Pair of sweeps end West playoffs early in MJHL

The Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s quarterfinals may have lacked drama on the ice, but certainly delivered in terms of storylines.

The Virden Oil Capitals and Waywayseecappo Wolverines made short work of the Neepawa Titans and Dauphin Kings respectively, advancing in four-game sweeps.

For Waywayseecappo, it’s the franchise’s first playoff series victory since joining the league nearly three decades ago. The Wolverines will face fellow first-time series winners Niverville in the semi-finals. The lower-seeded team took out Dauphin in dramatic fashion, winning game one and three in overtime on the road.

St Jean’s Sebastien Hicks continued his strong play into the playoffs, nabbing the winner in game three. It looked like a Wolverines three-on-two rush had fizzled out, but Hicks stayed alert, banking in a shot from below the goal-line off Dauphin goaltender Bryson Yaschyshyn.

Waywayseecappo nabbed their first post-season game victory since 2014 last year, with second-year head coach Landon Cochrane emphasizing the lessons learned from that run in an interview with The Brandon Sun.

“It just feels surreal,” Cochrane said.

“We didn’t predict a sweep, but we predicted a playoff win for the Wolverines and that’s what we got… I let the boys know along the journey that we’re looking to make history this year and this happens to be of one of our steps so now we’re getting ready for round two.”

Virden will get to resume hostilities with the Steinbach Pistons, as the two are historic playoff rivals, after making short work of the Titans. The Oil Capitals outscored their opponents 24-6 across the four-game sweep.

The Oil Capitals missed the playoffs last year.

“Neepawa’s got a good team, they got good players, but I just think our team at the end of the day had 20 guys pulled in one direction and if we can keep playing that way where everyone’s contributing and everyone’s pulling the rope the same way then I think we’ll figure it out,” Virden captain Ty Plaisier said.

“We believed that we were a deeper team, and as long as everyone was doing their job and playing their role, we knew we had a good chance to take them down, so I think it was just about sticking to Oil Caps hockey.”

The Oil Capitals building will be busy this week. With the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair taking over Brandon’s Assiniboine Credit Union Place, the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings will be playing playoff games against the Calgary Hitmen out of Tundra Oil and Gas Place.

It’s the second year in a row Brandon has played games three and four of their first-round series in Virden, coming away with a pair of victories over Lethbridge.

“It’s not ideal, but it’s still close enough and we still have our fans,” veteran Wheat Kings forward Nick Johnson told The Brandon Sun. “There were a lot of people there. It’s a smaller rink, but if it fills it can get loud and hopefully it does.”