The Georgetown Raiders Hockey Club

As published in the Independent Free Press.

Round one goes to the Raiders.

In front of a near-capacity Alcott Arena crowd Wednesday night, the banged-up Raiders grabbed an early 1-0 lead and held on to it to beat Trenton Golden Hawks in the seventh-and-deciding game of the Ontario Junior Hockey League championship series.

The victory secured the first Buckland Cup title in franchise history against the defending title-holders, who outshot Georgetown 34-25 but for the second game in a row came up empty-handed against netminder Nick Latinovich, who is now 7-0 in the playoffs.

“The guys blocked a lot of shots for me and all 20 guys put their bodies on the line,” said Latinovich, who was picked up from the Orangeville Flyers in a trade-deadline deal.

“It’s easy for the goalie to look good when everyone buys into a defensive game.”

Even though both clubs will meet again next week in Trenton for the four-team Dudley Hewitt Cup tournament, the series was intensely fought and the result of Wednesday’s tilt was in doubt until the final seconds.

However, the first few minutes of the contest didn’t go well for the regular-season-champion Raiders, who have been ranked second in the national rankings for much of the campaign and lost just twice in 40-plus home dates this year.

The North/East Conference-champion Golden Hawks pinned the hosts into their zone and took the league’s top player out of the game when Jack Jacome was blindsided by Trenton captain Liam Morgan just three minutes into the opening frame.

Only a couple of minutes later, fourth-year forward Andrew Court – the owner’s son – picked a loose puck out of the pads of Trenton goalie Chris Janzen and slipped the clinching marker into the net.

“I did not think that would stand up as the winner because the last two games were 5-2 and 5-0,” said the 19-year-old Court, who also had the insurance marker in the South/West conference clincher against Oakville and led his team with seven points in the series.

“Both teams were tired. If it went to overtime, it would probably have been a triple-OT-type thing. Neither team seemed to have the jump from earlier in the series.”

Georgetown’s Josh Dickinson won four straight face-offs in the last two minutes of the third period to alleviate the pressure.

Caledon resident Jacome did put his equipment back on for the post-game celebration and to accept the Buckland Cup MVP award, but was clearly still showing the effects of the un-penalized hit. The Clarkson University commit wasn’t sure if he’ll be ready for next week’s tournament.

“We won’t get much rest and it’s going to come up on us pretty quick,” he added.

“That’s the beauty of it. We’ll be ready to go no matter what.”

And in what must be a first for a Buckland Cup champion, Raiders’ head coach & GM Greg Walters used three 15-year-olds on regular shifts in game seven – dynamic forward Jack Hughes along with defenders Mitch Brewer from the Halton Hurricanes and Michael Vukojevic – all upper-echelon picks in the recent OHL Priority Selection.

Also qualifying for the Dudley Hewitt Cup are the Dryden Ice Dogs of the Superior International league and Powassan VooDoos from Northern Ontario, with the winner advancing to the Royal Bank Cup national championships in Cobourg later in the month.

A big concern for Raiders’ head coach and GM Greg Walters is the health of his blue line corps as Zack Dybowski, Luke Beamish and Matthew Thom are out and it’s not known when they’ll be back in the lineup.

The Raiders will take on Dryden Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., face off against the G-Hawks Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. and finish up the round-robin against Powassan Thursday at 2:30 p.m.

This is Georgetown's second appearance in the Dudley Hewitt Cup after hosting and winning the tournament in 2005.

As published in the Independent Free Press.

They’re going back to the Buckland Cup, and this time, the Georgetown Raiders will have home-ice advantage.

The Ontario Junior Hockey League’s top team during the regular season, the Raiders prevailed over their Halton rivals Oakville with a 2-0 triumph in game six Saturday night on the Blades’ home ice to clinch the South/West Conference title.

With the victory, Georgetown has also gained automatic entry into the Dudley Hewitt Cup tournament May 2-16 as its opponent in the best-of-7 Buckland Cup OJHL championship series will be the Trenton Golden Hawks, who are the hosts of ‘The Dudley.’

Those two clubs also met in last year’s league final, with the Hawks winning in five closely contested games, but thanks to the Raiders’ 45-5-2-2 regular-season record, they’ll enjoy the extra home game.

No starting date to the series has been determined. In the lone regular-season meeting between the teams, they skated to a 2-2 draw in Trenton on Feb. 17. The Golden Hawks swept the Royal Bank Cup host Cobourg Cougars in the OJHL's North/East Conference final.

"There's a goal we all have here and no matter how far we go it's not complete until we win it all," said Raiders' forward and local native Josh Dickinson.

"You have to give it all, every game, and if you get injured, you get injured. You just have to battle. There are no excuses."

After failing to knock out the Blades on home ice on Thursday – Georgetown’s lone loss at the Alcott Arena in 35 games this year—the Raiders were dialed in defensively in game six and netminder Josh Astorino was superb, making 29 saves for the shutout in front of close to 1,000 spectators at the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex.

Scoreless heading into the final period, Raider winger Keegan Blasby blasted a shot past Blades’ goalie Brendan McGlynn on the power play.

Then third-year centre Andrew Court ripped a wrist shot into the top corner with 5:56 remaining in regulation to make for a relatively comfortable finish, given the intensity of the series.

It’s the second year in a row that the Raiders have won the South/West Conference crown and it came against the team that gave them the most trouble this season.

Oakville won twice on home ice against Georgetown during the season and another contest in Trenton, so Raiders’ head coach & GM Greg Walters went so far as to book some practice ice at the SMSC prior to the matchup.

"It's no disrespect to anyone else but I think the two best teams were in the conference finals and Oakville is a hell of a team. They gave us all we could handle," added Walters, in his seventh year in Georgetown.

"The depth of (our) team is the best I've seen in a long time. To lose guys like Crocker and Dybowski was tough, but we talked about it all year. When it really comes down to it, our guys would respond when we needed it."

The Raiders only other appearance in the Dudley Hewitt Cup came in 2005 as hosts, when they defeated the St. Michael’s Buzzers in the final after losing to St. Mike’s in the Buckland Cup final.