EVERETT – Two years ago the Everett Silvertips and the Kelowna Rockets were on opposite ends of a miracle.
Kelowna was the WHL’s reigning heavyweight. The Rockets were defending league champions, had the best record during the regular season, and cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs. They appeared invincible.
Meanwhile, Everett was the toddler who had inadvertently wandered into the big kids’ corner of the playground. The Tips were sort of a long-running fluke, and overachieving expansion team whose feel-good story was going to come to an abrupt end.
That was the scenario leading into the 2004 Western Conference finals, and everything appeared to be going according to script when Kelowna took a commanding 3-1 series lead.
Then something strange happened.
A simple dump-in ended up in the back of the Kelowna net, giving Everett an overtime victory in Game 5. Games 6 and 7 ended in eerily similar fashions. And Everett’s unprecedented rookie campaign continued with an unlikely series win – a series that left an indelible imprint in the minds of both teams.
“The memory will never fade,” Everett coach Kevin Constantine said. “It was improbable. Not only an expansion team beating the best team in the league, but to do it with three overtime wins in a row just added to the miraculous nature of the thing. So it will always be a fond memory.”
As joyous a memory as it is for Everett, it’s equally painful to Kelowna.
“Obviously it was a crazy series,” said Kelowna left wing Justin Keller, one of 10 Rockets remaining from the 2003-04 team. “It was heartbreaking. Being up 3-1 and then losing three in a row, all in overtime, it was definitely tough to lose those.”
The specter of that 2004 playoff series will hang above the Tips and the Rockets when they meet Friday to begin their second-round series in this season’s WHL playoffs.
“That was the highlight of my career, one of the highlights of my life,” Everett captain Torrie Wheat recalled. “I know it’s going to be burning away at some of the guys we played against that year. I know they haven’t forgotten it, just as we haven’t. They’re going to want it pretty bad, we just have to want it more.”
It wasn’t necessarily a case of wanting it more that determined the outcome in 2004. An Everett team containing current Tips Wheat, Shaun Heshka, Mark Kress, Cody Thoring and Zach Hamill was thoroughly outplayed by the Rockets. Kelowna outshot Everett 92-62 in the final three games and the puck seemed tethered to the Everett zone.
However, a little bit of luck gave Everett a 1-0 overtime victory in Game 5.
“I still picture Game 5 in OT, Bryan Nathe taking the shot from around the red line and Kelly Guard playing it kind of funny and it going in the back of the net,” Kress said. “We were down in the series and that made it 3-2 coming back to our building. It might not have been the prettiest goal, but it was definitely one that sticks out.”
Fortunate bounces in overtime aided Everett again in both Games 6 and 7. John Dahl’s attempted centering pass from behind the net deflected off Kelowna defenseman Shea Weber’s skate and into the net, giving Everett a 2-1 victory in Game 6. Then Barry Horman’s centering flip deflected off a falling Jeff Schmidt and into the net, giving the Tips another 2-1 victory in Game 7.
Kelowna was stunned, suffering its only playoff series loss in the past four years – a series the Rockets were perhaps least likely to lose. To this day, the Rockets Web site still has yet to acknowledge that Game 7 result.
“That was a couple years ago,” said Kelowna coach Jeff Truitt, who was an assistant in 2004. “It was different teams then. From our standpoint, we’re going to concentrate on what we’re doing now and not remember the ghosts of the past.”
Kelowna has eight players – forwards Keller, Troy Bodie, Blake Comeau, Tyler Spurgeon, Chris Ray and Brent Howarth, as well as defensemen Mike Card and Kyle Cumiskey – who were regulars during that 2004 series. Also, goaltender Derek Yeomans served as Guard’s backup, and defenseman Kevin Reinholt was with the team but did not dress.
The Tips are expecting those players in particular to be looking to exact a little revenge this time around.
“If I was sitting in their shoes, I’d definitely be saying, ‘These guys pulled one behind our backs last time and we’re definitely not going to let it happen again,’” Heshka said.
Everett again goes into its playoff series against Kelowna as the underdog. Although there are some parallels to the 2004 matchup, it’s a new set of circumstances, and the now-established Tips no longer have the element of surprise.
And although Kelowna lost the conference championship in 2004, the Rockets received substantial consolation. Kelowna still advanced to the Memorial Cup as the host team and ended up winning.
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