Royals’ season-ender one for the books
Ryan Speed was so hoarse Monday that he was barely able to talk.
Like his fellow Victoria Royals fans, he didn’t like the wrenching outcome the day before. But in the end, the fans who were at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre can say they were part of something truly epic.
“It was cool to be part of history,” said Royals superfan Doug Pinel.
The Royals were eliminated from the Western Hockey League playoffs Sunday in an extraordinary game that was the longest ever played in WHL and Canadian Hockey League history.
Mid-season pick-up Cal Babych scored on a breakaway at 11:36 of the fifth overtime period to give the Western Conference top-seed Everett Silvertips a sapping 3-2 victory that clinched the best-ofseven opening-round series 4-2 over the eighth-seed Royals. The lengths it took to get there became the real story.
It was the first game in WHL history to go to five overtimes.
Both squads received an appreciative and rousing ovation following the game from the 4,613 fans, most of whom stayed through the bitter end after spending five hours and 49 minutes of total game time in the building. Few fans in hockey history have spent as much time watching a single game. It began shortly after 2 p.m. and ended just before 8 p.m. The main concession remained open but the pickings were getting slim. Beer sales ended after the second period. Who knew there would be six more to come?
“Time seemed to blur . . . I was not even aware of it until I got outside and it was nearly dark . . . lucky it wasn’t a regular 7 o’clock start,” said Speed, who works in IT.
“What was most amazing was to see the players’ stamina. They went out shift after shift.”
Those players were nearly only fuelled by fumes.
“We were running on emotions . . . we battled right to the end,” said graduating 20-year-old Royals forward Carter Folk, whose final game in the WHL was literally one for the books.
Folk was bodychecking, forechecking and attacking right to the end.
“Gatorade . . . salt intake . . .,” he said, about how the players kept their bodies energized and hydrated through the marathon of hockey, which was the equivalent of playing nearly three full consecutive games without a break.
Said Royals goaltender Griffen Outhouse: “It was definitely tiring but everyone was pushing through it [the sheer exhaustion].”
The 151-minute, 36-second game eclipsed the former WHL longest-game record of 136:56 set in a 3-2 Kamloops win against Kootenay in 2003 and also the former CHL record of 146:31 established between Victoriaville and Hull in a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League game in 1999.
Neither team Sunday could have asked more of their players.
“We put it all out there . . . blood, sweat and tears,” said graduating 20-year-old Victoria captain Ryan Gagnon, a five-year veteran Royals defenceman, who played his final WHL game.
The effort of the goaltenders was physically heroic, with Victoria’s Outhouse facing 75 shots and Everett’s Carter Hart 66.
“I couldn’t have been prouder of a team,” said Outhouse.
“I wanted to do it [backstop a victory] for our guys, especially for the 20-year-olds in our room.”
But instead it is the Silvertips who advance to meet Mathew Barzal and the Seattle Thunderbirds in the second round of the playoffs beginning Friday.
“It would have been nicer to be on the other side of that [Sunday] scoreline. But I couldn’t have been prouder of my guys and I couldn’t have asked for anything more from them,” said Royals coach Dave Lowry.
“But you have to face defeat before you become a champion.”
And sometimes you have to take the long route, quite literally, to get there.