Four straight OT wins launch Brooks to back-to-back league titles
Inside Centennial Regional Arena in Brooks, Alberta, they were running out of ways to say it.
How many times can one hockey team play past the 60-minute mark with their season on the line before the tank hits empty? How many times can a group look at a tied scoreboard in May and treat it like just another shift?
For the Brooks Bandits, the answer was four. Four straight games. Four straight overtimes.
The final exclamation point came 5:10 into the extra period on Friday night, when Jack Good one-timed a pass from Mathis Dufour to secure a 4-3 victory over the Nanaimo Clippers in game five. With that single puck hitting the back of the net, Brooks claimed the Rogers BCHL Cup for the second consecutive season.
“We worked so hard,” a breathless Good said on the ice, standing among discarded gloves and sticks. “It’s been nine months of blood, sweat, and tears. We talked about this every day, all leading up to this moment. It feels so good. I’m so happy to get it done with these guys.”
To look at the series line score is to look at a masterclass in razor-thin margins. After dropping game one on home ice, Brooks didn’t play a single minute of hockey when they could have relaxed.
- Game 1: Nanaimo 3, Brooks 1
- Game 2: Brooks 2, Nanaimo 1 (2OT)
- Game 3: Brooks 2, Nanaimo 1 (OT)
- Game 4: Brooks 2, Nanaimo 1 (OT)
- Game 5: Brooks 4, Nanaimo 3 (OT)
Over the course of the five games, the two teams were separated by more than a single goal for a total of seven minutes and 11 seconds. The rest of the series was a dead heat, defined by heavy physical play along the walls and goaltenders matching each other save for save.
Game five initially looked like it might break the trend. The Clippers came out flying with their season on the brink, jumping to a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Patrick Fortune and Drew Roelofs.
But Brooks didn’t panic. The Bandits chipped away in the second period, getting an unassisted marker from Jack Rosensteel – his ninth of a productive postseason – before Liam Fitzpatrick tied it. When Czech forward Frantisek Albrecht scored early in the third, the Bandits looked poised to close it out in regulation.
Nanaimo had one last push. With 48 seconds remaining and their net empty, Samuel Boisvert found a loose puck during a scramble in the crease and beat Bandits netminder Zach Zahara to force overtime.
“We’ve been there four times in this series, so we knew what to expect and what it was going to take to get the win,” Bandits captain Dante Siciliano said. “I couldn’t be more proud of my guys here.”
If Good provided the final heroics, Zahara was the foundation of the entire championship run.
The Rockyview, Alberta native was named the winner of the Jeff Tambellini Trophy as playoff MVP. Zahara started all 21 games for Brooks this spring, putting together a 16-3-2 record alongside a 1.95 goals-against average and a .928 save percentage.
Even with high-end offensive performances in front of him from the likes of Dmitrijs Dilevka (26 playoff points) and Isaac Johnson (25 points), Zahara was consistently the difference-maker when games went to sudden death.
“We’re the most resilient team ever,” Zahara said. “You can throw anything at us. Our group went through so much throughout the playoffs and the whole season. It’s just such a great group.”
The path to the Cup wasn’t linear. Brooks swept Spruce Grove in the opening round, went the full seven games against Sherwood Park, and battled through a five-game series with Cranbrook before drawing Nanaimo.
By the time the handshakes wrapped up on Friday night, the exhaustion of a 21-game playoff run was obvious, but so was the reality of what this group accomplished.
“Through these last two months, and really all season, we got really tight as a group,” Siciliano said. “We’re brothers for life, and we’re champions for life.”
Photo credit: Island Images Photography
