Manchester Monarchs Face Final Chance To Win Calder Cup
- Updated: June 6, 2015
Some opportunities only present themselves once in a lifetime. The Manchester Monarchs in their last year as the AHL affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings, are now facing one of those “once in a lifetime” opportunities starting today against the Utica Comets, for their last chance ever to compete for the Calder Cup.
Next season the Monarchs are switching their status with the King’s ECHL team the Ontario Reign, beginning a new era for both teams and respected regions of Manchester, New Hampshire and Ontario, California. This means not only a switch of rosters (as the King’s prefer to have their prospects closer to them near Los Angeles, then to have them on the other side of the country and then having to fly them cross-country to get them to the Staples Center) but a switch of competitions and championship Cups as well.
This will be the Manchester Monarchs only trip ever to the Calder Cup final in their entire 14 year existence and what better way for the team to say good-bye to the American Hockey League then by winning its biggest prize? (hopefully).
The Calder Cup was introduced in 1937 and this makes it the second oldest trophy in hockey next to the 114 year old Stanley Cup. The minor league’s most important trophy has been won by legendary people of the sport that went on to bigger NHL fame on either the ice and/or behind the bench such as Johnny Bower (Hall of Fame goaltender for the Toronto Maple Leafs), Al Arbour (Hall of Fame coach of the New York Islanders), Don Cherry (Former head coach of the Boston Bruins and a patriotic and controversial personality on Hockey Night in Canada), Gerry Cheevers (Hall of Fame goaltender with the Boston Bruins), Alain Vigneault (current head coach of the New York Rangers), Patrick Roy (Hall of Fame goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens and Colorado Avalanche and current head coach of the Avalanche), Adam Graves (Stanley Cup winning player with the Edmonton Oilers and New York Rangers) and Marc Bergevin (current General Manager of the Montreal Canadiens).
The Kings also have some Calder Cup history as their 1971 affiliate Springfield (from the Simpsons?) Kings won it with future 4 time Stanley Cup Champions (for the New York Islanders) Robert “Butch” Goring and Billy Smith. Jeff Carter and Mike Richards have also won the Cup when they were with the Philadelphia Phantoms in 2005 and former King’s forward Jason Allison won back in 1994. Even Kings’ mascot Bailey’s namesake, former King’s scout Garnet “Ace” Bailey (Bailey was named in honor of “Ace” after he tragically perished on one of the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers during 9/11) won the Cup in 1969.
The Monarchs have had a playoff run for the ages (so far). They defeated a very tough Portland Pirates team in the first round 3-2 (the opening round of the AHL playoffs is a best out of 5 series).
After winning that series and gaining momentum, the Monarchs steamrolled past the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in 5 games and swept the Hartford Wolfpack in 4 in the Eastern Conference final.
Meeting Manchester in the Calder Cup final will be the Utica Comets, who are the affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks.
In a year that the defending (as of this writing) Stanley Cup Champion Los Angeles Kings failed to reach the playoffs, this magical run by the Manchester Monarchs have given Kings’ fans a reason to cheer up and hope for the near future. The Kings’ young prospects, along with some familiar veteran faces have really all stepped up their games and are showing a hunger, skill and competitive level that won’t go unnoticed by King’s GM Dean Lombardi, especially with some roster spots possibly opening up due to free agency (restricted and unrestricted) and the looming situations of Mike Richards and Slava Voynov.
Here are some of the playoff stats of the Monarchs so far;
G A PTS
C – Jordan Weal 10 9 19
LW – Michael Mersch 11 7 18
RW – Brian O’Neill 9 8 17
RW – Sean Backman 4 9 13
C – Nick Shore 3 8 11
C – Nic Dowd 4 4 8
D – Colin Miller 1 7 8
LW – Adrian Kempe 4 1 5
D – Andrew Bodnarchuk 0 5 5
D – Derek Forbort 0 4 4
D – Jeff Shultz 0 3 3 (remember him?)
W – L GAA
G – J.F. Berube 11 – 3 2.38
Game 1 of the AHL Calder Cup Final is today in Manchester, NH at 3pm Pacific time/6 pm Eastern.
As LA Kings insider Jon Rosen mentioned on his blog,
“The AHL has announced its broadcast plans for the Calder Cup, and not only will several games be aired on SiriusXM, but the entire series will be streamed online, free of charge, at AHL Live.
To use your computer to watch on AHL Live, visit AHLLive.com and either use your AHL Live account or create a new one. Select the Finals All-Access Pass and enter promotional code CALDERCUP to begin watching. If you’d like to stream the games on your phone or tablet, download the AHL Live app from iTunes or Google Play. Games 2, 4 and 6 will be broadcast on SiriusXM, and should there be no conflict with the Stanley Cup Final, so will Games 5 and 7.”
Good luck to our boys and let’s bring that Calder Cup back into the Kingdom!
GO MONARCHS GO!!!
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