Bulldogs wait for Memorial Cup fate

Team needed two-goal win again Titan, but instead they won 3-2

REGINA— While you were sleeping, the Hamilton Bulldogs were wide awake in Regina waiting to find out if they will be playing in the Memorial Cup final or playing for their lives. They didn’t need to be. With a two-goal win over the Acadie-Bathurst Titan on Tuesday, they could have avoided the uncertainty — not to mention caught a few more z’s — and guaranteed themselves a berth in the championship.

Instead, they won 3-2. Which meant their fate was in the hands of the Regina Pats and Swift Current Broncos.

A two-goal win was well within grasp. Twice in that game, the Bulldogs led by a pair and they had opportunities, including on a four-minute advantage early in the third in which they only mustered three shots on net, to enhance the one-goal cushion. But they didn’t. In fact, at times it looked as if they were content with just running down the clock. John Gruden didn’t care. “Honestly, if we have to play Friday, we have to play Friday,” the Hamilton coach said following the game.

In retrospect, Gruden said Wednesday he would do nothing differently. He and his staff understood the scenario, but didn’t talk to their players about it or come up with a complicated strategy of any sort.

“If we start doing that and start saying we need more goals then we’re going to get away from the way we play,” he added. “I don’t say that stuff because then they start thinking about things other than just winning the game.” In that sense, his plan worked. Robert Thomas, the star centre who had a goal and an assist against the Titan, said that while the Bulldogs weren’t as tight as they could have been late in the game, winning by two wasn’t on his mind. Winning was.

“If you think about it, you’re trying to cheat for that goal, you give up one and then you don’t have a chance, right? So if we scored one, great, that’s perfect, but honestly, I don’t think any of us was thinking about that.”

The result sets up two straightforward possibilities. If Swift Current beat host Regina in the last game of the round robin late Wednesday, Hamilton is in the Memorial Cup final Sunday.

And if Regina wins, Bathurst goes and the Bulldogs will meet the Pats Friday in the tournament semifinal.

“Honestly, if we have to play Friday, we have to play Friday.” JOHN GRUDEN HAMILTON BULLDOGS COACH