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Another trip to the Telus Cup ends in another semifinal loss for the Calgary Under-18 AAA Buffaloes.
Try as they might to score their second-ever national championship, the city’s top-flight minor hockey crew came up short with Saturday’s loss — a 4-1 drop at the hands of the Western Region-champion Brandon Wheat Kings.
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This year’s Buffaloes squad, coached by Brent Harrison, went looking to match what the 1989 edition did by winning the Hockey Canada’s Men’s U18 National Club Championship.
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But after a 3W-0OTW-1L-1OTL round-robin performance, the Alberta- and Pacific-champ Buffaloes of this year fell in their last step to make the final contest.
Manitoba’s Wheat Kings, who went 3-0-2-0 in the round robin, used a pair of second-period goals to beat goaltender Kael Svenson and the Buffaloes. That after Brayden Gourley opened the scoring for the Buffs.
Brady Turko’s power-play goal for the Wheaties drew the Buffs’ foes even late in first period. Turko scored again in the second, along with Easton Odut. And then Turko turned the hat-trick with an empty-net goal late in the game to ice the win and oust the Buffaloes.
Svenson made 39 saves in a losing effort.
The other semi Saturday saw the Quebec-winning Cantonniers de Magog (5-0-0-0) stay unbeaten with a 7-4 defeat of the Central-kingpin Markham Waxers (2-1-2-0), of Ontario.
That matches the Magog squad up against the team from Brandon in Sunday’s nationally televised Telus Cup final (2 p.m. MT, TSN), after the Buffaloes and Waxers play for bronze (10 a.m. MT).
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