The 2018 Herder Memorial Trophy provincial senior hockey championship final will begin in Clarenville.
The Clarenville Ford Caribous will have home-ice advantage in the Herder series after successfully defending their Central West Senior Hockey League title by defeating the Gander Ford Flyers 4-1 in the best-of-seven league final.
The Caribous retained their crown with a 6-5 win over the Flyers Friday night in Gander.
Clarenville will face either the St. John’s Caps or Southern Shore Breakers for the Herder Trophy. The Caps took a 2-1 lead into the best-of-seven East Coast Senior Hockey League final heading into Game 4 Sunday night in Mobile.
The Caribous lost last year’s Herder final to the Harbour Grace CeeBee Stars of the now-defunct Avalon East senior circuit.
The 2018 Herder series begins at the Eastlink Events Centre in Clarenville with games Saturday, April 7 and Sunday, April 8 before moving Jack Byrne Arena Torbay — which will be home to whichever team advances from the ECSHL final — for Games 3, 4 and 5 (the latter if necessary) the following weekend .
If the series goes to six or seven games, those contests will be played in Clarenville April 21 and 22.
Friday night at a packed Steele Gander Community Centre, Mason Reid’s second goal of the game seven minutes into the third period proved to be the deciding tally, breaking a 5-5 tie.
The game was knotted 4-4 entering the final frame.
“That’s one thing about this team. Whatever position we are in, we try and turn it into a positive one,” said Clarenville head coach Rebecca Russell. “The big thing for us was that we were heading into the third period tied…so if we win that period, we’re league champions.”
Gander had gained a bye into the final by finishing in first place in the three-team CWSHL, just a point ahead of Clarenville. It represented a worst-to-first climb for the Flyers, who had just three wins in 14 games in 2016-17.
“When I started, I said, ‘I’m going to be positive about this’…and I was 95 per cent positive all year and five per cent negative,” said first-year Flyers coach Rick Sheppard. “For me, how can I be disappointed with everyone we accomplished this year?”
With files from Matthew Molloy/SaltWire Network
