By / Adam Dunfee
If you were a betting person, the safe wager going into the 2009 Allan Cup final would have been the Bentley Generals victorious by a goal.
The Generals made a habit during this seasons playoffs of winning deciding games by one goal and that’s exactly what happened in the Allan Cup final with Diarmuid Kelly scoring in double overtime to give the Generals a 4-3 victory over the South East
Prairie Thunder.
“We had a lot of character and a lot of perseverance. As coaches, we believed in what we were doing and we made the players believe in what they were doing,” said coach
Brian Sutter.
And in deciding games, the Generals certainly knew what they were doing.
After winning Alberta’s Chinook Hockey League, the Generals moved into the Senior AAA Provincials. Both the River Cree Warriors and the Stony Plain Eagles took the Generals to seven games but both times the Generals collected one goal wins.
After being crowned provincial champs the Generals moved on to face the Fort St. John Flyers in a five game series with the winner getting the McKenzie Cup and a spot in the Allan Cup tournament. True to form, in the deciding game, the Generals collected a one-goal win, only this time the series didn’t go the distance with the Generals winning in four games.
“I think when the chips were down you could just tell that we were going to win,” said Generals forward Curtis Austring. “In the dressing room before [Game 7], you could just tell that everyone was ready to play.”
After losing in last year’s Allan Cup final, Austring says that anything short of the Cup this season would be have been a
disappointment.
“It was Allan Cup or bust for this year and this team…there wasn’t really a satisfaction whenever we completed each little
increment step.”
The presence of Sutter, a former Jack Adams Trophy winner as the NHL’s best coach, helped instill that winning attitude. When Sutter came aboard at the beginning of the season, the team talked about winning but he wanted to make sure the team would make the sacrifices necessary to win.
“There’s a difference between saying you’re going to win and paying a price to win and we started doing it in September and we just never let up…that’s why even at the end when we were playing in overtime I firmly believed we were going to win.”
Sutter, who played over 700 games in the NHL before going into coaching, said that the Allan Cup win ranks as one of his biggest hockey accomplishments.
“I always said if I was going to go back to coaching I’ve got to be with good people and I was with a lot of great people and this achievement is as important as any one ever.” |