Marquardt nets winner in Memorial Cup Semi-final

North Bay's Matt Marquardt scored the biggest goal of his hockey career Friday night in the Memorial Cup semi-final. File photo.

North Bay's Matt Marquardt scored the game winner in the third period to lead the Moncton Wildcats to a 4-1 victory over the Vancouver Giants and sends them to Sunday's Memorial Cup final against the Quebec Remparts.

With the score tied 1-1, Wildcats forward Brad Marchand made a couple of nifty moves in the Giants corner and fed a perfect pass into the slot to Marquardt who fired a quick wrist shot past Giants netminder Dustin Slade.

After the goal, Marquardt jumped up and did his version of the "Lambeau Leap" as he celebrated standing on top of the glass with the hometown fans while being mobbed by his teammates.

"I'm pretty tall and I just smashed into the glass and climbed up," Marquardt told Sportsnet's Daren Millard about the celebration after what was likely the biggest goal of his hockey career.

The Wildcats added a pair of empty net goals in the final minute to seal the victory and now move on to play the team they defeated in the QMJHL finals, Patrick Roy's Quebec Remparts in Sunday's winner-take-all Memorial Cup final.

"We have a lot of respect of them," Marquardt told Sportsnet about the Remparts who defeated the Wildcats Wednesday to give them the bye to Sunday's final.

"They have a lot of firepower and we'll just have to go out and do the job and get the 'W' on Sunday."

The game winner was Marquardt's first goal of the tournament, but the big power forward did appear to score a nice tip in goal in Wednesday's round robin game against the Remparts, but it was disallowed due to an apparent high stick.

Marquardt is the first North Bay native to play in the tournament since Russ Moyer did for the Ottawa 67's back in the 2001 Memorial Cup in Regina.