Login

adamantium · 05-16-2022, 12:53 PM

There will never be another dynasty like the early S40s Kelowna Knights.

The early S40s Kelowna Knights were not, contrary to what their awards records might tell you, one of the most statistically dominant teams of their era. They were not, in fact, even the league-best team for two of their three straight championship runs. But they were a powerhouse. They were built to dominate in the playoffs. They were built to make long, grueling, physical runs against other teams in the postseason. And there will never be another team like the S40s Kelowna Knights. The SMJHL knows this. The former Knights and front office members of those teams know this. The Kelowna Knights seem to know this.

This was, in some ways, the end of history.

Let’s look at some numbers.

---------

Season 40
General Managers: Nour//Thunder
Top Players: Daddy Mack (48), Mikhail Petrikov (44), Jacob Dorty (38), Brock Becker (38)
Final regular-season record: 34 wins, 16 losses, no overtime losses (1st in the League)
Final regular-season goal diff.: +46

This was, maybe, Kelowna’s most dominant championship season. They fought their way to the top of the league to earn their first-round bye and then never looked back. They held their second-round opponents, the Colorado Raptors, to a six-game series and won convincingly in a 4-2 series decision. Then, in the finals, they gave absolutely no quarter to the Detroit Falcons, beating them convincingly in a full sweep, without a single game going to overtime. By most measures, there were some questions about Kelowna’s skill gap to the rest of the league in the regular season, but once the postseason began, whatever questions anyone had were immediately tossed out the window. There wasn’t a single team in the league that could even claim to be close to Kelowna’s level in the Season 40 postseason.

Season 41
General Managers: Nour//Thunder
Top Players: Jacob Dorty (51), Daddy Mack (50), Brock Becker (44)
Final regular-season record: 25 wins, 16 losses, 9 overtime losses (4th in the League)
Final regular-season goal diff.: +22

When we talk about how Kelowna’s championship dynasty wasn’t always built on being the league’s best team, this is a prime example. Kelowna came off of their S40 championship win and finished fourth in the league, above their first-round opponent Detroit and their eventual finals opponent Montreal. But, yet again, Kelowna proved that they simply had another gear in the postseason that no other team could match. They won eight straight games through their first two rounds in the postseason, sweeping the Detroit Falcons and the St. Louis Scarecrows back-to-back, with the full momentum of one of the era’s most dominant postseason teams ever fully in gear. The Montreal Militia, who finished the season in sixth place, just squeaking into the playoffs by three points over Prince George, were the only team to give Kelowna any sense of pushback. The Season 41 finals went the full seven games, but after Kelowna forced a do-or-die Game Seven in Montreal, they convincingly took the final game with a score of 5-2. This gave Kelowna their second Four-Star Cup in as many years.

Season 42
General Managers: Nour//Thunder
Top Players: Daddy Mack (45), Deku Izuku (400, James Dekends (38)
Final regular-season record: 35 wins, 13 losses, 2 overtime losses (2nd in the League)
Final regular-season goal diff.: +37

Season 42, the last of Kelowna’s threepeat, was a return to their regular-season form. Bested only by the 74-point Vancouver Whalers, they still managed to hold a nearly 20-point lead in the standings over third-place Colorado. As such, it should come as no surprise that Kelowna’s continued dominance in the postseason was yet again present in the Season 42 playoffs. After their first-round bye, the Knights handily swept the burgeoning Anchorage Armada and moved onto a finals series against--who else?--the Vancouver Whalers. The finals series was well-fought on both sides and came down to a Game Six overtime period at home in Kelowna. For Kelowna, this was the opportunity to make history and win three Four-Star Cups in as many years; for Vancouver, this was a chance to convert their recent regular-season dominance into a cup for their city once again, the first since the Robert Phelps era. Ultimately, though, Kelowna simply found their gear and wanted it more--they scored five minutes into the overtime period and sealed their historic third straight cup win. Kelowna’s playoff dominance was forever enshrined as a part of Major Junior hockey history.

---------

Since then, the Knights have never gotten back to that unreal, almost ethereal dominance in the postseason. But, really, no team has. What they did, in the era, with their talent, is a feat that nobody will be able to fully replicate. When the Kelowna Knights scored in that Game Six overtime in Season 42, they broke everything. The system was dead. The ideas were over. It was the end of history. But time didn’t stop when history ended. No, in many ways, we are still living in a post-threepeat Kelowna world. Has anything truly gotten stranger? Has anything truly been any more unbelievable? Or have we come face to face with the fact that we’ve witnessed the hockey equivalent of ego death?

Where have we gone from there? Where do we go from here?

And who will one day remind us of the end of history?

---------

(WC: 970)

sigs by me bitch

*Scrufdaddy* · 05-17-2022, 02:01 AM

@adamantium APPROVED +5 TPE

(although you seem to have forgotten the Crows run from 44-46 Wink

)

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us