Canucks claim junior crown
Team defeats Baffin Blizzard in intense Challenge Cup series
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
RANKIN INLET
The Kivalliq Canucks defeated the Baffin Blizzard 4-3 to take a thrilling Challenge Cup junior 'C' series two games to one in Rankin Inlet this past weekend.
Hockey North representative Darrin Nichol presents the Kivalliq Cup junior 'C' trophy to Kivalliq Canucks Keegan Burton, Sidney Nichol, KJ Putulik and Jacob Nakoolak, from left, in Rankin Inlet on Saturday, Feb. 27, 2016. - photo courtesy of Noel Kaludjak |
Baffin took the first game by a score of 6-4, while Kivalliq took game two 6-5 in overtime to set up the dramatic game three encounter.
The Canucks will now represent Nunavut at the Maritime-Hockey North junior 'C' championship in New Brunswick later this month.
Kivalliq head coach Donald Clark said the Canucks approached the Challenge Cup as definite underdogs, with Baffin being both the defending Challenge Cup and Maritime-Hockey North champions.
He said he wasn't concerned with how dominant Iqaluit had been at the Polar Bear Plate this past month but he did know the Canucks were up against a solid hockey team.
"I view the Polar Bear Plate as a totally different format because they bring pretty well their Challenge Cup team with the exception of a few individuals," said Clark.
"Kivalliq uses the Plate to select the junior 'C' team. So following the Plate, the skill level of the Kivalliq team really improves when you get all the players from the different communities on the one team."
Clark said the Canucks stuck to their game and took things one shift at a time during the Challenge Cup, adding there were some doubts among his players following the opening loss but the they stuck together and persevered.
"Coming up with that huge second-game win gave us a lot of momentum going into the third game. The players realized Baffin could be beat after game two and that was huge for us," said Clark. "When you go back to the Cup this past year, and then add-on game one this year, they had beat us three games in a row. It was getting painful."
The Canucks let a 5-3 lead slip away in the second game, setting up the overtime.
Clark said the only message he gave the players in the dressing room prior to the overtime was to go for it.
"We had the game pretty much in control when we were up 5-3. Then we made a glaring mistake that gave them a breakaway and their fourth goal to put them back in it," he said. "You often lose when you play scared, or too tentatively, so I told them to just go out and go for it and if we get it, we get it, and if we don't, that's the way it goes. Connor (Faulkner) made a couple of good saves in game two's overtime, and Sandy Jr. (Saviakjuk) scored a nice goal to cap an outstanding individual effort."
Baffin entered game three with two of their better players - Matt Gardner and Alex Suvega - out due to injury.
Clark said the Canucks rolling four lines played a pivotal role in the Kivalliq win.
He said his fourth line brought a lot of energy to every shift, blocked a lot of shots, did a good job on the penalty kill and played well during the entire series.
"We got some big goals in game three from a couple of guys who weren't scoring in the first two games, and we had solid goaltending all through the series.
"We'll be picking up three Baffin players for the Maritime-Hockey North junior 'C' championship in Matt Gardner, Max Shoo and Jonathan Kingwatsiak. We'll have a competitive team and I'm looking forward to trying to land our (Kivalliq Canucks) first win there."
