DUNDAS – The Brantford Blast’s hopes for another Allan Cup were dashed by last year’s Cup winners, the Bentley Generals, in the quarterfinals Thursday night at the Grightmire Arena in Dundas.
If that wasn’t disappointment enough, their archrivals, the Dundas Real McCoys, who hosted this year’s annual event, won the Allan Cup for the first time in their history.
The severe rivalry between Dundas and Brantford may have played a role in the Brantford Blast being eliminated. The Blast defeated the McCoys for the Robertson Cup as the top team in the Ontario Hockey League’s Sr. A-AAA league in a highly emotional series.
That win both peaked the highs of the Blast players, while at the same time put even more dogged determination behind the McCoys who were automatically placed in the Allan Cup as the host team.
Even in Brantford’s 5-4 win over the Kenora Thistles in the first game of the round robin, they did not have the same intensity that they showed against Dundas.
The Blast went off the rails completely from there. In the second game, against the Clarenville Caribous, of Newfoundland, they could not get in synch, dropping a 6-2 decision. That put the Blast up against the wall in the unforgiving round-robin preliminary round. They had to win over Bentley, to stay alive, but lost 3-2, and were eliminated from further play.
Meanwhile, the charged up McCoys went undefeated earning them a shot against Clarenville for the 2014 Allan Cup. It was the premier game of the series as the hometown McCoys went tooth and nail against the Caribous. The game ended in a 2-2 tie after regulation time to send it into OT.
At 6:18 of the extra frame, McCoy’s Randy Row, who to add insult to injury, grew up in Brantford, was the hero, sending the jam-packed Grightmire Arena into a frenzy. Clarenville outshot Dundas 53-41 but Mike Mole was on his game and earned the win and the bragging rights for Canada’s number one Sr. AAA hockey franchise.
