A s recently as a month ago, no one could have predicted the Conception Bay North Eastlink CeeBee Stars would be in the Telegram Herder Memorial Trophy Championship Series. Few could have predicted the fourth-seeded team would defeat the defending champion Clarenville Caribous in four straight games.
But following a Friday night win over the ’Bous the CeeBees capped their remarkable playoff run with a 4-2 victory Saturday night before a boisterous crowd at tiny S.W. Moores Memorial Stadium in Harbour Grace.
“In January, I would have thought it a long shot for us to win,” admitted coach Ian Moores. “For it to come together the way it did and have the run we went on, it’s almost unbelievable. The Cinderella story ended on a fine note.”
The CeeBees’ run began by qualifying for the post-season on the last weekend of the regular season and was followed by a six-game ousting of the top-seeded Grand Falls-Windsor Cataracts in the semifinals.
“I know we believe we could, but even we didn’t think we were going to,” said veteran Terry Ryan, who at 36 was celebrating his first Herder win. “It’s the way we did it, it’s the character we showed.”
Caribous coach Ivan Hapgood had no complaints about the way his team performed, suggesting there was no competing with a CeeBees team riding a wave of success into the series.
“We’ve had a great run, it had to end sometime. We’ll bounce back as good as ever.”
koliver@thetelegram.com, Twitter@telykenn
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