SAINT JOHN, New Brunswick – Vincent Sevigny and Cam MacDonald scored early, and host Saint John Sea Dogs won the Memorial Cup, beating Ontario Hockey League champion Hamilton Bulldogs Wednesday night for 6-3.
Saint John won his second Memorial Cup title in four appearances, recovering from a first-round defeat to Rimouski in the Quebec Major Hockey Junior League playoffs. The Sea Dogs also won in 2011 in Mississauga, Ontario, and lost in the semifinal games in 2012 and 2017.
It was another national title for Gardiner MacDougall, a seven-time University Cup champion with the University of New Brunswick, who replaced Gordie Dwyer as interim head coach on 22 May.
“It was just a full team effort,” MacDougall said. “The players are the most important. They bought a lot and they were all very receptive. That’s as hard as I’ve ever worked on a team.”
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Riley Bezeau, William Dufour, Josh Lawrence and Peter Reynolds also scored, and Nikolas Hurtubise made 25 stops.
“We’ve worked hard and I’m very, very proud,” Hurtubise said. “We knew we worked too hard over the last month not to win it. We earned it.”
Mason McTavish scored two goals for Hamilton. Jan Mysak also connected.
“The message to the boys was that they are champions of champions,” Hamilton coach Jay McKee said. “What made the difference was that (Saint John) took advantage of his great opportunities.”
Sevigny opened the scoring at 2:35 and MacDonald made it 2-0 at 5:47. McTavish reduced the lead to 2-1 at 7:45 p.m.
Bezeau and Dufour scored in a 34-second period early in the second period. Mysak recovered one for Hamilton with nine seconds left in the second.
Lawrence made it 5-2 at 6:32 of the third.
“It makes it more special because everyone thought we were the underprivileged, not the Sea Dogs,” owner Scott McCain said. “You know what? We showed we deserved to be here. We were the best team in the round robin and we won that. Match decided today.”