King on CHL: Whalers’ pride and frustration
Posted March 14, 2012 9:46 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
What do the last four Ontario Hockey League champions have in common with the Plymouth Whalers?
All four went through Plymouth on the road to the J. Ross Robertson Cup. Since being crowned league champions in 2007, the Whalers’ season consistently ended at the hands of the eventual champs. Last season, it was Owen Sound. The previous two years, the Windsor Spitfires reigned. And in 2008, the MasterCard Memorial Cup host Kitchener Rangers used the Whalers as a stepping stone to glory.
The Whalers weren’t always built to capture the trophy, but their four-year run (if we can call it that) is somewhat cruel, in a way. Watching a team win a championship after dashing your team’s aspirations can border somewhere between pride and frustration.
The architect of those teams chooses the former.
“If this was the NHL,” explains head coach and general manager Mike Vellucci, “I’d say it would be frustration, but this is junior hockey and there’s that cycle you go through.”
Four-year veteran goalie Scott Wedgewood is familiar with the feeling. While it can be a feather in the organization’s cap to claim it was beaten by the best, it can teeter on frustration when it happens with such consistency.
“Obviously, you don’t want to lose,” Wedgewood said, “but if you are losing and seeing that team go on to win, it’s almost like a consolation prize for yourself. But, honestly, you don’t want to lose at all.”
Wedgewood’s experience is just a small part of the organization’s overall streak. Excluding their title in 2007, Plymouth lost to the eventual champs in eight of the past 11 seasons and twice in the league finals.
Perhaps in none of the previous four seasons is their run more fitting to reach a conclusion than this season, since this year’s version of the Plymouth Whalers is well-equipped to succeed where previous one’s failed.
Almost predictably, the Whalers are playing their best hockey down the stretch and heading into the playoffs. It’s a characteristic engrained in the culture of the organization and it has led the Whalers to a tie atop the Western Conference and overall league standings with the London Knights, as of Wednesday morning.
“We always try to build our teams to peak at playoff-time,” said Vellucci, whose team is riding a nine-game win streak. “Early on it’s a lot of teaching of our system and not throwing too much at them right away and just gradually build it over a period of time. I think by the end of the year they understand the way I want them to play and what it takes to be successful.”
The Whalers are finding the recipe for success. While most of their counterparts were busy adding pieces before the January trade deadline, Vellucci stood pat. The answer, he felt, was within and couldn’t be found at the astronomical yearly exchange of assets.
The prices scared him away from striking a deal, but it was only part of the equation. With a large core of players born in 1993 and thus, eligible to return next season, he opted not to tinker with a group that could be vying for another championship next season.
And finally, he felt there was no point in adding depth to a team already loaded with it.
“You bring somebody in — let’s say a forward — and then you have to bump somebody down to the fourth line that doesn’t deserve it. Is that right? No and I think there’s such a thing as loyalty to the players you’ve committed to early on,” Vellucci said. “Everybody is playing well so I believe that I should have been loyal to the guys that got us where we are.”
His offence features seven players with 20 or more goals. The defence isn’t the most recognizable group in the league, but provides their head coach with a source of pride. And perhaps no team in the junior circuit enjoys a better platoon of goaltenders than the duo featuring Wedgewood and Matt Mahalak.
“It’s difficult to have two very good goalies because you want them both to play and they both want to play,” Vellucci said. “We’re very fortunate to have these two guys.”
Wedgewood, Mahalak and goaltending coach Stan Matwijw harbour a healthy relationship that feels more like a brotherhood than a fight for ice time, says Wedgewood.
“We’re probably in our own little cult, all three of us,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to hang out and be competitors and also friends off the ice.”
If it’s true a team needs to experience the setback of losing before they can understand how to win, then the Whalers should be well-versed in how to end their streak.
“You’re going to face adversity in the playoffs and obviously it’s how you react to it,” Wedgewood said. “Hopefully this year we don’t lose and we’re the team everyone’s mad about next year.”
