Rockets vs. Spitfires In The Final
r Ryan Huska was happy to get the bye into Sunday’s championship game but now he’s ready to get back to work.
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r The Kelowna Rockets opened the 2009 MasterCard Memorial Cup with a pair of wins that clinched a berth in the final. They lost their final round robin game against the Windsor Spitfires on Tuesday and have been idle waiting for an opponent. Meanwhile, Windsor won the tie-breaker game on Thursday against the Rimouski Oceanic and then claimed a spot in the final with an overtime win over the Drummondville Voltigeurs in the semi-final on Friday.
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r Huska said that the time off has been good for his club and now they are ready to face the Spitfires again in the finale on Sunday (4:00 p.m. Eastern on Rogers Sportsnet and RDS).
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r “We haven’t been playing to the potential that I think we can play at,” Huska said. “That’s something that we have to see on Sunday if we want to give ourselves a chance to win. I think a lot of that comes down to the environment and where we are.”
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r The Rocket’s coach won the Memorial Cup three times as a player in the 1990’s with the Kamloops Blazers and said that it’s difficult for players to control their emotions under the pressure of playing in the championship game.
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r “Sometimes players try to do a little too much on their own,” said Huska, who was also in the Memorial Cup three times as an assistant coach with the Rockets. “Maybe they want to be the difference instead of keeping a little bit more to the system play. That’s why tomorrow’s game will come down a lot of times to the discipline and your emotional control. How long you can control your emotions during the 60 minutes.”
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r Former players like Josh Georges, who was the captain of the Rockets when they won the Memorial Cup on home ice in 2004, sent their best wishes to this year’s team.
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r “That’s something that I think our guys understand now – how important and how special winning is,” Huska said. “Not just winning a Western Hockey League championship, but winning a Memorial Cup.”
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r Other than the Rockets 4-1 win over Rimouski in the opener last Friday, every game in the tournament has been decided by one or two goals. Three games went to overtime, including the semi-final on Friday. Huska said that the level of competition is as good as he’s seen in the tournament.
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r “Every game was a close game and a lot of times it comes down to a break one way or the other,” Huska said. “I think just as easily as Windsor and ourselves are in the final, it could have just as easily been Drummondville and Rimouski. It’s kind of similar to the one we were at in Laval with the Kamloops Blazers. All of the teams were very competitive. All the games were good. The one thing that separates this tournament to me is the competition is very close and has been every game. A bounce here or there and it’s a different story on Sunday.”
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