Traverse City Hounds win second straight MWJHL Veteran’s Memorial Cup championship

By Matt Mackinder –

TRAVERSE CITY – The Traverse City Hounds scored two short-handed goals and David Krejcik made 27 saves to give the Hounds a 5-1 win over the Soo Firehawks Sunday afternoon at Centre ICE in the deciding Game 3 to win their second straight Veteran’s Memorial Cup championship.

After the Firehawks took Game 1 Friday night, the Hounds rallied to win Games 2 and 3 as Krejcik allowed just one goal in the two Hounds’ wins.

A combined 3,239 fans took in all three games, including 1,001 Sunday afternoon.

“We had the best fans all year and everyone played well today,” said Traverse City captain Kenny Simmons. “To win a championship for my hometown, this city, is just huge.”

Premysl Synek tallied a goal and an assist Sunday, while Cam Fisher and Josh Smith recorded the short-handed markers and Austin Flores and Patrick Rogowski also scored.

Playoff MVP Jacob Gillis contributed two assists, as did Scott Luca. Gillis finished with seven assists on the weekend.

“Saturday night was the first game that we really played 60 minutes and we carried that through to today,” said Gillis. “It was a great team effort and everyone came through and it showed last night and today.”

“We had a great season, great team and great coaches and I think that was the difference for us,” added Krejcik. “We knew that after we lost Friday, Saturday was a new game and we knew that if we played our game, we had a good chance to win. We just stayed focused on winning and played like a team.”

Soo captain Kevin Killips scored the lone goal for the Firehawks and goaltender Anthony Benvenuti finished with 24 saves.

“I am proud of my team for battling adversity,” Firehawks’ coach Joe Esson said. “It was a three-week battle and we held up until the end.”

Traverse City successfully fended off 11 Soo power-play opportunities and was also 0-for-4 on their own man-advantage situations.

“Since day one, we’ve had three goals – win the league, win the playoffs and be successful at nationals – and we are two-thirds there,” Traverse City coach Scott Gardiner said. “These guys have worked so hard all season and we’ll take some time here to rest up some bumps and bruises, but the focus is now on Las Vegas.”

Both the Hounds and Firehawks will now participate in the AAU/UHU national tournament set for April 16-20 along with teams from the Western States Hockey League and Northern States Hockey League.

“I think we have a good chance out in Vegas,” Simmons said. “Everyone knows what we need to do and even this weekend, we battled back after a rusty start, but I think we’ll be fine in Vegas.”