2005 Memorial Cup

Updated on Dec 02, 2024

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Host team London Knights Duration May 21–29, 2005 Number of teams 4		Champions London Knights Number of games 8 Television Rogers Sportsnet

The 2005 Memorial Cup was held May 21–29, 2005 at the John Labatt Centre in London, Ontario. It was the 87th annual Memorial Cup competition and determined the major junior ice hockey champion of the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). The Cup tournament featured the champions from the Western Hockey League (WHL), the Kelowna Rockets; the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), the Rimouski Océanic; the Ottawa 67's representing the Ontario Hockey League (OHL); and the host team. Since the host team, the London Knights, won the Ontario Hockey League championship against the Ottawa 67's, the 67's earned the right to represent the OHL as the League runner-up.

The Knights had never won the Memorial Cup, unlike the other three teams, despite having a franchise for longer than any of the other three teams (40 seasons). The year 2005 marked both London's first-ever OHL championship and first Memorial Cup victory in its 40-year history.

Coverage

Media attention was unusually high, with the television ratings the highest ever recorded for the tournament [1]. There were several reasons for this increase in media attention:

Lack of competition from the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. The NHL season was cancelled due to a labour dispute, which made the Memorial Cup tournament the most important active North American hockey trophy in the interim. Further, since there was no NHL, some of the young prospects were able to play for their junior teams instead of playing for their affiliated NHL teams. As such, the higher-skilled junior players helped facilitate more competitive games.
The presence of arguably two of the strongest teams ever in junior hockey.
The Kelowna Rockets were the defending Memorial Cup champions.
The Ottawa 67's, coached by the "legendary" Brian Kilrea, finished in a distant 6th place in their conference but made a strong playoff performance to come back to face the Knights in the OHL final.