The Aurora Tigers of the Ontario Junior Hockey League won the RBC Cup in 2007 – and in 2004. (Hockey Canada photo)

BY RON VALENTINE

Doug Henderson was a 17-year-old Ontario Provincial Junior Hockey League rookie when the Aurora Tigers were the Royal Bank Cup champions in 2004.

And he was the only returnee on the 2007 squad that duplicated that performance.

Aurora is a bedroom community in York Region, a 40-minute drive down Yonge Street to downtown Toronto.

Henderson was one of the many players that went on to higher levels of hockey, playing for York University in Toronto.

Doug recalls:

"2003-04 was my first experience of Junior hockey (he played the previous season with his hometown Bradford Bulls of the Greater Metro Hockey League) and on a team that was comprised of mostly last year players I usually got to center the fourth line. The Tigers were built like an OHL team and the attitude was 'win or go home' for every game."

"It was a very well-coached and skilled club. Andrew Hotham (who went on to the OHL. Saint Mary’s University and professional action in the AHL, ECHL and the UK ), Derek Joslin, Micheal Kostka (more on them later) and I were the only 'young' guys on the team! In 2006-2007 we had a very well-rounded club and this time I was one nine players in their last year and again we had a very detail-oriented coach. We kept on improving as the season progressed and after our playoff win against Hamilton with Cameron Talbot (now with the Minnesota Wild) in the net I really thought we had a great chance to go all the way. We had a strong goalie ourselves, in Tyler Gordon, and as a team we were always well-prepared."

Doug had an excellent 2006-07 campaign finishing third in regular season scoring with 16 goals, 14 at even-strength and one shorthanded and 58 points. In the playoffs he was second with 26 points in 25 games. As a rookie he had 24 points in 35 games.

The 2003-04 edition of the Tigers went on an amazing 47-2-0 run in the North Division, scoring 290 goals and allowing just 79 with goalie Chris Whitley posting a miniscule 1.64 GAA. The Oshawa native went on to  Lakehead University in Thunder Bay where he spent five seasons backstopping the Thunderwolves.

In the postseason, the Tigers hoisted the Buckland Cup after a six-game series in the OPJHL final with Toronto’s St. Michael's Buzzers. On the way, they topped the Lindsay Muskies, Collingwood Blues and Newmarket Hurricanes, all in four straight games. In the league semifinal, they overcame the Oakville Blades in six.

Divisional winners besides the Tigers were the Wellington Dukes in the East; the Buzzers in the South and the Georgetown Raiders in the West Division. The league, at that time, consisted of 35 clubs.

At the Dudley-Hewitt Cup in North Bay the Tigers won all three round-robin games against the Soo Thunderbirds, 3-1, the Fort William North Stars, 4-0 and the host club, 5-1, then they got a bye into the final where they defeated the Skyhawks 5-1. Their final count: 17 goals for and three against in the four contests. 

The RBC in Grande Prairie, Alberta was another triumph for the Tigers. After falling to the hosts 4-2, they got the better of the Nanaimo Clippers of the BCHL by the same score, the Kindersley Klippers from Saskatchewan, 5-0 and the CCHL's Nepean, 3-1, in the round-robin before besting the Raiders 7-2 in the semifinal and downing Kindersley 7-1 to take the trophy. Whitley was nominated top goalie of the tournament. "You couldn't even score against him in practice!" Henderson declared. Derek Dorsett was on the Klippers squad. He would go on to make his name primarily as an enforcer in the NHL for the New York Rangers, Columbus and Vancouver. 

On the Tigers’ high-scoring outfit, Francis Walker put up 90 regular season points, including 37 goals, which was third in the league. Next season the Quebec native would be a teammate of Whitley's at Lakehead. Two blueliners would go on to NHL careers: Michael Kostka (Toronto, Chicago, Tampa Bay, NYR and Ottawa) and Derek Joslin (San Jose, Carolina and Vancouver). 

The GM/Head Coach was Marty Williamson who previously had the same position with the Milton Merchants and was an assistant coach with the Newmarket Hurricanes and would later be Head Coach of the OHL's Barrie Colts and GM/Head Coach of the Niagara Ice Dogs. He is now head coach of the OUA’s Brock University Badgers and the senior hockey advisor with the OHL Colts.

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Aurora’s Head Coach for the 2006-07 campaign was former NHLer Jerome Dupont.

Now the Director of Operations for the OJHL’s Trenton Golden Hawks, he had this to say about his team:

''This club was a group of very intelligent players, a complete team, led by our captain, Quinn Waller. They all picked up things very quickly and did not need any micro-managing. We had four rock solid defencemen in Waller, Andrew Eastman, Alain Goulet and Mike Ward and a top trio of forwards in Daniel Michalsky, Joey Martin and Mike Dahlinger. Michalsky, (who won the Roland Mercier award as MVP of the RBC Cup) was a left shot on the top line, who though not the prettiest player to watch, had a great hockey IQ, an abrasive edge and played big minutes for us."

"Though it may seem we breezed through all the league playoff series, they were all tough,” noted Jerome, "but the players, after a great regular season, gained confidence as each series progressed. We got the bye to the final at the Dudley-Hewitt Cup in Iroquois Falls (home of the Abitibi Eskimos) after beating the Soo Indians, the Schreiber Diesels and Abitibi, which was good as it was a really compressed schedule, and then in the final we beat Schreiber 10-0 and even had two goals called back!" 

On to the national championships:

"Going into the RBC, we were ranked one/two in the country with the Camrose Kodiaks of the AJHL. In Prince George, we went 3 and 1 in the round-robin beating Selkirk (Manitoba) 4-2, the B.C team 6-3 and Camrose 7-4  then we beat the Pembroke Lumber Kings in the semifinal 3-2 in overtime with Michalsky getting the winner. Sheldon Keefe (now Head Coach of the Leafs) was their coach. We took the Cup with a 3-1 win over the hosts.” (Interesting sidebar- the other semifinal between Camrose and Prince George went into a fifth overtime period.) 

"By the time we finished off the season we had played 90 games and it was a great experience for all of us."

Attendance for the final was 3,303.

The regular OPJHL season saw the Bowmanville Eagles and Wellington Dukes tied for first in the East; the Brampton Capitals took the West; the Vaughan Vipers the South and the Tigers, with 44 wins and 89 points, were the champs in the North with 260 goals for and 99 against. In the playoffs the Tigers topped the Buffalo Junior Sabres in four, starting out with a 14-1 win; the Newmarket Hurricanes in six; the Stouffville Spirit in five, the Hamilton Red Wings in five and the Dukes of Wellington 4 games to 1 in the Buckland Cup final.

Many of the players on the club obtained scholarships including Dahlinger and Waller to Adrian College in Michigan; backup goalie Matt Biernes to the RMC Paladins in Kingston; Michalsky to Concordia; Martin and Goulet to Nebraska-Omaha; Paul Zanette to Niagara; Colin Williams to Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo; Jordan Watts to RPI; Sault Ste. Marie native Mark Thorburn, who became captain of the team in the 2006-2007 season, to the University of Windsor; Andrew Favot, who led all Tiger pointgetters in the regular season, to RIT; Ward and Vince Bruni to Alabama/Huntsville; Eastman to Western Ontario; blueliners Connor McGarry to Queens and Dryden native Joey Pell to Brock and Brett Connolly to UOIT. Quite the list!

Mark Joslin was an Assistant Coach for the 2007 Tigers team. He later became Head Coach of the North York Rangers, the Tigers and Toronto Patriots:

"There was quite a difference between the 2004 and 2007 teams. The 2004 club was made up mostly of last-year players. This was well before the nine-player rule came into effect. My nephew, Derek, was the youngest of the 'D' corps at 17, played over 100 games in the NHL and he is still having great fun playing in Austria for Salzburg."

"Coach Williamson did a great job keeping all the experienced players on that 2004 team happy. The 2007 club was helped by some great deadline deals by Jerome (Dupont), including some defensive forwards who really helped. The group had outstanding chemistry. It was a long season, I remember the last game at the RBC was on Mother’s Day! I recall a couple of guys who always kept everyone loose; our backup goalie Michael Lalande was a real jokester and you could always rely on Mike Dahlinger to keep everyone upbeat."