TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – For the third straight season, the Traverse City Hounds are Midwest Junior Hockey League Veteran’s Memorial Cup playoff champions.

In a tight Game 2 Saturday night, the Hounds knocked off the Motor City Monarchs 4-2 in front of 459 spectators at Centre ICE.

The Monarchs led 2-1 after 20 minutes and the game was knotted 2-all through two periods before Buddy Rose’s breakaway at 11:21 of the third period put Traverse City up 3-2.

“Tonight, we really had a great team effort and left it all on the ice,” said Rose. “Just a great way to end the year. I’ve had a few breakaway chances this year and always shot the puck and hit the goalie in the pads, so this time, I remembered Coach Jacek (Wilk) telling me to deke the goalies on breakaways and get them moving side to side. Sure enough, I faked forehand and went backhand to get the goalie (Stephan Demmers) out of position and it worked out pretty well.”

Patrick Rogowski opened the scoring at 7:13 of the first period for the Hounds before Adam Jonak (11:04) and Tory Shand (15:35) gave Motor City the lead after one period.

Rogowski’s second of the game tied the game at 17:43 of the second period.

Cam Fisher, back in the lineup after receiving 19 stitches to his left ear after getting sliced with a skate during Friday night’s game, sealed the game with an empty-netter at 19:58.

For Fisher, winning his third MWJHL title is the sweetest. He came to the then-Hartland Hounds in 2013 in a trade with Holland.

“All season long, I was hoping and praying that we would all put the focus and effort into winning it again this year,” Fisher said. “It feels good. We had a pretty solid team right off the get and we got better as the season went along.”

Hounds’ goaltender David Krejcik was named Playoffs MVP and stopped 27 shots Saturday.

Demmers made 23 saves for Motor City.

Traverse City head coach Jacek Wilk, who joined the team as an assistant coach in 2013-14, said the key to this year’s championship was the entire team buying in to what the coaching staff was teaching.

“It feels really good to be able to do this three years in a row and to do it this year against a really, really good hockey team in the Monarchs,” said Wilk. “They played really hard and we were fortunate to be able to beat them tonight. We tried to build this team to match the teams of the past two years and we got players that we really wanted and them came here and believed what we were telling them. It worked out for everybody.”

“It’s all so surreal – this is what we worked for all year,” added Traverse City forward Cam Givens. “All the practices, the road trips, this weekend was something we had looked forward to all season and had in our sights since day one.

“We knew coming into this weekend that it was going to be a battle and both games were hard-fought and honestly, I think we would have rather played (Motor City) in the finals than anyone else because we knew it would be a great series.”

Photo/Rich Meuser