The Peterborough Lakers are mad about the way they lost the Mann Cup, and they have every right to be.
The Victoria Shamrocks won the 2015 national championship after a 12-6 game six win on Friday night at The Q Centre. They won the series 4-2 to claim their first Mann Cup title since 2005 – also the last time a Western team won it. The MSL won nine consecutive cups between then.
The Lakers went down 4-0 after the first period and although they clawed their way back to 6-4 after the second, they ran out of gas in the third period while also running into a confident Shamrocks team. The Shamrocks scored six in the final frame to put an exclamation point on their win.
However, it appears that the Shamrocks had some extra help on their side in this game.
The MSL sent one referee to the Mann Cup, Blair Ferguson. But in the deciding game, both referees on the floor were from the WLA. The head referee, Greg Pepper, is a Shamrocks alumni. While one would hope that referees remain impartial, is that really something you can guarantee in a game this big?
Head coach Mike Hasen wasn’t afraid to voice his displeasure after the game.
“The officiating was gross tonight,” he said frankly. “If you’re a fan of this game and you watched this game and not with green-coloured glasses you saw how gross it was. It was atrocious. And our guys didn’t deserve that by any means. Possession calls, line changes, too many men calls, face-offs, it was gross, it really was gross. You stress this 10 days ago when we got in here, in the first meeting, that you can’t have certain people who wore this uniform before referee in the deciding game and look what you get.”
If that indeed was stated in Mann Cup meetings, how did it end up that Pepper was chosen for this game? Was that rule only meant for a possible game seven?
Eight penalties were called in game six, and all eight were against the Lakers (six minors and two misconducts). Absolutely the Shamrocks played well, but did they really play a perfect game? Certainly the fans in Victoria think their boys are angels. While the Western Hockey League is known as a tougher league than it’s Ontario Hockey League counterpart, the same does not seem to hold true for lacrosse. Laker fans are used to hacks and slashes and hard nosed play, but the Shamrocks fans seemed unused to the physicality of the game and wanted every little tap called.
If the WLA is less of a physical league, why would you not have one referee from each league reffing each game to keep the game balanced? Next year when the East hosts the Mann Cup, hopefully each game has one referee from each league on the floor to avoid this potential conflict of interest.
Scott Evans, who was given a two and a ten with just over a minute left after his frustration with the refereeing boiled over, was quiet and dejected after the game.
“I thought we played hard the whole game, a few bounces went their way, a few calls went their way, and you know what, we get those calls, we get those bounces, and it’s a whole new game,” he said. “It’s over and done with now. It’s a hard pill to swallow but we have 25 guys that battled their asses off for six games. We came out on the short end of the stick this year, but we’ll get the hunger next year, we saw them hoisting the cup and we’ll remember that feeling and hopefully come back stronger next year.”
Hasen was ejected during the same stoppage.
Curtis Dickson, the MSL’s playoff MVP, was held to 10 goals and eight assists in this series due to a solid wall of defence from the Shamrocks. His emotions got the better of him in game three, a 14-8 Lakers loss.
“It’s been a long summer, especially the last few weeks here,” he said. “It’s been a bit of a grind. It’s definitely a disappoint but down the road we’re going to look back at this and be proud of what we accomplished, but obviously it stinks right now.”
Likewise, Shawn Evans, the heart and soul of the Lakers, was held to three goals and 14 assists – 17 points in six is nothing to shake your head at, but Evans just wasn’t able to get the goals like he was used to in the regular season and MSL playoffs.
The Lakers were awarded silver medals for finishing in second place in the CLA’s senior men’s division this season. It’ll be awhile before they can even look at those medals.
Something that is unfair is the notion that the Lakers did not win a championship, and so will not be celebrated. But they won the MSL. They beat the five other teams they played on a regular basis this summer, yet they still feel like they lost. Junior hockey is the same way, with teams battling all season to win their league, only for two, or even three teams, to lose the Memorial Cup and feel like their season was a loss.
The Lakers put everything they had on the line in these playoffs, going the distance with Six Nations and then flying right out to British Columbia two days later. Even these incredible athletes can only do so much.
“It was an unbelievable effort,” said captain Scott Self. “Go in our room right now and every guy’s tank is empty. We gave it our best effort. At the end we just didn’t have enough left in the tank, we just fought too hard to get to this point. We couldn’t get over the hump.”
That said, the fact the Lakers made the Mann Cup was surprising to many, given the team’s offseason turmoil (board members resigning, coaches being fired, etc.), but the coaches had confidence in their players.
“At the end of the day we weren’t supposed to be here,” Hasen said. “These guys gave it everything they had and that’s all that we ask for. Just give it whatever you can and at the end of the day you can look at the guy beside you and say I did my best. Throughout the series these guys did that and you can’t ask for any more than that. They battled and it is what it is.”
Note: Adam Jones, who was dynamic in games one and two, had to miss games three through six for work commitments. He was on a play flying back to Victoria while game six was played, and arrived just in time to commiserate with his teammates before they all headed back to Ontario early the next morning.
