West Vancouver's Griffin Reinhart captained the Edmonton Oil Kings to victory in the MasterCard Memorial Cup Sunday in London, Ont., helping the team earn its first Canadian Hockey League championship since 1966.
The Oil Kings, Western Hockey League champions this season, defeated the Guelph Storm 6-3 to earn the Memorial Cup. The Storm scored first, just one minute into the final, and held a 2-1 lead in the second period but the Oil Kings poured on the pressure as the game wore on, scoring three straight to make it 4-2 at the end of the second period.
Henrik Samuelsson scored twice in the third - part of a five-point night for him - to seal the victory.
"We never gave up," Reinhart said in a CHL release. "I think that's been a theme of ours this year, we've been down before and we just kept climbing back up."
The big defenceman, picked fourth overall by the New York Islanders in the 2012 NHL draft, racked up three assists in five Memorial Cup games while registering a plus-1 rating and four penalty minutes.
The Oil Kings finished first in the WHL's Eastern Conference with 50 wins and 103 points before winning the Ed Chynoweth Cup as league champions in a thrilling seven game series against the Portland Winterhawks.
At the Memorial Cup tournament Edmonton lost their opening game - 5-2 against the Storm - but then won four straight to claim the title.
