Quest for the 105th Queen's Cup concludes Saturday as Patriotes-Mustangs meet in final
BURLINGTON, Ont. – The OUA men’s hockey division winners will soon clash in the 105th edition of the Queen’s Cup final, at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Mar. 12. Western’s Thompson Arena will play host to the Mustangs and UQTR Patriotes, where each team will have their sights set on hoisting ice hockey’s second-oldest trophy.
BURLINGTON, Ont. – The OUA men's hockey division winners will soon clash in the 105th edition of the Queen's Cup final, at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, Mar. 12.
Western's Thompson Arena will play host to the Mustangs and UQTR Patriotes, where each team will have their sights set on hoisting ice hockey's second-oldest trophy.
UQTR will enter the matchup with a chip on their shoulder, as OUA's No. 1 seed was ousted in last year's final 4-0, at the hands of the Guelph Gryphons.
The Patriotes had to get by the Laurentian Voyageurs in the East Division quarter-finals and the UOIT Ridgebacks in the East semi-final action, something they did with little difficulty, outscoring them by a combined 17-6 en route to two series sweeps.
This set up an East Division final meeting against the Carleton Ravens, which once again resulted in a UQTR sweep, as the Patriotes won 4-1 and 6-3 in consecutive games.
Tommy Giroux (Quebec, Que.), who was recently named to the OUA East's second all-star team, had the strongest series of any Patriotes player, finding the back of the net four times. UQTR are currently riding a 15 game winning streak heading into the Queen's Cup final, where they have not dropped a single playoff game.
OUA 2015-16 East MVP and first-team all-star Guillaume Asselin (Quebec, Que.), who led the country in points during the regular season, has continued his strong play in the postseason. Asselin has accumulated a team-high eight points in six games, with seven of those being assists, giving him the OUA playoff lead.
Mathieu Lemay (Hawksbury, Ont.) is another UQTR player to keep an eye on in the Queen's Cup final, as the all-rookie honouree continues to establish himself in OUA, as he too has posted eight points in just six games.
OUA second-team all-star and all-rookie team member Sebastien Auger (St-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Que.) has also contributed greatly to the Patriotes' postseason success, as the netminder has played an integral role for his team, allowing a playoff low of 1.67 goals against per game. In the postseason, Auger owns league bests in both goals against average (1.56) and save percentage (.949).
The Mustangs will be looking to etch their names on the Queen's Cup for the first time since the 2008-09 season, as they have not participated in the final since being defeated in back-to-back seasons back in 2012.
After routing the Laurier Golden Hawks in West Division quarter-final play by scores of 8-3 and 4-1, the Mustangs came up against a greater challenge in the Toronto Varsity Blues in the West semi-final round.
After splitting the first two games of the series, Western found their backs to the wall on the brink of elimination, as the deciding game of the series went to overtime. But the Mustangs would prevail on a series clinching goal by captain David Corrente (Mississauga, Ont.), winning 4-3.
This set up a West Division final date with the defending champions, the Guelph Gryphons. The two teams split the first two games of the series, with each game being decided by no less than two goals. This meant that for the second consecutive series, the Mustangs were facing a do-or-die game. But the suspense ended there; as the Mustangs would go on to trump the Gryphons 5-1 in the deciding game, thereby punching their ticket to the Queen's Cup final.
Throughout the postseason the Mustangs have had the luxury of possessing three point-per-game players: forwards Cody Brown (Wasaga Beach, Ont.) and Spenser Cobbold (Ottawa, Ont.), who have each recorded eight points in eight games, and Andrew Goldberg (Toronto, Ont.), who currently leads the OUA playoffs with 10 points.
The two squads met once during the 2015-16 season on Nov. 7, in a game that saw the Patriotes top the Mustangs by a score of 5-2. Pierre-Olivier Morin (Trois-Rivières, Que.) scored two goals and added an assist for a game-high three points for the Patriotes, while Giroux and Pierre-Maxime Poudrier (Thetford-Mines, Que.) contributed two assists in the victory. Cobbold led the way for the Mustangs in points, as he also dished out two assists in the loss.
Despite the outcome on Saturday, both Queen's Cup final teams will earn a berth in the CIS Championship, taking place Mar. 17-20, at the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax, N.S.
Catch all the action from the 105th Queen's Cup, streaming live on OUA.tv or locally in London on Rogers TV Cable 13 following the London Knights game.
