By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians will be competing for a fifth consecutive Bogart Cup following a semi-final sweep of the Hawkesbury Hawks, completed on Wednesday with a 5-1 win in Game Four.
For Canadians head coach Jason Clarke, the win meant a lot more to him than a berth into the finals.
“Seven years ago, almost to the day, we were swept by Hawkesbury and it was something that, on a personal level, was a very tough pill to swallow early in the franchise when we had a really good team,” Clarke reflected. “Hawkesbury taught us a lesson, for sure, so it was a little bit of personal vindication to hand the sweep back over to them.
“That was a long time ago, but I think that sweep that happened to us was a stinger for (assistant coach) Steve Maxwell and I, so it was a good night [Wednesday],” he continued.
Wednesday was easily the best game Hawkesbury played in the series – as to be expected with the team facing elimination – but it couldn’t find a way to beat Michael Leach with any of its 11 first period shots. The Hawks continued to pressure the Canadians throughout the game, but Leach kept nearly everything in front of him. He made 36 saves on 37 shots on route to the win.
As Clarke put it, the Canadians got a “lucky” goal in the final seconds of the first period to take a 1-0 lead heading to the second period. Tim Theocharidis got the puck off the face-off in the Hawks zone and floated a wrist shot through the traffic in front of Matthew Petizian, off the post and into the net.
“That was the first time Hawkesbury really had good scoring chances on us in four games, we were a little sleepy in the ‘D’-zone,” Clarke said. “(But) scoring that fluky goal at the end of the first, you could see their body language wasn’t great after that goal. We knew we needed to come out hard in the second period and that’s exactly what we did.”
Tyler Boivin tied the game early in the second period, but Carleton Place answered shortly afterwards with a pair of goals 0:31 seconds apart.
Brett Thorne scored on the power play, firing a loose puck past Petizian, before Justin Cmunt finished off the odd-man rush with Haydn Hopkins for a two-goal lead after giving up the lead to start the period.
The man advantage continued to be a strength for the Canadians with Sam Allison scoring with the Canadians up a man midway through the period. Cmunt scored his second goal of the game, and the third power play goal, with another buzzer-beater. He one-timed the Aidan Girduckis pass and scored with less than a second remaining in the period.
Hawkesbury peppered Leach in the third period with 19 shots in the frame but neither team scored in the final period of the series.
“I thought we played really well (in the series),” Clarke said. “We did a really good job in the neutral zone and shutting down their big guys. I mean, David Jankowski is the MVP of the league (Clarke emphasized) and he had two assists in the four games, never scored a goal, and he was not a factor in the series at all – and neither was Chris Smith.
“I mean, their number one line I think only generated one point out of the whole series. Take away their top line and the secondary scoring wasn’t there either. It was good to see us to play well defensively, but also play very well offensively.”
Carleton Place will now have to wait and see who it will face in the Bogart Cup finals. It could either be a third straight match-up for the title against the Ottawa Jr. Senators or it would be just the second time the Canadians and Brockville Braves face each other in the post-season after the Canadians won the first meeting two seasons ago in the semi-finals.
Playoff Matchups Around the League
* = if necessary
BOLD = higher seed home game
Semi-finals
(1) CPC vs (4) HAW – CPC leads 3-0
GAME 1: CPC vs HAW – CPC 4-2
GAME 2: HAW vs CPC – CPC 3-2
GAME 3: CPC vs HAW – CPC 4-1
GAME 4: HAW vs CPC – CPC 5-1
(2) OJS vs (3) BRO – OJS leads 2-1
GAME 1: OJS vs BRO – OJS 6-1
GAME 2: BRO vs OJS – OJS 5-1
GAME 3: OJS vs BRO – BRO 3-1
GAME 4: BRO vs OJS – Fri., Apr. 6 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 5: OJS vs BRO – Sat., Apr. 7 – 8:00 p.m.
GAME 6: BRO vs OJS – Tues., Apr. 10 – 7:30 p.m. *
GAME 7: OJS vs BRO – Wed., Apr. 11 – 7:30 p.m. *
Quarter-finals
(1) CPC vs (8) ROC – CPC wins 4-1
GAME 1: CPC vs ROC – CPC 6-2
GAME 2: ROC vs CPC – ROC 3-2 (OT)
GAME 3: CPC vs ROC – CPC 4-2
GAME 4: ROC vs CPC – CPC 3-0
GAME 5: CPC vs ROC – CPC 7-2
(2) OJS vs (7) PLK – OJS wins 4-2
GAME 1: OJS vs PLK – OJS 5-0
GAME 2: PLK vs OJS – OJS 6-2
GAME 3: OJS vs PLK – PLK 4-2
GAME 4: PLK vs OJS – OJS 4-0
GAME 5: OJS vs PLK – PLK 4-3
GAME 6: PLK vs OJS – OJS 6-1
(3) BRO vs (6) KAN – BRO wins 4-0
GAME 1: BRO vs KAN – BRO 5-3
GAME 2: KAN vs BRO – BRO 5-4 (OT)
GAME 3: BRO vs KAN – BRO 4-3
GAME 4: KAN vs BRO – BRO 4-2
(4) HAW vs (5) CRW – HAW wins 4-3
GAME 1: HAW vs CRW – HAW 4-3
GAME 2: CRW vs HAW – CRW 4-2
GAME 3: HAW vs CRW – HAW 4-3 (OT2)
GAME 4: CRW vs HAW – HAW 3-1
GAME 5: HAW vs CRW – CRW 3-2 (OT2)
GAME 6: CRW vs HAW – Sun., Mar. 25 – CRW 4-3 (OT)
GAME 7: HAW vs CRW – Tues., Mar. 27 – HAW 9-0
