Staff
Fort Frances Lakers’ fans got to know how good Nick Minerva was offensively for two seasons.
The rest of the country got to find out Sunday.
The former Lakers’ defenceman cranked a point shot past goalie Mitch Benson at 8:21 of overtime as the host Cobourg Cougars exhilarated their home fans with a 3-2 win over the Brooks Bandits in the final of the 2017 RBC Cup national Junior ‘A’ hockey championship.
“When I was sitting on the bench, I was saying to Matt Bumstead, my ‘D’ partner, and we were talking about how we were gonna end this thing, somehow, some way,” Minerva said in quotes published on the Independent Sports website.
“I saw the puck come out, it kind of bobbled a little bit, and I saw that the Brooks’ guys didn’t challenge me at all,” added the 21-year-old from New Brunswick, N.J., who finished his junior hockey career in fairy-tale fashion.
“I blacked out and closed my eyes, took the hardest shot I ever took in my life, and it went in,” he noted.
“It still hasn’t really hit me, to be honest with you.”
Minerva spent two years with the Lakers, garnering 99 points in 81 regular-season games and another 20 points in 21 playoff games as part of the SIJHL championship-winning teams in 2015 and 2016.
He was the league’s top defenceman last year, and made both the SIJHL and CJHL all-star teams after his 73 points led all Junior ‘A’ blueliners.
After he left the Lakers, Minerva ended up with the Surrey Eagles (BCHL) to start this season, getting 25 points in 40 contests, before being shipped to the Cougars (OJHL) at the trade deadline.
There, Minerva had 10 points in 15 games and then another nine in 11 playoff outings.
It was the first RBC Cup for the Cougars, who vanquished a vaunted foe in the AJHL and Western Canada Cup champion Bandits twice in the tournament.
Earlier in the week, Cobourg downed the Bandits 5-2 in the round-robin–no small achievement considering Brooks only suffered six regulation losses in 84 games this season.
