Where Jake goes, winning follows

It’s not like playing for the Caledonia Corvairs for the previous three years had exactly been horrible for him.

That Jr. B team was about as dominant as any team in any league in any sport, anywhere. It had won 132 of its 147 regular-season games in that time and 60 of its 71 playoff games en route to threestraight titles. Wearing the blue and gold sweater was essentially a surefire ticket to the Sutherland Cup.

No team at this level had ever achieved three-straight championships before. Best of all, Jake Brown was an important piece of the dynasty rather than a coattail rider. What wasn’t to love about that?

But when Brown turned 20 and decided to get on with real life and enrol in Conestoga College, he soon came to realize something had to change. The drive from Kitchener to his Ancaster home along Highway 24 was too-often nasty in the winter. After a few white-knuckle commutes, he decided it couldn’t continue.

So he asked for a trade to a team closer to school. As he did, he accepted that going to the Elmira Sugar Kings meant his days of winning championships were over.

“I didn’t think I’d be back in the finals,” he says.

That was tough. He hadn’t been drafted by an OHL team after minor midget so he’d stayed with the Hamilton Huskies for his midget season. His hockey life was extended only when Caledonia’s general manager saw him play one night and asked him to come try out.

The excitement of being wanted was dampened somewhat when the Corvairs started signing a bunch of former OHLers to fill the lineup. Guys with stronger pedigrees and more-impressive backgrounds.

“I thought I wasn’t even going to make the cut,” Brown says.

Except, he did. In his first year, he was a decent contributor and they won the Sutherland Cup.

By his second year, he was scoring more than a point a game and they won the Cup again.

In his third season, he was approaching two points a game. And yes, they won the Cup once more. A guy can get used to that.

So you can understand why he thought asking for a trade away from that was sacrificing another ring for school. It was like someone on the 1976 Montreal Canadiens asking to be dealt to the Kansas City Scouts.

But a funny thing happened on the way to oblivion.

First, the league changed its rules on overage players to limit how many a team could have. Suddenly, Caledonia — which had 19 the year before and was now limited to nine — was pulled back to the pack a bit. Then, the Sugar Kings got hot, at one point ripping off 16 wins in a row.

By the time the playoffs rolled around Elmira was ready. They swept Guelph in the first round and beat Kitchener in the second.

Then as they were really rolling they faced Listowel in the third round and then lost a tight series that …

Wait, lost? Wasn’t this narrative heading somewhere?

Hang tight. Yes, they lost. But thanks to the unusual playoff structure involved in three Ontario Jr. B leagues competing for one title you need a fourth team to make a balanced semifinal. So there was room for a single wild-card team. The Sugar Kings got the invitation to be that team. And who would they face in the semifinals? The Corvairs, of course. “I was excited for sure,” Brown says. “I knew they were a powerhouse but not as much of a powerhouse as they used to be.”

He admits he was a little surprised when his new team won the first two games. One of those was in Caledonia where the three-time champs had been essentially unbeatable for years. Goliath, it turned out, was beatable after all.

He was admittedly even more surprised when his side won 3-2 on Sunday afternoon and eliminated the Corvairs in six games, with Brown collecting two assists in the clincher.

That means not only is he back in the finals against even his own expectations, but he now has a chance win four straight Sutherland Cups, something nobody else has likely ever done. Try as he might to keep this possibility out of mind, the Sugar Kings’ leading playoff scorer — 27 points in 22 games — has thought about that a bit. Especially as the chances have become better and better.

Next year he’ll be going to the University of Windsor to continue his education and play hockey. As a result, this is his last season of junior hockey. He has this one final chance to make some history.

He’s not making any predictions. But he does feel pretty good about how it’s gone so far.

“It seems to be working out pretty well.”

Which he never expected when he left the dynasty of dynasties. But he’ll take it.