Crusaders dominate high school hockey

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This article was published 11/03/2019 (2629 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the fourth year in a row, the St. Paul’s Crusaders will carry the title as the best high school hockey team in the province.

The Crusaders defeated the Sturgeon Heights Huskies 3-0 at Bell MTS Iceplex on Monday night to win the provincial championship. It’s the second year in a row the Crusaders beat the Huskies in the final. It’s also their fifth provincial title in six years.

“The time we put in for the six or seven months of the season, absolutely it means a lot,” said St. Paul’s head coach Andrew Harder, who’s been leading the program for 18 years.

“I’m away from my young kids quite a bit, so these are my big kids that I have to coach all the time and it’s fantastic. It’s a testament again with everyone buying in, everyone buying into our systems over the years and relishing playing for the Crusaders, so it’s really special.”

The Huskies headed into provincials as the No. 1-ranked team after winning the city championship. On their way to the city crown, they swept St. Paul’s in their best-of-three semifinal series with both games going to overtime.

St. Paul’s captain Ethan Lewis said being able to avenge that loss makes this provincial banner even sweeter.

“It’s a big rival at Sturgeon. We don’t like them, they don’t really like us,” said Lewis, the winner of the tournament’s Player’s Choice award. “To get this one is super special, especially for us seniors in our last game. Like I said, it’s something we’ll never forget.”

There were fireworks to start the game, as Huskies star forward Ryan Ostermann, who scored two goals in the semifinal victory over the Garden City Fighting Gophers on Saturday, took a shoulder hit to the chin from St. Paul’s defenceman Ian Macdonnell. Ostermann was slow to get up, but there was no penalty on the play.

“I thought I received a pretty dirty hit first shift of the game,” said Ostermann, the tournament’s MVP. “I was talking to the refs after they looked at the video, and they admitted they missed one. It definitely messed with me and threw me off my game. I wasn’t able to perform how I usually do.”

Lewis, a member of the three provincial championship teams at St. Paul’s, said the hit on Ostermann definitely provided his team with a spark.

“I haven’t seen Ian Macdonnell hit like that all season,” said Lewis, who added he did not see the video to determine whether the hit should have been penalized. “It really got us going early on. It got the mojo going, the legs moving and got the boys into it.”

Lewis opened the scoring 11:47 into the second period, dangling between a couple of defenders before drilling a shot past Huskies netminder Noah Gilbert.

The Crusaders added to their lead with just under eight minutes remaining in the game when defenceman Matt Duncan sent a pass down the ice to forward Jack Kaiser on a breakaway. Lewis added an empty-netter in the final minute.

St. Paul’s received tremendous goaltending from Chad Harrison, who stopped 22 shots. The Crusaders have been rolling with the goalie-duo of Harrison and Brody Lawson all season. Despite the fact Lawson had a shutout in the 3-0 semifinal win over the Garden Valley Zodiacs, the team went back to Harrison for the final.

The Huskies going 0-for-5 on the power play didn’t boost their chances of knocking off the defending champs, and neither did going into the game without one of their star forwards. Cayden Onagi had 15 points in seven city playoff games, but was suspended for the tournament after getting into a fight in the team’s opening round-robin game on Friday.

“That’s a very good team over there. Credit to them,” said Sturgeon Heights head coach Tyler Metcalfe.

“They came out guns a blazing today. But I truly feel our team was the best team this year. When we’re with a full roster, our guys are able to compete and stay with a team like that for 50 minutes.

“But losing one of the top-scoring forwards in the league, it’s tough to fill those shoes with Onagi being out. It’s kind of the same story as last year. Call it a dirty hit, call it them focusing on a better player, which is what all teams are going to do when you have a top guy like Ostermann. But he takes a blatant hit to the head on the very first shift of the game. It’s tough to recover when we’ve got so many injuries and we’re so short on the bench. Ultimately, we just couldn’t hang on.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31