver records a third straight Laurifer trophy.

They enter the second-round fresh off another first-round bye and, for the third straight year, must power through the Montreal Militia to get to the final. They dominate the first two games at home and head to Montreal with a two-game lead in the series. In Game Three, they suffer a 4-3 overtime loss, but win Game Four with a 3-2 overtime win of their own. When the series heads back to Vancouver for Game Five, the Whalers waste no time winning a 3-0 shutout game to move onto the Finals for the second straight year, the memories of a job left unfinished rattling around in their heads. There are no Kelowna Knights to worry them this year--fresh off of a historic dynasty run, they’re knocked out in the first round by Detroit. Detroit is, then, knocked out of the second round by the second place St. Louis Scarecrows--and the finals are a meeting of the two best teams in Major Junior hockey.

Vancouver, though, is ready for anything. They’ve been to the edge and lost it all.

They win Game One at home in a 4-2 regulation win. In Game Two, they beat St. Louis again in a 7-1 thrashing behind three-point games from Geoff Moore, Tokek Takshak, and Eriks Skalbergs. In St. Louis, Vancouver takes Game Three in a 5-4 overtime win, the game-winner scored by Vancouver’s perennial overtime hero, Jack Kennedy.

St. Louis comes to play in Game Four. They aren’t going to be swept out of their own barn. And, on the back of a four-point game from Adam Taylor (Two goals, Two assists), they push back against the Whalers with a 4-2 win to force a Game Five scenario at home.

Previous Whalers teams might have folded here. After all, it only takes one loss for playoff momentum to shift. But this is not previous Whalers teams.

Game Five, at home in Vancouver. The Whalers, in two periods, put up four goals to St. Louis’s lone tally. Defensively, they’re as stout as they’ve ever been. They’re throwing hits. They’re blocking shots. They’re winning faceoffs. They’re killing penalties. There’s a brief moment in the third, three and a half minutes in when Scarecrows centreman Steven Moyer makes cuts the lead in half and makes it a 4-2 game, that the Crows get their energy back. But that energy that the Scarecrows bench is desperately trying to feed on is sucked out by a Vancouver team that’s playing heavy but impeccably clean.

As the minutes turn to seconds, the Crows pull Aleister Cain from the net in a desperate attempt to cut the lead down even further. If they can just get a win here, they can force Game Six at home in St. Louis, where they’ll stand a better chance at evening the series into a do-or-die Game Seven. But for Vancouver, standing their ground here, with the extra attacker on the ice, means that three seasons of statistical dominance with nothing to show for it might finally be for something. That in some capacity, they might finally live up to their potential. That in some capacity, they might finally get it right.

The seconds tick down.

The arena in Vancouver is silent. The only sounds echoing out through walls are skates on ice.

And the horn sounds.

The stadium erupts.

And the Vancouver Whalers have finally got it right.

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(WC: 1917)