All good things must come to an end. And, while the Blizzard wanted to be the Centennial Cup champions, they bowed out of the national tournament last Friday, falling 4-0 (EN) to the Rockland Nationals in the quarter-final round, thus settling on being the reigning Manitoba Junior Hockey League champions.
The Nationals, who would lose to the host Calgary Canucks in overtime in the semifinal round, (and the Canucks in turn would win the national championship on Sunday) scored once in the first and second and twice more in the third to officially eliminate the Blizzard, who may have simply run out of gas.
“For the first three games we had lots of energy,” said Blizzard Head Coach and General Manager Eric Labrosse. “But when we hit our fourth game of the round-robin, I felt our guys started to get the heavy legs. We just didn’t have the same energy, and I think that caught up to us.