Wolves win Calder Cup
Amid the shower of confetti, cheers from every corner of the Allstate Arena and the mass hugfest occurring all around the ice, John Anderson sought one person to celebrate the Chicago Wolves' Calder Cup championship on Tuesday.
"Where's Chevy?" Anderson yelled after the Wolves had defeated the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 5-2 in Game 6 of the Finals before a playoff-best 9,808 fans.
Within moments Anderson spotted Kevin Cheveldayoff 10 feet to his right and quickly made his way across the ice. Upon arrival, their faces lit up and Anderson picked Cheveldayoff off the ice with a huge hug.
It was an embrace that celebrated 11 years of Wolves success as Anderson, the coach, and Cheveldayoff, the general manager, working together for such nights. The championship was the pair's second Calder Cup and fourth total (two Turner Cups).
"I don't know yet," said Cheveldayoff of how he felt. "I'm just taking all this in and seeing how happy the guys are. To know what it feels like to win a championship … you want everyone on the team to know that feeling."
As he did throughout his MVP regular season, Jason Krog did the heavy lifting.
With the game tied 2-2 heading into the third period, Krog scored the game-winner in fashionable style at 4:44. Off a pass from Jesse Schultz, Krog lowered his body while drifting to his left and placed a slap slot into the bottom left corner of the net.
With an earlier goal and a later one, Krog capped his magical season with a hat trick. He finished with 12 goals and 36 points in 24 playoffs game. To add to his hardware, he was given the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs.
"It's been an amazing season," Krog said. "We had high hopes coming into it. They put together a great team. They treat us great here. Everything's first class. Everyone wants to the win the Cup, but it's good when it comes together."
Rookie Ondrej Pavelec wasn't far behind in his importance in the game or the playoffs. With his family watching the game live in the Czech Republich, the 20-year-old stopped 25 shots, including all 6 the Penguins put on him in the third period.
Wolves captain Darren Haydar was one of the first to raise the Cup over his head as nearly all of the crowd stuck around to share in the celebration.
"It doesn't get any better than this," Haydar said. "It doesn't matter what championship you win, whether it's pee wee hockey or the NFL Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup -- it's hard work that goes into it. This is culmination of it."
Nathan Oystrick and Brett Sterling scored the Wolves' two other goals.