Halifax wins the 95th Mastercard Memorial Cup

“This is what you dream about as a kid, watching junior hockey all your life and especially being from a hockey-crazy town in Halifax, this is unbelievable,” said tournament MVP and leading scorer MacKinnon, who hails from Cole Harbour.

A disallowed goal in the second period might have changed the game entirely for Portland. But as head coach and general manager Travis Green said in a post-game interview, he didn't get an explanation from the referees.

With the score sitting at 3-2 at the time, the replay shows Portland forward Ty Rattie corralling the puck in mid-air with his glove, and then when trying to get the puck to his stick in the blue ice of the Mooseheads, the puck takes a bounce off Zachary Fucale and into the net.

“I'm guessing that it didn't touch his stick but I don't know,” said Green.

“It would have been a big goal, a tied hockey game going into the third period, but I haven't seen the replay so I can't comment on it.”

Right from the start, Halifax looked to the better team scoring three first period goals. Konrad Abeltshauser opened the scoring 6:31 into the game on the power play. MacKinnon scored shortly after followed by a one-timer from Martin Frk that beat Mac Carruth.

The Winterhawks showed signs of life in the second period. A nice feed from Ty Rattie to Nicolas Petan ended up in the Halifax net. Seth Jones added his name to the score sheet, cutting the Halifax lead to just one, heading into the third down 3-2.

Halifax came out strong in the third with second goals from MacKinnon and Abetshauser that propelled Halifax to their biggest lead in the game, 5-2.

That's when the WHL champion Winterhawks turned it up a notch. Goals by Rattie and Brenden Leipsic brought the Winterhawks back within one goal. But with the net empty, in the last 30 seconds, MacKinnon completed the hat trick, his second three-goal performance of the Mastercard Memorial Cup.

Mooseheads' coach Dominique Ducharme said his best players came to play and despite being up 3-0 early, he never counted the Winterhawks out.

“We knew we were playing a good team and it's never over and those guys never quit and that's what we expected from them,” said Ducharme.

Halifax becomes the third team from the QMJHL to win the Mastercard Memorial Cup in as many years. This is the first time Halifax won the Memorial Cup.

Portland's last Memorial Cup title came in 1998.

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow

by paNOW Staff

Halifax wins the 95th Mastercard Memorial Cup

By Francois Biber

paNOW Staff

What's Trending