“No one cares, work harder.”
It’s a motto the Barrie Colts have lived by all season, and they followed it Monday night to complete a stunning comeback in their Eastern Conference Final against the Brantford Bulldogs, pulling off a 5-0 Game 7 win in front of a shocked crowd of 3,207 at TD Civic Centre.
Playing without their injured star centre Cole Beaudoin, the Colts rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the best-of-seven series to knock off the OHL’s regular season champions and advance to face the Kitchener Rangers in the OHL Championship, beginning Wednesday night at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium. Game time is 7 p.m.
The Colts, who claim the Bobby Orr Trophy as Eastern Conference champions for the fifth time in franchise history, saved their best game of the series for the one game that decided it all. Then again, they were facing a do-or-die contest for the third straight time.
“We’ve been in a Game 7 all week,” said Newton. “This is just another game for us. We were comfortable. We all trust each other, and we all love each other. It worked out for us, and we’re so happy.”
Barrie, which has a lone OHL title win against the Plymouth Whalers in 2000, will make its first appearance in the OHL Finals since a heartbreaking seven-game loss to the London Knights in 2013, when Bo Horvat scored the winner with less than a second remaining.
The Bulldogs, who came into the series as the clear favourites, hadn’t lost three games in a row all season. They had just eight losses on home ice through the regular season and playoffs, with five of those coming to the Colts.
“That kind of speaks to the identity of this group all year,” said Colts’ head coach Dylan Smoskowitz of his team’s ability to win the big games. “Again, with the slogan ‘no one cares, work harder.’ Numbers are numbers, and it’s great that they haven’t lost three in a row all year, but these guys, they just find a way.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. It’s written in the stars for this team. It’s a special group of kids, and a special group of warriors who absolutely love each other, and that’s a powerful thing.”
Emil Hemming, with a pair, Kashawn Aitcheson, with the winner late in the first period, Carter Lowe, and Parker von Richter, who also had two assists, scored for the Colts, who received another standout performance in the net from Ben Hrebik.
Hrebik stopped all 40 shots he faced to record his second shutout of the playoffs. In Barrie’s last three wins, the veteran faced 134 total shots and was only beaten six times.
With the Colts hanging on to a 1-0 lead in the second period, the OHL Goalie of the Week absolutely robbed Seattle Kraken prospect Jake O’Brien when he dove across the crease to stop O’Brien’s one-timer that appeared to be heading for the open net.
Then, in the dying seconds remaining in the second period, he stopped Philadelphia Flyers’ prospect Jett Luchanko on a shorthanded breakaway.
“Unreal,” said Smoskowitz of Hrebik’s performance. “You might as well have had a brick wall in that net tonight. There was nothing going by him. We were barking at our guys to get sticks in lanes, play defence, and have numbers back. The Honest to God truth is, if they had breakaway after breakaway, after breakaway, I don’t think they would have scored either.
“Ben Hrebik was a machine tonight.”
Hrebik, as usual, praised his teammates for their play in front of him.
Asked about his downright thievery on O’Brien, a big smile crossed Hrebik’s face.
“I was just trying to get my pad out there,” said Hrebik. “I wasn’t really thinking. I just had to get out there, and luckily, I got a piece of it.”
The Colts put this one away with a big third period. With 1:54 remaining on a high-sticking double minor to Luca Testa, Hemming scored his first of the night when he turned inside the blueline and cut to the high slot before firing a shot through heavy traffic and past Brantford goalie Ryerson Leenders.
“It was a huge goal,” Smoskowitz said of the power-play marker. “It’s a one-goal game. It’s one shot. One bad break, and they’re back into it. I really didn’t want the crowd to get back into this game, so the fact that the power play was able to give us that cushion, it made them tighten the grip on their sticks a little more.
“Then we get that third goal to really separate ourselves. It was a great way to start that period.”
Lowe would extend that breathing room less than five minutes later when he picked up a deflection off a Newton dump-in at the blue line, walked in and wired a shot over the right shoulder of Leenders.
Empty-net goals by Von Richter, at 15:10, and Hemming’s second of the night, 1:32 later, would complete the series comeback.
“I just couldn’t wait for it to end,” said Hrebik. “I was looking at that clock every second.”
The Bulldogs held a 40-30 advantage in shots, but in a crucial third period, it was the Colts who scored four times and kept a check on a powerhouse offence.
“It was a huge effort,” said Smoskowitz. “The thing was, we had spoken earlier today about how we’ve been playing Game 7s for a long time. We’re very comfortable in these situations. To come back in actual Game 7, it didn’t faze our guys.
“We had energy. We had life. We were making plays. We played smart with the puck. We were playing physical. We were playing disciplined. There’s not one thing I can say about this game that I would change.”
The Colts will have little time to let the win here soak in.
“It’s a great accomplishment as a team, but we’re not done yet,” said Newton. “We still have another thing to win, and we’re just going to go from there.
“We’re going to enjoy the night and then get right back to work (Tuesday).”
NO ONE CARES, WORK HARDER
The Colts caused quite the stir in the post-game press conference when Smoskowitz and Aitcheson decided to answer every question with their motto of “Nobody cares, work harder.”
The Colts, who have coined themselves as “mutants,” also have t-shirts with the “No One Cares, Work Harder” saying.
Twitter, as usual, was lit up with several people voicing various opinions on Barrie’s post-game answers.
COLTS DRESS UP EXTRA DEFENCEMAN IN WARMUPS
Barrie dressed a seventh defenceman during pre-game warmups on Monday night.
Rookie Teague Vader took to the ice for the first time in the series as both teams went through their drills. Normally, you see it when one of the players is questionable and is testing it out to see if he can play, but Smoskowitz said that wasn’t the case here.
The Colts’ head coach went with his six regulars of Evan Passmore, Justin Handsor, Gabriel Eliasson, Cole Emerton, von Richter, and Aitcheson.
Vader would be scratched.
ICE CHIPS: Like most teams, the Colts refused to touch the Bobby Orr Trophy when it was presented to them after the game. It’s a superstition for teams not to touch it, as the real goal is to win the J. Ross Robertson Cup (OHL champions) and the Memorial Cup (CHL champions) . . . All OHL championship games will be carried on TSN. . . The Colts finished 1-for-2 on the power play, while the Bulldogs were 0-for-2.
