Sunday, April 30, 2006

Burnaby Moves On To the Royal Bank Cup

Paul Crowder and the Burnaby Express have wrapped up the Doyle Cup championship; so they advance as the Pacific representative in the round-robin Royal Bank Cup from May 8th to 16th in Brampton, Ontario. My last post detailed a closely fought 2-2 series and my foolish assumption that the series was destined for 7 games. But games 5 and 6 saw Burnaby bury 10 goals to Ft. McMurray's 1 (4-1 and 6-0). Bah-Da-Bing Bah-Da-Boom; Game, Set, Match. Wow. That's quite a surprising turn in a series that saw 2 of the first 4 games settled by 2 goals and 2 games go to OT.

Game Five saw Crowder score a power play goal 2:48 into the third to give Burnaby a 3-1 lead. That gives Paul 4 goals in the last 6 games to go along with his 8g-12a in the previous 16 games. A little better than 1pt/playoff game? Very nice considering the adversity that Crowder faced. Coming back for the playoffs and contributing at that level after being out injured all season is noteworthy. Paul's experiences in the playoffs and at the weeklong RBC tournament will perhaps help him adapt more quickly to the D-1 game. If so then maybe we'll see him produce more than just a few goals as a freshman.

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