Warriors win RBC Cup

West Kelowna Warriors, RBC Cup champions.

Matthew Greenfield turned aside 48 shots and Jonathan Desbiens scored the game winner with a separated shoulder suffered in Saturday's semi-final, in a 4-0 win, Sunday over the host Lloydminster Bobcats.

About 2,000 fans, including several Warriors supporters, saw Desbiens open the scoring when he banged home Brett Mennear's rebound 5:21 into the opening period.

Greenfield took over from there, making several key saves, especially during the decisive opening period.

"That's pretty special," said Greenfield of the shutout.

"I wasn't even thinking shutout. I was thinking, just give my team a chance and they were unbelievable in front of me."

The closest the Bobcats came to getting on the board was a shot Taylor Mulder put in the net, however, it was waved off because of contact with a high stick.

Greenfield, acquired just before Christmas, said it wasn't any one guy. He said everybody contributed as one point or another during the season.

Reed Gunville, who anchored the fourth line, scored the biggest goal of his young career 6:29 into the second period to give the team a two goal cushion.

"Every kid grows up dreaming of playing on TSN. And, to score at a crucial time of the game, was huge," said Gunville.

Garrett Forster won a race to the puck in the Lloydminster corner, and found Gunville, who was trailing the play and yelling for the puck.

"Their forwards got caught changing, so Garrett Forster got the puck in the corner, and I was just yelling for it.

'He put a perfect pass to my tape, and I was lucky enough to have it go in."

The Warriors put it away in the third.

Liam Blackburn scored his third of the tournament when he grabbed the puck behind the Lloydminster net while killing a penalty, came to the front of the net and backhanded the third goal past LeClerc.

The Bobcats pulled LeClerc with a little under five minutes left, but were unable to generate much against a stingy Warriors defence.

Rylan Yaremko sealed it into the empty net, when his dump out from inside his own blueline flipped on end, and curled into the yawning cage.

"That last one curved, I think it went all the way around the rink," said Yaremko.

"But, I think it's my little buddy in the stands that came to watch. When he's here, everything just seems to go better.

"You have a bad shift and you look at these bracelets we have and think big picture. It just kind of calms you down."

Sunday's RBC Cup championship is the first in the 10 year history of the franchise in West Kelowna. It's also the first time a team outside the top 20 has made it to an RBC Cup final, let alone win it.

For Kyler Hope, who was also playing with a separated shoulder and a banged up wrist suffered Saturday night, it was a dream to win a title so close to his home town with so many friends, and family in the stands.

"It's amazing. You just look at the cup in front of all our fans, pick out faces of family and friends, people you went to school with.

"It's an amazing feeling. I never thought it would come true. There are no words, no words."

Hope said the title RBC Cup champion hasn't sunk in yet.

For head coach Rylan Ferster, this is the second time he will get his name etched onto a national championship trophy.

He won it as a player in Vernon when it was still the Centennial Cup in 1990, and, now as a coach.

"Anytime you win a championship, it's special, because only so many people get to do that," said Ferster.

"I'm really happy for our kids, they really worked hard all year. Internally, be battled through a lot of adversity to get to where we are today. I don't know if it's good things come to those who wait, or good things come to those who work hard."

He said players had to play through a lot, especially over the last several games, to help get the team to a championship.

"I was surprised J.D. (Desbiens) was able to go tonight, and he scores. It just goes to show the character of the young man, I mean, he separated his shoulder, and he's playing.

"Hoper had a separated one for awhile, and, you've seen his hand, it's god awful. But, those kids worked hard, and they played hurt and never complained."

Sunday's championship game wasn't pretty, but, as they have the previous 99 games, including pre-season, the team found a way to get it done.They outworked the Bobcats when they needed to, and took advantage of the opportunities when they were available to them.

Bobcats head coach Gord Thibodeau, said he was proud of his team's effort Sunday.

He said the team played as hard as it could, but just couldn't get the job done and, as has been the case for much of the week, struggled to score goals.

"We have nothing to look back on and say, we could have done this, or we should have done that. We left it out there, and I'm proud of that," said Thibodeau.

"We ran into a very good hockey team, a very good goaltender, and we just couldn't find a solution and get a puck past him. We had some loose pucks around the cage and we could find a way to put them in, where yesterday we did."

That's the nature of the game, he said.

The Warriors won a franchise best 62 games over the course of 93 regular season, playoff, Western Canada Cup and RBC Cup games.

For many of these players, this will be the end of the their Warriors career. As many as 11 players will either graduate due to age, or move up to college.

By the way, the pre-season begins in about 15 weeks.

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