Sporting a retro uniform and a fresh outlook, North Bay 's Colton Point is ready to reset for the RBC Cup.
Sunday, the 18-year-old goalie stopped 20-of-22 shots as his Carleton Place Canadians won 4-2 against the host Woodstock (N.B.) Slammers to become the first team to a third consecutive Fred Page Cup as eastern Canada Junior A champions. The 6-foot-4 NHL draft prospect's focus is now on the national championship, which begins this weekend in Lloydminster on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. The Canadians' last two playoff runs were halted one win short of the national title.
“Our goal at the beginning of the season was to get to this point, but you don't realize how fast it comes,” said Point, who is committed to Colgate University. “Now it's really happening; it's really awesome.
“It will be a bonding experience, especially for the guys who are coming back for next season,” added Point, who is the fourth-ranked North American goalie on NHL Central Scouting Service's final draft list. “It shows as a group that we are one of the best teams in Canada. We have proven it so far; we just have to keep proving it.”
Point allowed eight goals across four games at the Fred Page Cup.
“Our best player has to be your goaltender in a short tournament like this, and he was our best player all tournament long,” Canadians coach-GM Jason Clarke told the team website.
As the team with the longest trek, Carleton Place will be the last to hit the ice in Lloydminster. The trade-off is playing four games in five days, starting with Sunday's tilt against the Trenton Golden Hawks. Powassan's Lucas Brown led Trenton in scoring with four goals and seven points last week at the central Canada regional.
Point is buoyed by the belief that he adapted from a best-of-seven setting in league playoffs to the greater urgency of a short tournament. Facing a fired-up host team in a do-or-done championship game was also a good test.
“If you have a bad shift, or in my case let in a bad goal, you have to get over it right away,” said Point, who was named Central Canada Hockey League playoff MVP two weeks ago. “You can't get let a whole game to waste since you're basically playing one-game eliminations. I learned a lot about how to bounce back. Against Longueuil [in the round-robin], we were up 1-0 and then they scored three goals on me in four minutes. But we ended up winning 6-3. You just have to bounce back.
“In the final it was pretty crazy,” Point added. “They had the announcer was getting on the ice before the period started, getting the crowd pumped up.”
The goalie's father, Gary Point, and his mother's best friend Connie Young are heading to Lloydminster to provide hometown support.
The three western teams consist of the host Lloydminster Bobcats, West Kelowna Warriors and Brooks Bandits. The RBC Cup will have a new champion since Brooks bounced the Portage Terriers in the Western Canada Cup second-place game on Sunday.
Junior hockey devotees are used to seeing Carleton Place play in May, but they look different in one sense. Since they were wearing blue in the past two national finals, Clarke is leaving those uniforms at home in favour of early-1970s vintage purple throwbacks topped with yellow helmets.
“It's a lot of purple, but it looks really good,” Point said. “We've had a little bit of a curse with that blue jersey. We've broken that curse.”
The championship game on May 22 will be telecast by TSN.
