The Mark’s Mount Pearl Blades play their first game at the Don Johnson Memorial Cup Atlantic junior B hockey championship today when they take on the New Brunswick champion Moncton Vito’s.
Game time is 12:30 p.m. (NT) at the Membertou Sports and Wellness Centre in Cape Breton.
The Vito’s and St. John’s Junior Hockey League champion Blades are among five teams competing in the tourney, which features a round-robin format leading to weekend playoffs.
Mount Pearl has two games on Thursday, facing the host Kameron Junior Miners and Western Red Wings of Prince Edward Island, then finishes up its preliminary schedule Friday versus the Nova Scotia representatives East Hants Penguins.
Semifinals are Saturday, with the championship game Sunday.
The St. John’s Caps are the last team from Newfoundland and Labrador to have won the Don Johnson title, doing so in 2009 at Bay Roberts. Only one Newfoundland team has made it to the championship final since that year. That was the Avalon Capitals, who lost to the Valley Maple Leafs of Nova Scotia in the 2016 event in Conception Bay South.
The tournament is named after Newfoundland and Labrador Hockey Hall of Famer Don Johnson, a former present of the national association now known as Hockey Canada.
Johnson died in 2012.
Twitter: @telysports
