The Six Nations Chiefs will defend their Mann Cup title after defeating the Peterborough Lakers 9-5 in game seven of their MSL final series. The Chiefs win the series four games to three and receive the Everett Coates Memorial Trophy.
The Lakers were leading 5-3 heading into the third period, but six third period goals and a herculean effort from Brandon Miller pushed the Chiefs into the lead. Evan Kirk started the game, as he did the rest of the series, but after the Lakers took a 4-1 lead in the first period, he was lifted in favour of Miller, who backstopped the Chiefs to their 2013 Mann Cup win. Miller allowed only one goal in his 42:10 of play.
“I feel amazing!” Miller said after the win. “It’s the only reason we play. We start the season off trying to get to the Mann Cup, that’s the goal and right now we’ve accomplished that so we’ll start on Friday and it’s pretty exciting.”
Cody Jamieson was named the playoff MVP, after finishing with 25 goals and 25 assists in 12 games. He had three goals and three assists in the final game. Jamieson was quick to focus attention away from himself after the game.
“It feels great to know that we’re going back to the Mann Cup,” he said, deflecting a question about his personal play. “It’s a long summer and if you lose in game seven, we were here a couple years ago and it happened to us and it hurts, you battle so hard all year and it comes down to that. Hats off to Peterborough, they played an excellent series.”
3,784 fans attended game seven, and gave the Lakers a standing ovation before the game even started. While Peterborough would have loved to have hosted another Mann Cup, they will have to wait two more years to bring the tournament back to Peterborough.
Joe Sullivan, who took over the reins as head coach this season, brought the team back to the MSL final after an early exit in the first round in 2013. He saw the team make some strides but recognizes that there is still work to do.
“We weren’t even supposed to make the playoffs,” Sulivan said. “And we get to the MSL final and take the defending champions to gave seven, I think is an awesome thing. [The series] was an up and down thing. We came out and got the first game which was great. Then we feel asleep in game two—we had an opportunity to take it and we came out and played too defensively in the third period and gave them momentum and took the game away. In three of the games we got only five goals offensively so that’s unacceptable for the players and depth that we have; to get five goals in a game is unheard of. To be shutout for 35 minutes in game seven, that’s very unfortunate. I think the guys showed a ton of character and played great but you gotta play better to get through a game seven and a series against the defending championships and we just didn’t do it tonight.”
Brad Self scored two highlight reel goals, both on breakaways, and Mark Steenhuis contributed a pair. John Grant Jr. scored the only other Lakers goal of the night. Craig Point and Jeff Shattler had two goals each for the Chiefs, and singles went to Roger Vyse and Vaughn Harris. Jamieson’s third goal of the night was awarded automatically as the Lakers were called for too many men on the floor with an empty net with :19 seconds to go in the game.
