
Gabriel Dumont (#40) celebrates his game winning overtime goal, sending Drummondville to the Memorial Cup semi-final. (Photo: Aaron Bell - CHL) |
Drummondville earns semi-final berth
by
Wayne Moore - Story:
47068
May 20, 2009 / 9:00 pm
The Drummondville Voltigeurs have punched their ticket to Friday's Memorial Cup semi-finals.
The QMJHL Champions earned the berth, beating the host Rimouski Oceanic 3-2 in a thrilling overtime game Wednesday.
The game was the last of the round-robin contests.
Gabriel Dumont batted home his own rebound against the run of play 13:23 into the extra period to provide the margin of victory.
Drummondville finished round-robin with a 2-1 record, the same as the Kelowna Rockets.
The Rockets earn the berth in to the final based on their earlier 6-4 victory over the Voltigeurs.
Rimouski dominated much of the game, especially the overtime, where they out shot Drummondville 8-4 and easily had the better of the scoring opportunities.
Marco Cousineau was the difference in the Voltigeurs net, blocking all eight shots in overtime and 39 in all as Rimouski out shot Drummondville 41-20 over the course of the contest.
Jonathan Brunelle and Dmitry Kulikov scored the other goals for Drummondville.
Luca Cunti and Patrice Cormier replied for Rimouski.
The Oceanic and Windsor Spitfires both finished round-robin play with identical 1-2 records.
They will meet in Thursday's tie-breaker with the winner advancing to Friday's semi-final with Drummondville.
The winner of the semi takes on the Rockets in the final slated for 1 p.m. Kelowna time Sunday afternoon.
The Rockets meantime go back to work Thursday as they prepare for the final.
Head coach Ryan Huska, gave the team a day off from the rink Wednesday. This on the heels of a sub-par performance in Tuesday's 2-1 defeat at the hands of the Spitfires.
Wednesday’s crowd of 5,062 was the largest to take in one of the six round-robin games.. Other games involving Rimouski drew 4,600 or better while other games drew significantly less.
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