MARLIES CAPTURE FIRST CALDER CUP,
Marlies capture first AHL championship to end city’s drought
Joy. Elation. Smiles. Hugs. Laughter. Bonding.
Family and friends on the ice. A moment to savour. A moment to remember. A party about to happen.
That is what winning felt like and looked like when a team that wears blue and white with a maple leaf on their chest raised a championship trophy to the rafters.
It was the Toronto Marlies, who claimed the Calder Cup with a 6-1 win over the Texas Stars in Game 7 of the American Hockey League final at Ricoh Coliseum on Thursday night.
“Feels good. We’re excited, we’re Calder Cup champs,” said captain Ben Smith, the first to raise it. “Unbelievable. It’s been a special playoff for us. To be able to finish it like this in Game 7, it’s a great feeling.
“Thursday night in Toronto. Who knows what we’re going to get up to … It’s going to be a good time.”
One day, if winning is infectious in an organization that promotes from within, it could be that other team that plays in that other building hoisting that other Cup.
“It’s this city’s first hockey championship in over 50 years, and this core group is going to do it again, at another level,” said goalie Garret Sparks.
“This is the start of something special.”
It’s the first Calder Cup for the franchise, and first professional men’s hockey trophy of any kind presented to a Toronto team since the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1967. The Marlies are also the first Leafs farm team to win a championship since the New Brunswick Hawks (shared by the Chicago Blackhawks) went all the way in 1982.
The Marlies will celebrate with fans on Saturday at 1 p.m. outside Ricoh Coliseum.
Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment power brokers, including co-owner Larry Tanenbaum and Leafs coach Mike Babcock, were on hand to see the team that new Leafs GM Kyle Dubas put together, Sheldon Keefe coached and Smith captained dominate a Game 7 with the kind of speed, skill and possession hockey that wins these days.
“I was feeling great about this team, no matter how this game went,” said Keefe. “In my mind, they have been champions all year: the effort our team puts forth, how they interact with one another, our leadership group, how our young players grew, all the accomplishments we made to get to here.
“This has been a championship group all season. To get the final reward is the icing on the cake. I’ve never been part of a group that has been more de- serving.”
Sparks deserves credit for a bounceback game following a wonky Game 6, but behind the scenes, Smith credited Keefe with an inspirational speech prior to the game.
“He made us feel good about where we were at, after that tough loss in Game 6. He let us know: Hey, we need to be confident,” Smith said. “If you watch this series, he felt really good about how we played throughout it. We had the majority of chances, the majority of shot opportunities. It was a matter of team effort.”
Playoff MVP Andreas Johnsson and Mason Marchment scored twice in the deciding game. Smith and Carl Grundstrom also scored for Toronto.
Johnsson’s three-point per- formance sparked the Marlies. He opened the scoring and buried the response goal after Texas scored in the third — both with hard drives to the net that underscore the undersized winger’s desire.
“We need a player like Andreas Johnsson who makes a difference for us, who is a gamebreaker. We needed him to step up and we had faith that he would,” said Keefe. “He’s been a rock for us, reliable every day in how he prepares and how he works. This season it clicked for him, right around December … and you can’t say enough about his character to come down here after proving he’s an NHL player, to take the attitude he did to be a difference maker (in the minors).”
The irony is not lost that the Marlies’ success was twinned with the Leafs’ failure. Johnsson and Travis Dermott were key parts of the Marlies’ ability to get out of the best-of-five first round, and were only available because the Leafs’ playoffs ended sooner than expected and both returned to the AHL.
“There’s been a lot of emotions — to get the call-up, get to play the playoffs, then get back here to Marlies — and we have a good team, and we expected to have a long series, and we managed to do that,” said Johnsson.
It was a long ride to 15 wins that, at times, the Marlies made look easy. It included two series sweeps, a 10-game winning streak and two long breaks between series.
“It’s almost surreal,” said forward Colin Greening.