Mar 27,2003
The Knights do what it takes, even at the cost of a haircut
By MORRIS DALLA COSTA -- London Free Press
The price one pays for success is sometimes steep.
Last night, it cost the London Knights an enormous effort. It cost the game of hockey an enormous amount of entertainment value.
It cost Knights defenceman Dennis Wideman his hair.
If you ask the Knights, they'll tell you it was all worth it.
They won a game they had to win, 2-1, against the Windsor Spitfires to tie their OHL best-of-seven Western Conference quarter-final series 2-2.
"We do whatever we have to do to win," said Knights rookie defenceman Danny Syvret.
That type of comment is music to coach Dale Hunter's ears, especially since, with this team, they have to do whatever it takes to win.
From the moment Danny Bois scored with less than two minutes gone in the third period, the Knights turned the game into a dump-and-chase extravaganza. Whenever they were in trouble, they iced the puck. When they got to centre, they dumped the puck into the Windsor zone.
It wasn't much to watch but in this case, entertainment value took a back seat to winning the game.
For the final five minutes, the Knights stayed back and absorbed the Spitfires attack after attack. Bodies flew as player after player went down to block shots. The Spitfires' attack was born of desperation at trying to score.
The Knights' desperation was about survival.
The crowd actually came out of their seats for much of the final minute. After London lost a tough overtime game in Windsor on Sunday, there might have been a feeling this team was done.
But at the end of the night, Knights goaltender Chris Houle had faced 42-shots and was the determining factor in the game.
The only real casualty to the game was Wideman's hair. After the game, he sat in a chair as teammates took turns hacking away at it with the scissors.
"He said if we won, we could shave his head," explained Matt Weir.
As they say, they'll do whatever it takes for the win.
There was nothing pretty about the game. Both teams had trouble putting two passes together. But the Knights understood its importance. The longer the game went with the score tied 1-1, the harder they seemed to play.
In Game 2 in London, the game was tied 1-1 in the third period. It was the Spitfires who scored the big goal and went on to win.
"That's the way we have to play," said Syvret. "We're a defensive team. We knew that we had to win tonight or we would have to win three in a row and that's tough. We were pretty self-motivated."
Some time in the coming weeks, the Knights' playoff run will end. It may come in a few days, it may come in a week. It will without doubt come long before a Western Conference final.
For the results-oriented, defeat will come hard, the focus on how long the Knights survived in these playoffs.
But the benefits of this tough, often-dirty playoff series might be better noticed next year. A win like last night's victory extended the series and guaranteed another sizable gate for the Hunters in Game 6 on Monday. They can't get into the John Labatt Centre on the weekend because of a monster truck show. They'll be dropping more dirt on the JLC floor than you'll find at London city hall these days.
But last night's win did more than earn the team a few bucks. It also enabled a young team to gain even more experience for whatever is to come.
Syvret is one of those young defenceman who has great future.
"We expect a lot of our young defence," said Hunter. "They are very talented and they play a lot."
The burden and responsibility will only increase on these young players as they go deeper into the series.
But so will the reward, whether it's at the end of this playoff series or in the seasons to come.
"Napoleon didn't take Moscow, the Nazis got within 21 miles in 1943, but in a war of a different kind, Team Canada conquered Moscow." -journalist On the summit series
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