After suffering through an excruciatingly mediocre regular season, the anguish of a first-round playoff elimination and the shock of a coaching change just before they suited up as hosts 2018 RBC Cup, Bryan Allbee and the Chilliwack Chiefs wiped away their misery with a week of winning hockey.
They ended their season on a high Sunday night, capturing the junior A hockey national crown on home ice in Chilliwack with a 4-2 win over the Wellington Dukes.
For Chiefs defenceman Bryan Allbee, a 20-year-old Prince George native, nothing comes close to the joy of hoisting the big trophy and celebrating the end of his junior hockey career in triumphant fashion along with his teammates and family.
"There's no other way I'd want it to go out and I was glad I had the chance to do it, it feels amazing," said Allbee. "After what we went through all season, we had our ups and downs and a lot of people didn't think we'd ever do it. But we believed in ourselves and it worked out."
The Chiefs were eliminated from the B.C. Hockey League playoffs in a seven-game first-round series loss to the Prince George Spruce Kings March 11 at Rolling Mix Concrete Arena. Nine weeks later they took on the BCHL-champion Wenatchee Wild in their RBC Cup opener and lost 2-1 in overtime, then reeled off five consecutive wins in their run to the national title.
The Chiefs had already beaten Wellington 2-0 in the round-robin and in the final were trailing the Central region champs when Will Calverley tied it, tipping in Allbee's shot from the point 4:35 into the third period. Corey Andonovski scored the gamewinnner four minutes later and Tommy Lee capped the scoring in the 12th minute of the third.
"It was 2-1 for Wellington going into the dressing room and we were confident but we were extremely nervous, it was hard not to be because Wellington was playing well at that point," said Allbee. "For a lot of us it was the last period we'll ever play junior and we came out and scored three goals in an eight-minute spread. We just clicked at the right time, we needed a big period and we got one out of our forwards."
The crowd of about 5,000 at Prospera Centre showed its loud appreciation as the minutes ticked down with the Chiefs holding the lead.
"It was packed, definitely the best crowd I've ever played in front of, it was really special, they even had the wave going at one point," he said.
The Chiefs went 26-26-3-3 in the regular season and finished fourth in the Mainland Division, 16 points behind the division-champions Spruce Kings. After losing to Prince George in the playoffs the players were sent home for two weeks and then returned for six weeks of boot camp style training sessions.
"We got pretty much absolutely bagged every day, two workouts a day and on the ice every day, pushing us to the point where we kind of said the way we're going to win this thing is if we're the best-conditioned team if we come in healthy and in great shape and everyone bought into that," said Allbee. "There's no way we would have won it unless we did that stuff.
"If you look at our overall record, we were right around .500, which for a team to win a championship, it doesn't happen too often. In our heads, when we lost out, we just looked at it like a fresh start. We knew we had potential all season but for some reason it never seemed to click in."
Three of the last four RBC Cup champions have been the host teams and all three were knocked out of their league playoffs early. Of the 14 BCHL teams that have won the national title in its history, the Chiefs are the only one to host it.
The Chiefs ownership group announced May 3, nine days before the start of the tournament, that head coach and general manager Jason Tatarnic had been relieved of his duties after two years on the job. He was replaced by Brian Maloney, who moved up from his role as assistant coach/assistant GM.
For the tournament, Maloney turned to Brad Rihela, Suneil Karod and former Trail Smoke Eaters coach Cam Keith, fired last month after leading the Smokies to the BCHL semifinal, to help out as coaches. Maloney, a former Chiefs' forward, had been the team's defensive coach and it was a smooth transition for Allbee, who joined the Chiefs' blueline last summer after a trade from the Spruce Kings and had three assists in six RBC Cup games.
"That was pretty crazy, obviously you don't really expect that to happen, but we kind of just said we don't care who's behind the bench for us, that's the business side of it, and we just have to do this for ourselves and just tried to play for whoever was behind the bench for us," said Allbee. "I had a great connection with Brian all year and everyone had a pretty good relationship with him that way. It was pretty smart by whoever made that decision to not bring in a completely new head coach who was not going to shuffle everything around."
Key in the Chiefs' RBC Cup success was the play of 18-year-old goalie Daniel Chenard. The Waterloo, Ont., native won the top goaltender award after playing five of the six games, posting a 1.77 goals-against average and .937 save percentage with one shutout. He made 26 saves in the final against Wellington and blocked 26 shots in the Chiefs' 3-2 semifinal win over the Ottawa Junior Senators.
"He was unreal for us and I was very happy for him," said Allbee. "The team kind of got harped on all year by a lot of critics who said we needed a 20-year-old goalie to win a national championship and I'm just happy he proved them wrong, he's one heckuva goalie."
Calverley led the tournament with six goals, five of which came off tip-ins, and was named the tournament MVP. The Chiefs' captain and RIT recruit scored all four goals, including the overtime winner, in the Chiefs' 4-3 win over the Ottawa Junior Senators in their second game. That kickstarted the Chiefs' five-game roll to the championship.
"He was the MVP for a reason and if we didn't have him it could have been a lot different results," said Allbee. "He scored four in that game and had a huge one in the final as well."
After two seasons of major midget hockey with the Cariboo Cougars, Allbee moved up to major junior to the WHL with the Kootenay Ice and played there for 1 1/2 seasons before he was traded to the Seattle Thunderbirds. He was with the T-birds until midway through the 2017-18 season, then joined his hometown Spruce Kings.
Allbee says he'll be back in Prince George in the first week of June and he will get to bring the RBC Cup trophy for a hometown tour. He plans to study to become a tradesman and said he hasn't made a decision on whether to continue his hockey career playing for a Canadian college team.
