CORNER BROOK It almost seemed like a foregone conclusion the Corner Brook Regional High Titans Black would win the West Coast High School Hockey League championship this season.
Except, of course, if nobody did.
For the first time since 2008, the league final has been effectively cancelled after a train wreck of a semifinal round that saw the Titans Black and Stephenville High Spartans both advance due to forfeitures by the St. James Regional High Saints and Elwood High Lakers.
According to Titans Black coach and league schedule-maker Sean King, attempts to organize a final series or even a one-off championship game were quashed by the Spartans.
“They said they weren’t interested in playing,” King said.
There was certainly a race against the clock to finish the playoffs anyway, but King said ice would be on at the Pepsi Centre until the end of May, so a final would have been possible had Stephenville been up for it.
“I don’t know (why they didn’t want to play),” he said. “You’d have to ask them the reasoning for that.”
The reasoning, according to Spartans coach Randy Alexander, was mainly the timing of it all. He said a number of Spartans players were away on a ball hockey tournament this past weekend and were unreachable to see if they could play a proposed game in Corner Brook on Monday night. Another game would have typically followed on Tuesday night in Stephenville, but after the forfeits of the first round, Alexander gave up his club’s ice-time to Stephenville Minor Hockey, as it prepares teams for the annual Easter tournaments.
One such tournament, the midget D that features high-school aged players, will be held in Stephenville and was another reason why some Spartans pulled the plug on playing the high school final this week.
“Some parents and players were reluctant to do it that close to the Easter tournament,” Alexander said, adding there was enough time throughout the season to complete all the games without cutting it this close. “We had a meeting (Tuesday) with the kids to see if they were interested in trying to squeeze something in, but we couldn’t get enough commitment, other than a couple of Grade 12s that are in their last year and wanted to play.”
Titans Black dominant
The elephant in the room is the fact the stacked Titans Black squad, featuring several players from the provincial major midget league, dominated the season from beginning to end, posting a 14-0 record, a number similar to how most of their final scores looked. The Spartans, at 8-6, were the only other club in the five-team setup with a winning record. A second team from Corner Brook Regional High, featuring players who didn’t make the Titans Black squad, struggled to compete consistently and wound up with just one win in 13 games.
Alexander admits the apparent futility of the situation had a lot to do with the majority of his players not wanting to close out the season.
“One of the kids said, ‘It’s not that we’re going to get beat bad, but what’s the point? Someone might get hurt before Easter against a team we don’t have a chance of beating,’” recounted Alexander.
But that doesn’t satisfy King.
“I don’t feel that way,” he said. “You never know in a hockey game what can transpire. That’s why you play the game.”
He pointed at last season, where the sole Corner Brook Regional High team, coached by Gerard Lowe, decided not to select major midget players. The team finished in fourth place with a 4-9 record and was swept out of the semifinals in two straight games by Elwood. The Lakers went on to defeat the Spartans in four games to win the championship.
“Our players were looking forward to bringing closure to (this season),” said King. “Some fellas played last year and never won a game, but they didn’t call it quits, they stuck it out for the full year.”
Alexander said he doesn’t particularly condone how this all boiled down either.
“I don’t like forfeiting anything,” he said. “But to me the questions of fulfilling requirements would first go to Deer Lake (Lakers) and Port aux Basques (Saints).”
He said it’s no coincidence the rest of the league seemed reluctant to finish the season, and believes having two balanced teams coming out of Corner Brook Regional High, particularly if they’re going to accept major midget players on the roster, would go a long way towards league parity. It might even save the league itself.
“In talking to some of the coaches from the existing league, if the league looks as lopsided next year as it is this year, chances are there will be problems getting it off the ground,” said Alexander.
Rumours regarding next year do nothing to solve the current issue, however, which is still the sticking point for King. He’s always claimed the goal of high school hockey was to give kids a chance to play.
He’s upset his players won’t have the opportunity to go for the ultimate victory to cap off the season because the other team doesn’t want to bother with it.
“We’ve always preached to our kids, you make a commitment and you stick to it,” he said. “It’s disappointing.”
