The Remparts win the Memorial Cup!

Kamloops | The Remparts are so successful at their last dance, that they’re able to go home to their rival: The Memorial Cup.

Patrick Roy’s men convincingly defeated the Western champions, the Seattle Thunderbirds, 5-0 Sunday night to rise to the top of the Canadian junior hockey hierarchy. This is the Red Devils’ first national title since the 2006 Conquest.

Watch the highlights from the meeting in the main video.

The Remparts also became the tenth team in QMJHL history to win the Triple Crown (Regular Season Championship, Playoff Championship, and Memorial Cup).

Another notorious fact: this is the fourth consecutive edition of the Memorial Cup that the QMJHL has lifted the big trophy, after being crowned by Acadé Bathurst in 2018, Rowen-Noranda in 2019 and Saint-Jean in 2022. This is the first time. Once in history, a league won this Canadian championship four times in a row.

Whether he retires or not, Patrick Roy can now boast of winning the Memorial Trophy twice as well as the Gilles Corto Trophy at the helm.

Good start for the Reds

After a quarter of a day’s rest, we have to admit that rust wasn’t a factor for Remparts early in the game. Patrick Roy’s men were the better of the two teams in the first half of the clash, creating several scoring chances. The first came from the stick of Pierre-Olivier Roy who was yet to escape from beating Tomas Milic. A few moments later, it was the turn of Nathan Gucher and Kasim Judit to find themselves alone against the T Birds goaltender, but to no avail.

Thanks to creating plus numbers, the Remparts finally managed to open the scoring when Gaudet came two-on-one with Vsevolod Komarov, who delivered it before seeing the Russian defender hit the target. Nathan Gausher was also a first-goal partner of championship prospect Buffalo Sabers.

As they have done all season, the Red Devils have made life very difficult for their opponents in attack. Tight and responsible, the Red Devils’ five-man unit gave them very little chance of breaking through the hole to create goal-scoring chances.

Malatesta, it is again

And, as they often did, they took advantage of their advantages to hurt their competitors.

After missing a breakaway opportunity midway through the second half, James Malatesta recovered seconds later with a one-time run after accepting a pass from Théo Rochette, to score his fifth goal of the contest, thus doubling the Remparts’ lead.

And for a team trailing 0-2 after 40 minutes, the Thunderbirds didn’t come out with the power of desperation in the third period and it was once again Remparts who dictated the pace of the clash. The Thunderbirds fired their first shot into the net of William Russo more than seven minutes into the third period.

On the other side, Tomas Milic held the block to keep his team in the game. He can also say thanks to the horizontal bar behind him, which was hit by Justin Robidas midway through the period.

The door was opened for the Thunderbirds a few minutes later when Mikaël Huchette was sent off for a cross check. But it was the Red Devils who benefited: Justin Robidas got two goals one-on-one with Kassim Godet before chipping in to make it 3-0.

Zachary Bolduc then sealed the match with a powerful one-timer, before Charles Savoy added more before the end of the period.

The Remparts will be back in Quebec with the Memorial Cup early Monday morning.