R-B-C, R-B-C, R-B-C

The Dukes grind out improbable back-to-back wins to bring home the Dudley Hewitt Cup

It was supposed to be easier than this. Not that winning the Dudley Hewitt is ever just a skate in the park. But earlier in the week the Dukes had skated away with easy wins over DHC rivals the Wisconsin Wilderness and the Soo Eagles. The host team Huntsville meanwhile, had won both their games but by much smaller one- and twogoal margins.

But when Wellington and Huntsville met for the first time on Thursday,it was clear the Otters had been playing rope-a-dope in the first couple games—lying in wait for the Dukes. Twice in that game the Dukes gained the lead, only to give it back each time. In the second overtime the Otters scored to win the game, forcing the Dukes into the semi-final game and earning themselves a by until Saturday’s championship.

The Wellington Dukes’ Jeff Stanton (above, white jersey #7) puts the puck in the back of the net and the Dukes on the scoreboard in the semi-final game against the Soo. This first goal was scored at the end of the first period.

The Dukes hadn’t played poorly; the Otters benefited from a pair of bounces and, in the end, this was enough.

Earlier in the day the Soo Eagles had outlasted Wisconsin in a game that wasn’t decided until the fourth overtime, earning them the right to take on the Dukes on Good Friday.

The Eagles, from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, came into the game as the clear underdog. They had nothing to lose. Being in this game was the achievement. For the Dukes it was a different story. Having faced adversity for the first time, would they rebound? For the first time in the tournament the prospect of a final without Wellington seemed possible.

Back in Wellington, fans were glued to the radio or television broadcast—that is, until Cogeco cut the feed at 11 p.m.

The wall

Once the game began, matters became a bit more intense as it became obvious that the Soo’s 16-year-old phenom, Jake Patterson, was having the game of his young life in net for the Eagles. He stopped everything he could see and rarely let a rebound squirt away.

The insurance goal: Joe Zarbo (above, right) scored the final goal in the 2011 Dudley Hewitt Cup championship game, giving the Wellington Dukes a 5-3 victory over the host Huntsville Otters and a trip to the RBC Cup.

After a fairly even first period the Dukes turned up the heat in the second, pounding Patterson with 24 shots. But it was the Eagles who scored first. The Dukes’ Jeff Stanton scored, converting a feed from Darcy Greenaway—drilling the puck in the near slot up and over Patterson.

In the third the Dukes continued to push the Eagles— 17 more shots compared to just four for the Eagles. But Patterson again and again stood on his head. His defencemen were quick to clear the zone.

As the period wound down, Joe Zarbo wristed a hard shot past Patterson through traffic.The Dukes had the lead and with less than three minutes to go in the game, what appeared to be the win.

But with just a minute left in the game the Dukes made a poor change, leaving the Soo’s Brock Raffaele to skate through the neutral zone at speed, his slap shot from just inside the bluelines sailed by Jordan Ruby and into the net.

The next three overtime periods were a battle of sheer endurance.Two boxers in the late rounds just trying to hang on.With each passing period it seemed the game might never end. Each team had chances and the shots on goal reflected the parity. At 11 minutes after midnight, four and one half hours after they had begun the game, Captain Sean Rudy skated off the wall with the puck and wristed a shot from a sharp angle that slipped over Patterson’s shoulder, giving the Dukes the win. The longest game in the Dukes’ history was over. And a County of fans began to breathe again.

Running on pride

The question on everyone’s lips on Saturday was: would the Dukes have anything left in the tank to compete with the newly energized Huntsville Otters? Even if they did, would it be enough?

The Huntsville fans filled the rink around the strong and loud contingent from Wellington.

On the ice the Dukes took control early as Steve Evans, deep in the corner, moved the puck back to Braden Kavaratzis who blistered a shot on Thomas Shelley in net for the Otters. Brian Bunnett was ready for the rebound and slid the puck around the netminder and into the net.

Later in the first period, the Dukes allowed the Otters’ sniper Greg Gibson to skate out from the corner and pick his spot to deliver the puck past Ruby.

Before the period was over the Dukes regained the lead just as a power play opportunity lapsed. Rusty Hafner’s blast from the high slot navigated traffic, smashing into the bar in the back of the net.

The lead would be short lived. Just seconds into the second period the Otters’ defenceman Kyllian Kirkwood wired a shot past Ruby to tie the score again.

Darcy Murphy snapped in a rebound on the power play and the Otters’ Bronson Kovacs scored on a near-identical shot as Kirkwood’s goal earlier in the period.

More troubling for the Dukes was the fact that the Otters controlled much of the play in the second period. The score was still tied but Huntsville had the momentum. It appeared as though the equivalent of seven games in five days was catching up with these exhausted Dukes players.

Surprisingly, it was the Dukes who skated out onto the ice with energy and determination in the third period.

Four minutes into the period Darcy Greenaway snapped a low hard shot from the faceoff dot that slid underneath Shelley. It would turn out to be the game winner.

Rock solid defenceman Curtis Leonard is awarded the Dukes player of the game for his stalwart defensive play, evident throughout the tournament.

The Dukes kept coming. Midway through the period Joe Zarbo slipped laterally from the wall toward the slot looking for a lane. He wristed a classic Zarbo shot high over Shelley’s glove hand and into the net. Then the Dukes moved into close-down mode, stopping everything in the neutral zone.

The clock ticked down with the Dukes crowd on their feet and cheering at the end of their ability.

The Dukes’ bench emptied and the team swarmed their netminder in a massive scrum at mid-ice. Chanting R-B-C over and over again, they reminded themselves of what they had achieved. Soon the crowd joined them, soaking up this moment.

The Wellington Dukes had made it to the final four of the best junior ‘A’ hockey teams in the country.

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