The Mastercard Memorial Cup concluded Sunday with the Halifax Mooseheads defeating the Portland Winterhawks 6-4.
The Mooseheads were full value for the championship, no question.
In an irony, their only defeat through the week was at the hands of the host team, the Saskatoon Blades.
For the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the win by Halifax makes it three straight Memorial Cups for the league.
Saint John in 2011, the year the Attack were competing at the event
Shawinigan last year as the host team.
And now Halifax whose top line was better than any other team’s top line, whose defence was deeper than the others, certainly deeper than Portland who went with 4 guys and their youthful goaltending was good enough to win it all.
Sure, there are warts and blemishes, suspicions and accusations at a variety of aspects of the Memorial Cup and the Canadian Hockey League in general; but still, it was a very interesting sequence of games hosted in Saskatoon.
Next year, the Memorial Cup tournament returns to Ontario as London hosts again.
I doubt that the 2014 tournament will be any less intriguing
I’m Fred Wallace