If you're going to close out your college hockey career, you may as well do it in style.
Jacob Schofield got the chance to do just that on Saturday night as the Yellowknife star helped MacEwan University to the Alberta Colleges Athletics Conference (ACAC) men's hockey title for the third year running.
Matthew Jacula/MacEwan Athletics photo
Not only that, they beat the same team for the third year running to do it.
MacEwan beat the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton on Saturday night by a score of 5-4 in double overtime, erasing a 4-0 deficit to do it, to win the championship series, 2-0, giving Schofield a third gold medal.
MacEwan won the opening game the night before, 5-2, with Schofield chipping in a goal in the second period.
“We were always in control of that game,” said Schofield.
Game 2 the next night was a tale of two parts as NAIT was the better team in the first half of the game as they pumped in four unanswered second-period goals to put MacEwan behind the eight-ball.
“They caught us on some bad shifts and they capitalized on that,” said Schofield about NAIT's middle-stanza burst. “All we had to do was settle down because there was lots of hockey left and if you give up halfway through the game, then you're finished.”
MacEwan scored late in the second period to give them some hope, followed quickly by another before the period was out to cut NAIT's lead in half, 4-2. The comeback was completed early in the third period as two goals in four minutes made it a brand new hockey game.
Schofield said getting the third goal early in the third period was perhaps the biggest one of the game for MacEwan.
“We've come back from deficits before and getting that third goal really got us going,” he said. “We knew we were better than they were and our guys have a lot of heart.”
Regulation time solved nothing, meaning it was off to sudden-death bonus hockey. One overtime period didn't provide a winner but it would be in the second overtime where MacEwan would finish it as Ryan Baskerville snapped home the winner on the off-wing at 9:01 of the second overtime period, setting off wild scenes.
Schofield had to watch the last few minutes of the overtime session as he was forced to leave the game with an injury that turned out to be a broken collar bone.
“I only missed about five minutes of the overtime,” he said. “The trainer put a sling on me and I watched the game from behind the bench.”
Schofield was last out on the ice when the celebrations began for good reason.
“I didn't want to get trampled,” he said with a laugh.
The win was also a chance for the team to pay tribute to Nakehko Lamothe, a member of the Liidlii Kue First Nation, who died in January after suffering a heart attack following a game in Calgary. Lamothe's family was in attendance for the game in Edmonton and they were the first ones to hoist the championship trophy.
Schofield said the team's plan all along was to have Lamothe's family be a part of the celebration.
“When they announced his name to get the medal, that was a special feeling,” he said. “Rallying back to win for him was amazing and he was with us all the time. He was such a warrior on and off the ice and did so much for the hockey community and for his community of Calling Lake (Alta.). It's unparalleled to me and his legacy will live on for a long time.”
The feeling in the locker room following the win over NAIT was a mixture of everything, he added.
“We were happy, excited, relieved and exhausted,” he said. “Three championships in three years is special but it was such a crazy season because of the tragedy we had with our teammate.
“We were playing three games a week because some of our games were postponed plus we played 14 period of hockey against Red Deer (College in the semifinals) and overtime against NAIT. We had to battle but we wanted it more and it paid off.”