Banner Season: Longest game in Queen's Cup history ends with Gryphons hoisting coveted trophy
Guelph, Ont. (via Guelph Gryphons) – Winning the Queen’s Cup is the goal for every player in OUA men’s hockey. But doing so in triple overtime in front of a sold out home crowd is the type of things dreams are made of. Second-year forward Ted Nichol scored 1:14 into the third overtime period Saturday night in Guelph to lift the Gryphons past the Ottawa Gee-Gees in the 109th edition of the Queen’s Cup.
The OUA championship game was played in a packed Gryphon Centre Arena, where a capacity crowd of 1,600 looked on as the Gryphons hoisted the OUA championship trophy for the seventh time in program history. Gryphon forward Marc Stevens opened the scoring 1:39 into the second period, only to see the visiting Gee-Gees respond :21 seconds later. The score would remain locked at 1-1 until early in the third overtime, when Nichol sent the Gryphon Centre into a frenzy with his overtime heroics.
“I pretty much blacked out, but I knew Vally (Ryan Valentini) loves to try to suck the ‘D’ in, and I was just ready for him to give it to me,” said Nichol, a native of Listowel, Ontario now in his second season as a Gryphon. “So I just tried to get the shot off as quick as I could, and it found a hole. It’s crazy.”
Player of the Game honours went to Gryphons third-year goalie Andrew Masters. The Kitchener native turned away 50 of the 51 saves sent his way to help the Gryphons capture their second OUA title in the last six seasons.
“I’ve been trying to chase one of these since I was 11 years old, and there’s no other group of brothers, no other program, no other staff I’d rather do it for than this one right here,” said Masters. “After last year (losing in Queen’s Cup) it almost felt like a sense of destiny that we were going to win this thing. This crowd was unbelievable tonight. We could hear them every step of the way and it just means so much more when so many people that you care about are in the crowd.”
Both the Gryphons and Gee-Gees will now move on to the national stage and will head to Atlantic Canada for the 2020 University Cup. The eight-team tournament will take place March 12-15 in Halifax, where the Gryphons will pursue the second national title in program history (1996-97).
