It is a TV showcase now. My first Cup was 1982 in Hull. No host team, double round-robin. Kitchener won with some kid named Bellows. Scott Stevens, Al MacInnis. Sherbrooke's Gerard Gallant. Portland's Ken Yaremchuk. Enormous defence on Portland. We've been to 20 of them since.
In the Memorial Cup held in Peterborough in 1996. The Petes went into the Memorial Cup OHL Champions as the underdog. The Granby Predators and Brandon Wheat Kings both finished with over 100 points and the Guelph Storm who were the OHL Representative Team had 95 points to the Petes 79 points. The Petes won their round robin games against Granby and Guelph and lost to Brandon in overtime. They then went on beat Brandon in the semi final before losing the final in the fog bowl to Granby. While they did not win the Memorial Cup in the end they were very competitive in the Memorial Cup against teams that finished well ahead of them in the standings.
Another option could be to do away with the round robin format and have the host league champion play the non host league champion with the lower amount of points and the host/representative team play the non host champion with the most points in a best of three. The winner of those series would play a best of three for the Memorial Cup.
The best way would be to avoid the host team getting into the event. Make it a 3 team tournament. The host league will fill the stands no matter what.
Barrie, North Bay, and Peterborough were just stronger, better built for a playoff run this year than Ottawa.
Dirty12...any chance you could head over to the Petes and/or London thread, and give us your thoughts on the OHL final? Who you picking and why? Thx
It used to be that, of course - there were only three teams, and the host team only made it if they were good enough to win their league. New West Bruins did that when they hosted, and then beat the 67's in the Final in the 1970s. (Those were the days when you could pick up a player from another team to take to the Memorial Cup, weird as that seems today.) The money from TV and ticket sales, though, means that the host team format isn't going anywhere for now.
Can your boys PLEASE beat the Knights? I just can't deal with watching London at the Memorial Cup again...
I think the Petes have a great chance of winning the OHL Championship. In my opinion they have already faced their toughest opponents in Ottawa and North Bay. In my opinion London is not as good as those two were. It also appears that we have almost all the other 18 teams’ fans in our corner.
That was 1977 ( I remember because I got married the day before, and, APPARENTLY, I was not allowed to reschedule the wedding, hmmmphhh.) We took Pat Riggin from London. The Cup was a double round robin. I remember the final series with the Knights. They were a loaded team with Marsh, Ramage, Ciccarelli. It was also the days of the 20-year-old draft, so not so many distractions for drafted players in the playoffs. The 18-year-old draft came in in 1980.
Not a 67, but Mack Weegar is a Nepean product who was passed over by the OHL. He had to win his Memorial Cup with the Mooseheads in Saskatoon.
ottawa67s.com
Hopefully he fits in and becomes a contributor as we need size. That being said ,and I don't want to judge the kid without seeing him, but he needs to be able to Skate! If he doesn't skate well he won't fit our puck pursuit/forechecking style. A guy like Quinn Yule (similar body) did not fit well a few years ago when Tourigny brought in this style of play. Obviously they see something in him so let's wait and see.Ottawa 67s
Nice little write up on the 67’s newest signing. 14th rounder from the 2022 draft. Kid is pretty big at 6’5” and was looking pretty good at the development camp.
