BLADES OFFER FINAL THOUGHTS ON SEASON
The Saskatoon Blades went all in.
It was a gamble — as it always is, in the world of sports — but the timing definitely seemed right as the Western Hockey League franchise appeared to be on the verge of something really, really big.
The Blades were looking at what they thought was a winning hand, so it made a lot of sense.
It all came to a shocking end Tuesday night with a 3-2 overtime loss to the visiting Moose Jaw Warriors in Game 7 of their WHL Eastern Conference final before a Sasktel Centre Arena crowd of 13,000-plus screaming patrons.
There are no regrets, however. “I've had a few GMS — guys I've really respected in this league — say that `you were the best chance to win the Mem Cup' and they felt our pain,” said a visibly shaken Blades general manager and team president Colin Priestner during team year-ending exit meetings at Sasktel Centre.
“I feel like, if it's a poker game, we went in, pushed all our chips in, because we had pocket aces. You play a little lower hands in the first few and then you get to the end and they're maybe Aceking and we're pocket aces and the river card comes and it makes a straight for them, or whatever.
“You thought you had it the whole time, and you did have the best hand. So when you have the best hand, you have to go all in. That's where we won the regular season and the Scotty Munro banner and all; we'll proudly hang that next year with the division banner because we deserved that and we earned that.”
Priestner was holding back tears during the season-ending media availability, which saw a half-dozen Blades appear before the tape recorders and TV cameras.
“The run we went on was something you dream of,” said Priestner. “It just ended like kind of a nightmare. To think of how close we got, and I still feel we've got the best team in the country — I truly do. I feel like we deserved to win (Game 7). I really do. We were in an unbelievably great series with another great team and I feel like we outplayed them substantially (in Game 7) and out-chanced them on a 2-to1 ratio and, for whatever reason — it goes off a skate and in and that's it. The plug is pulled so fast from the season.”
A lot has changed since the Priestner family took over the Blades franchise from the Brodsky clan. Priestner, who came to Saskatoon from Edmonton, admits he wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms at first.
But this season, it was evident that Saskatoon had rallied behind the team more than ever.
Priestner just wishes the support could be rewarded with a WHL championship that continues to elude the city.
“You see that there are 13,000 people there and people are coming up to me in the concourse and saying `thank you so much for this run' and I just wish I was able to deliver a championship to these people in this city because everybody believed in us, and we did everything that we could to bring this city a championship and they deserved it and supported us unbelievably,” he said.
“And for me personally, to see where my relationship with the people here in the city was six, seven years ago when everyone wanted me to leave and go back to Edmonton, and now people in the intermission thanking me so much and now we have a whole new generation of Blades fans, a younger generation that loves this team and fell in love with this team. I just wish we could give them the parade they deserve.”
One by one, Blades players — some of them moving on, some of them staying — said their final words on the season that was, and what could have been.
“I liked our Game 7, honestly,” said Blades D-man Ben Saunderson, who is expected to be one of the team leaders next season, “but sometimes because of puck luck, or whatever it is, it didn't go our way.
“It's obviously still pretty fresh, but when you look back, we accomplished a lot of things this year.”
Said graduating team captain Trevor Wong: “Going into that locker room and cleaning it out, and seeing the boys take their bags out and all that stuff, is a bitter feeling ... We knew that we gave it our all. The game could have gone either way. I'm just super proud of the boys. Obviously, today, it's not such a great feeling in the locker room, just cleaning out my locker-room for the last time.”
Fellow graduate Charlie Wright said he's “still a little bit in shock” and “definitely still thinking about” the Game 7 loss.
“At some time, it will kick in that next year I won't get to come back (to the Blades),” said Wright. “It hurts. It still sucks.”
Wright said this group of players was truly special.
“When it comes down to it, it's the people that you're always going to remember and the guys that I'm going to have at my wedding and the other guys' weddings that I'm going to go to.”
Weddings will have to wait. This one felt more like the loss of an otherwise great season.
`Today feels more like a funeral,” admitted Priestner, “and I just try and remind ourselves that we could be in Gaza right now, or in Ukraine, and we're talking about a kids' game at the end of the day, and it feels like life and death but it's not.
“The sun came out. We had an amazing year with amazing people that did special teams and we had to go through a tough loss, but nobody in that room has terminal cancer and we're all going to be fine. It's just hard to swallow.”