One of the smallest players on the ice scored what is likely the biggest goal in North Van Wolf Pack history to give the junior B squad its first-ever league championship Friday night at the Mission Leisure Centre.
Five-foot-seven fourth-line rookie Ian Creamore broke a 2-2 tie against the Mission City Outlaws seven minutes into the third period Friday with what turned into the championship-winning goal in a tense 3-2 win for the Pack. The Game 6 win gave North Van a 4-2 victory in the best-of-seven PJHL finals.
Linemates Jackson Tadey and Matthew Hermary picked up assists on the play that saw Creamore bust in on a two-on-one with Hermary driving to the net, freeing Creamore to find some space top-shelf glove side.
“It was a great goal,” said North Van head coach Matt Samson, adding that though Creamore isn’t high on the scoring chart for the high-powered Wolf Pack, he is gaining a reputation for scoring big ones.
“He’s a little guy but he’s fearless. He goes to the net and he’s got pretty good hands too.”
Creamore also has links to Wolf Pack teams of the past as his older brother Jamie played four seasons with the team, including last year when he served as the team’s captain. Even Mama Creamore gets in on the action, selling 50/50 tickets at Wolf Pack games.
“Their family has been a big part of our team for a long time and it was nice for them to be rewarded,” said Samson.
There was still work to do, however, after Creamore’s go-ahead goal. The Outlaws went all-out in trying to get an equalizer as the clock ticked down.
“Give Mission a lot of credit,” Samson said. “They had a few guys out of the lineup and the guys that were in the lineup, they worked hard. . . . . They got down, they kept going, they kept pushing. I thought they showed a lot of resiliency. They didn’t quit.”
Meanwhile on the North Vancouver bench time seemed to stand still.
“Every time we’d hit another minute it’d be like, ‘Five more minutes! Four more minutes!’” Samson said. “We were kind of like, ‘Stop focusing on the clock!’ It was definitely a long eight or nine minutes. It seemed like the clock did not move.”
The game came down to one final faceoff in the North Van end with two seconds left. Alex Ambrosio took the draw and did enough to kill the clock.
“Ambro just lifted the guy’s stick and fell on the puck and that was it,” said Samson. Buzzer. Wolf pile. “Lots of emotions came back, the struggles we went through. It felt good. Full credit to all the guys. They were committed to winning and knew that was the goal.”
While the championship-clinching goal went to a depth player, major credit for the team’s championship run must go to the top line of Mitch Crisanti, Spencer Quon and Brodyn Nielsen. Crisanti set a blistering scoring pace, firing home 19 goals in just 15 games. His point total of 36 was tops in the playoffs, followed by Quon who racked up 32 points, including 25 assists, in 13 games. Nielsen, the team’s captain, finished tied for third in scoring with 26 points in 15 games.
“That line was on fire for us,” said Samson. “Those guys are the reason we won the league. Mitch with his 19 goals in the playoffs — that’s pretty unbelievable. Three hat tricks. He wanted it real bad.”
The pairing of Dyllan Quon — Spencer’s twin brother — and Daniel Delbianco were 1-2 in playoff points amongst defencemen while seeing action on the top power play and penalty kill units.
“They did an excellent job for sure,” said Samson. “They contributed offensively and they were shutdown guys when we needed them to be shutdown guys. They logged a lot of minutes back there.”
Goaltender Trevor Withers earned all of North Van’s 12 playoff wins. Goalie was a question mark heading into the season — the team explored potential trades before the season and at the trade deadline but ended up sticking with the rookie Withers, a North Vancouver native. North Van’s goaltending was shaky to open the PJHL finals as the Pack fell behind 0-2 in the series and trailed 5-2 in Game 3, but from that point on Withers shut the door. In Game 3 he righted the ship as North Van scored an incredible nine unanswered goals in an epic 11-5 come-from-behind win. Withers then kept Mission to just two goals in each of Games 4, 5 and 6.
“He had a good playoffs,” said Samson, adding that with their firepower they’re going to win most of their games if they’re giving up only two goals. “If someone is going to hold us to two goals or less, hats off to them. They’ve done a good job.”
This season is not over yet though. The Pack will next take part in the Cyclone Taylor Cup, the British Columbia Junior B provincial championship tournament hosted by the Outlaws in Mission April 3-6. The Campbell River Storm and Kimberley Dynamiters will join the Pack and Outlaws in a four-day, four-game round robin tournament that will conclude on Easter Monday with gold and bronze medal games.
The Pack will open the tournament Friday against the Storm, champions of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League.
“That first game is going to be big,” said Samson. “I think I would say us and Campbell River would probably be the favourites.”
The provincials are a grind but Samson is confident in his team’s ability to survive it.
“I feel like we’re well conditioned, I feel like our guys have the legs for it and they’ve got the lungs for it,” he said. “If you’re playing on Monday for the gold medal the other team is going to be in the same boat and you just leave everything out there. That’s it, it’s winner take all.”
The winner of the Cyclone Taylor Cup will get one final shot of glory at the Keystone Cup, the junior B national championship tournament scheduled for April 16-19 in Cold Lake, Alta.
Whatever happens the rest of the way, Samson said the team has been touched by the support they’ve received from the community. Playoff games hosted at Harry Jerome Recreation Centre and, for two games in the finals, the North Shore Winter Club were drawing more than 500 rowdy spectators.
“We saw kids in jerseys from all four of the North Shore minor associations,” he said. “It was great. It definitely fired up the guys.”
Samson’s mention of the struggles that the team went through is a reference all the way back to 2008 when the Wolf Pack joined the PJHL as a Squamish-based squad. The team had a hard time attracting top talent and never came close to making the playoffs — in 2010-11 they won just six of 46 regular season games — and so they moved down the Sea-to-Sky Highway in 2011 to take up permanent residence in North Vancouver. Both Samson and his father Dean, the team’s CEO, are North Shore natives.
Things picked up immediately once the team came to North Van and the Pack has increased their point total every season since the move. This year they won the regular season title by one point over the perennial powerhouse Richmond Sockeyes and topped it all off with trophy time on Friday.
“It’s still kind of sinking in,” said Samson. “Squamish gave us our start, that was the only way we could get a franchise in. We learned some lessons on and off the ice. . . . Getting to North Van was the way to go. We’ll keep building and be a place that people want to come to as we build a winning reputation here.”
