ELORA – The Elora Rocks came out of the Western Ontario Super Hockey League (WOSHL) finals with the Sleeman Cup after two wins over the weekend.
The team won the best-of-seven series 4-2 over the Tillsonburg Thunder, making them the first to win the WOSHL playoffs in its inaugural season.
“It was a lot of hard work finally paying off but it’s nice that it’s done and we can end on this note,” said Rich Wigmore, Elora Rocks president, in an interview.
Going into Friday’s Game 5 on home ice, the series was tied up at two wins apiece.
Tillsonburg started strong and went into the third periodup 2-0. With just around six minutes left, Elora’s Charlie Stephens scored back-to-back goals before teammate Alex Utley scored the tie-breaker, winning the game 3-2 for Elora.
“All year long we have always scored in bunches, we don’t score all game long but it seems like when we do, we get two or three,” Wigmore said.
Saturday the team was on the road in Tillsonburg needing just one more win to secure the cup. Wigmore said the team was feeling good after the come-from-behind win the previous day and that energy carried over.
A lot of the crowd was behind them too, Wigmore noted, even on the road thanks in part to an organized fan bus to take the hour and a half drive from Elora to Tillsonburg for what ended up being the last game of the playoffs.
“I think we ended up having 150 people in their arena and we were louder than them,” Wigmore said.
The game was back and forth with both teams scoring a goal in the first and second periods.
A power play goal in the third period by Stephens gave Elora the deciding 3-2 victory.
Wigmore said it wasn’t scoring goals that secured them the playoff win but the players putting aside all ego and focusing on camaraderie.
“Just seeing the guys come together like as a group, from a family standpoint, I actually never experienced that in sports before,” Wigmore said.
“There’s times where the other team definitely could have won that series and put it away but we’re just a better team, a better group of guys that care about each other. That’s why we won that series.”
Beyond just the players, Wigmore gave credit to the team behind the scenes who were apart of making their first season in the WOSHL successful.
He highlighted Mitch Scott, the team’s general manager who ended up having to step in as coach which was something he had never done before, and Cassie Silverthorn who handles the team’s social media accounts and coordinates on game day.
For now, Wigmore said the team is taking some time to recover and further time off as the playoff and season dragged on due to issues around COVID.
The next season will start in the fall and Wigmore said the new league has two new teams confirmed to be joining and another few that are in talks to add to the current five-team roster in the WOSHL.
