Spitfires vs. Hitmen…One Year Later

Watch the pre game video here

Brandon, Man. – The match-up we all waited for last year that never happened, has finally come to fruition at this year’s Memorial Cup.

The Windsor Spitfires and the Calgary Hitmen will finally get a crack at eachother tonight with the opportunity to go 2-0 in the tournament, and avoid any chances of playing in the tie-breaker game Thursday.

Calgary was eliminated last year in the WHL playoffs, thus ruining the chance of the much anticipated game between the two powerhouses.

The team who wins will punch their ticket into at least the semi-finals, and set themselves up to jump straight to the finals with a win in their next game.

For the Sptifires, they will have to get past a resilient Hitmen team, who came from behind in Saturday’s game against the Moncton Wildcats to grab their first win of the tournament.

Spitfires’ defenceman Cam Fowler knows that his team can’t take the WHL champions lightly.

“They’re the best in the west,” he said after the pre-game skate Monday afternoon.  “They have a big physical team that can wear you down.  You could see against Moncton they’re a team that never quits so we just need to make sure that we play a full 60 minutes.”

With the Hitmen having played Saturday, the Spitfires were able to do some scouting of their upcoming opponent.

Fowler believes that the Hitmen are going to play a simple, yet physical game.

“They have a lot of good players and hard workers that are going to battle you,” he said.  “We need to make sure our battle levels are high and that we stick with the same game plan [from Friday] and hopefully get the job done.”

On the other side, to say the Hitmen are eager to face the defending champs would be an understatement.

“We’re pretty excited,” co-captain Ian Schultz said.  “We knew we’d have to get through a giant to get where we want to be.  Getting them early in the tournament might benefit us.  We’re not too tired or banged up yet.”

The Spitfires – dating back to the OHL playoffs – have won their last nine games.

Even with them on such a roll, Schultz thinks his team is prepared to stop the Spits winning streak.

“We’ve played every kind of hockey this year that there is,” he said.  “From the quick and speedy [teams] – Medicine Hat and Tri-City – to the big and physical [teams] – Saskatoon.

He feels that they’ll have to make the Spitfires work for every inch of ice.

“We want to play our hockey – consistent,” Schultz said.  “Get pucks in, pucks out at the blue line and make them come 200 feet.”

Even though they’ve never played against the Spitfires’ top guns – the likes of Taylor Hall and Adam Henrique – Schultz thinks they shouldn’t have a problem shutting them down.

“We’ll probably put [Matt] Mackenzie and [Zak] Stebner against that line,” he said.  “We have a great goalie back there in Martin Jones and we have a lot of confidence in our d-corps. We’ll play our cards and see how it goes.”

Schultz finished by saying there’s no reason not to be amped to face the OHL champions.

“It’s going to be a war and usually they say if you can’t get up for this one you should probably quit hockey.”

Fowler echoed Schultz’s sentiments.

“We’re going to be prepared but we know it’s going to be a battle.”

The starting goalies will be Philipp Grubauer for Windsor, while Jones gets the start for the Hitmen.

Puck drop is 7 pm (8 pm EST)

Topics: Brandon, Calgary Hitmen, Cam Fowler, Ian Schultz, Manitoba, Martin Jones, Memorial Cup, OHL, WHL, Windsor Spitfires

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