Rockets and Remparts overcome obstacles to reach semi-finals
The road hasn’t been an easy one for the the Québec Remparts and Kelowna Rockets. Both teams have faced their share of tough questions at various points in the tournament before rebounding to rattle off some key victories to reach the MasterCard Memorial Cup semi-final tonight at the Pepsi Colisée.
Kelowna’s time in Québec started with a 4-3 opening night loss to these same Remparts, followed by what was no doubt two very long days off to reflect and prepare for action against the Rimouski Océanic.
Kelowna skated to a 7-3 win over the Océanic before falling 2-1 to the Oshawa Generals a night later. Fortunately, their seven goals against Rimouski pushed the Rockets into the semi-final thanks to goal differential factoring into the MasterCard Memorial Cup tiebreaking formula.
Now, the WHL Champion Rockets enter tonight’s action well rested after two days off.
“For us, we just need to focus on playing a full 60 minutes,” said defenceman Josh Morrissey whose Rockets fell short in a lasts minute flurry of desperation against Oshawa on Tuesday. “I know in our last game one of the knocks against us was that we failed to do that. I think if we can show up for 60 minutes and just leave everything out there in a do or die situation, that’s when we are going to have success.”
The Remparts come into Friday’s action off an exciting 5-2 victory over the rival Rimouski Océanic, avenging a loss to them in the President Cup finals as Jérome Verrier scored twice and goaltender Zach Fucale made 30 saves on his 20th birthday.
The Remparts were forced into a tiebreaker with Rimouski after Wednesday’s 4-0 shutout loss to the Océanic that saw Québec offer limited resistance.
The question now becomes, how much gas is left in the tank for the Remparts, who enter their third game in three days? In the two instances where the Remparts played their third game in three days this season, the club went 2-0.
“There’s lots of gas in the tank, 120 minutes of gas and maybe more if we need it,” said Remparts captain Kurt Etchegary. “We’re coming into tonight with confidence. Obviously we didn’t see Kelowna’s best in the first game we played against them, so we’re expecting more from them tonight, but I think we had a good game last night and we’re going to build off that.”
A big crowd is expected for tonight’s matchup as the Remparts play out their final games at the Pepsi Colisée before moving into the Colisée Videotron to begin the 2015-16 season.
Tonight’s game can be seen on Sportsnet East, Ontario, West and Pacific as well as on TVA Sports throughout Québec when the puck drops at 7:30pm ET.
