TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – The Traverse City Hounds are one win away from their third straight Veteran’s Memorial Cup championship after defeating the Motor City Monarchs 7-3 Friday night at Centre ICE in Game 1 of the best-of-three series.

Cam Fisher tallied a hat trick to lead Traverse City, while Greg Meuser scored two goals and Stan Swiderek recorded a goal and an assist.

Buddy Rose added the other goal, Kevin Hansen tacked on three assists and Scott Luca and Cam Givens each posted two assists in the win.

“We needed to get this first game, to get it under our belt,” said Hansen. “Our passes were on point and we started working together like we’re used to and everything just started clicking.”

Traverse City goalie David Krejcik turned aside 35 shots in goal.

“I tried to play my best and the team played a great game tonight,” Krejcik said. “We have to keep playing hard tomorrow like we did today and during the season, keep playing our game.”

For the Monarchs, Anthony Wojciechowski netted two goals and Corey Finnemore scored the other.

Tory Shand and Adam Jonak added two assists apiece and Tyler Skulley and Stephan Demmers combined to make 15 saves in the Monarchs’ crease.

“We had our forecheck going well and we were able to bring the offense, but we just couldn’t bury the chances that we had available to us,” Monarchs’ defenseman Jarrad Vroman said. “Our focus tomorrow has to be on our defensive zone. We were horrible in our defensive zone tonight. Everyone has to pick up their man and if we can shut them down in our defensive zone, our offense will take care of itself.”

Game 2 is Saturday night at 7 p.m. back at Centre ICE.

Photo/Rich Meuser