The decision of the B.C. Hockey League to end its season and not finish out the playoffs to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus was a spike to the heart of teams in the league that believed they had what it took to go an an extended run in the postseason.
Kind of like what the Prince George Spruce Kings did last season.
For those who need a reminder, the Spruce Kings steamrolled their BCHL opponents in the playoffs and went on an unprecedented 16-1 run to the team's first-ever Fred Page Cup championship. The Kings then took out the Brooks Bandits in six games in the Doyle Cup Pacific regional championship and advanced all the way to the national junior A final in Brooks, Alta.
Ethan O'Rourke thought he was on board that same train this time around.
The 20-year-old former Spruce King/P.G. Cougar, joined the Coquitlam Express a month into the season from the Swift Current Broncos (WHL) and was a big part of Coquitlam's surge to the regular season title. The six-foot-five, 215-pound centre averaged nearly a point per game, finishing with 16 goals and 27 points in 31 games and had two goals and an assist in four playoff games.
The Express went 47-9-1-1-0 in the regular season and after eliminating the Langley Rivermen in four straight games, were all set to host Surrey in the second round when the league suspended play on Thursday. Two days later, the Canadian Junior Hockey League, which oversees all 10 junior A leagues, canceled the remainder of the season.
"It's an understatement to say how gut-wrenching it really is for the way the season has kind of finished itself off - you don't see it coming with the way it progressed in matter of hours, how quickly the decision was made there to end everything, especially with how strong of team we really did have," said O'Rourke, from his home in Coquitlam.
"Thursday we kind of had a general idea and we started to hear some rumblings. I think that was the day (Utah Jazz centre) Rudy Golbert got diagnosed (with COVID-19), so things started to go south for the NHL and NBA. Then on the Friday morning we knew what was happening so we had a final team scrimmage and prepared for what we knew was coming. I didn't leave the rink until we finally got that say on what was going to happen and it was a tough thing to hear."
There had been suggestions the league would shorten its playoff series to best-of-five or best-of-three, with an tournament at the end to determine a champion, but that's highly unlikely. Like the other 20-year-olds in the league, O'Rourke realizes that, barring a miraculous cure for the virus, he's almost certainly played his last junior hockey game.
"You realize how much you take those instances, not necessarily for granted, but you don't realize how much they're going to mean to you because you're so focused on moving on to the next part you almost forget to enjoy the process that it was," said O'Rourke.
"I don't know if it's still set in yet or not, it's a tough thing to have to deal with. In that series against Langley, not that other teams are tough to play against, but I don't think it would have gotten much harder (physically) because of how heavy of a game they play and how good they play defensively.
"That test, in showing how well we responded and completely shut them down the entire series, it was a testament to what our team was capable of. We go out of it with the Ron Boileau Trophy but not the Fred Page, it's not the one you want. But you appreciate how well we did this season and what we accomplished. Obviously you want a little more closure but there are times when it's not meant to be."
O'Rourke lives in the off-season with his family in Prince George. His father Steve is the Cougars' director of player development who also oversees a BC Hockey/Prince George Minor Hockey Association development program for players and coaches.
Ethan and his Express teammates cleaned out their lockers at the rink Sunday morning in Coquitlam and got together that night at the home of one of the players to say their final goodbyes. As part of that, O'Rourke said farewell to the bushy beard he sported all season.
"I made an agreement with my teammates that when the season was over I'd let them shave the beard off, so they took to it when we got together on Sunday night," he said. "It was definitely getting out of hand, I trimmed it right before the playoffs and it was almost to the state where I couldn't take it any more."
O'Rourke plans to play university hockey next season and has several U Sports teams interested, including Brock, Dalhousie, Western Ontario and Ryerson. He expects to make that decision over the next few months. He plans to drive back to Prince George on Wednesday.
