HOT CORNER: Don Johnson Memorial Cup returns to Kensington

SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — It all began in Kensington in 1982, when the late Robert K. Cousins and his Kensington Bombers hosted the first-ever Don Johnson Cup.
The St. John's Celtics beat the Bombers 5-3 in the final that year. Now, 37 years later and known as the Don Johnson Memorial Cup, Kensington will host the Atlantic junior B hockey championship for the fourth time.
The Kensington Vipers are this year's hosts and will look to win this championship for a third time. They were Atlantic champions in 2011 and 2013.
The Vipers have to be considered as underdogs as they lost in five games to the Abram-Village-based Western Red Wings in the Island Junior Hockey League final. The Red Wings, who have won three straight provincial titles, were clearly the best P.E.I. team this year. The Red Wings lost in last year’s semifinal in Membertou, N.S., and know how it feels to be so close and come up empty. That experience will be huge for the Wings this year.
The Wings and Vipers get the action going on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
The Moncton Vitos, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador representatives round out the six-day event that should draw big crowds with it being the last meaningful hockey on P.E.I. this year.

Past history
Past history of the Don Johnson Memorial Cup shows that this is the ninth time it will be hosted by P.E.I. teams. Sherwood-Parkdale, Montague, Western, Summerside and O'Leary have hosted it in the past.
The O'Leary Eagles are the only other P.E.I. team to win this championship in 2002 under coach Forbie Kennedy. Kensington has lost in the final twice, with Sherwood-Parkdale and Montague also finishing runners-up.
This will be the 32nd Don Johnson Cup. The championship was not played from 1991 to 96.

MHL team moves
The move of the St. Stephen Aces to Fredericton should be a great move for the franchise and the rest of the New Brunswick teams in the MHL (Maritime Junior Hockey League). Moving from a town of 4,400 people to the capital city with a population 60,000 people is a no-brainer.
One has to wonder why it took so long for a junior A hockey team to operate out of Fredericton.
Even the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) could survive there. The UNB Reds have had that market all to themselves and let’s not forget that the American Hockey League had a successful team there for a lot of years.
The move is too bad for St. Stephen, which supported the Aces well averaging over 800 fans per game. That is the hard part in leaving, says Aces governor Mike Horne. He says it has been a financial struggle in the five years the Aces played in St. Stephen, with gate revenue making up only 25 per cent of revenue required.
That being said, one can only wonder what teams like the Valley Wildcats, averaging only 313 fans per game this year, do to survive.
Travel costs in the MHL are huge, especially for Summerside, which puts on more miles than any team. A rough calculation had the Caps travelling in excess of 19,000 kilometres this season – that equals to about 10 return trips to Boston.
The Aces’ move to Fredericton will save the Caps about two hours compared to their trips to St. Stephen. That is, unless of course, the Caps can be moved to the other division, where travel would be cut down significantly playing teams like Amherst, Truro and Pictou County more often.
If the league does not think seven- and five-team divisions would work, they should look at the QMJHL. They have a six-team Maritime Division and three divisions of four teams. They are having a great playoff where the four best teams remaining are playing in a fair playoff setup.
At any rate, the Fredericton Junior Red Wings should be a huge success and at the same time help with travel costs for the other four New Brunswick teams as well as Summerside.
If you were wondering about the Caps’ attendance figures from last season, they averaged 1,207 fans per game during the regular season and 1,803 in five home playoff games.

Dave Cameron
Head coach Dave Cameron has his Vienna Capitals in the Austrian Hockey League finals. They were tied at a game each in a best-of-seven series with a team called EC-KAC out of Klagenfurt Austria, which is about a three-hour drive from the capital city of Vienna. Game 3 was played on Thursday night, with Game 4 on Sunday.
It would be great to see Cameron win the championship in his first year coaching in Austria. It would come on the 30th anniversary of Cameron guiding the Western Capitals all the way to the Centennial Cup national final in Summerside in 1989.
It seems like just a few years ago, but it is 30 years already since the Caps lost 4-1 to the Thunder Bay Flyers in May 1989 at Cahill Stadium.
Have a great weekend and a happy and safe Easter!

Joe MacIntyre is a local life insurance broker. His column appears every Saturday. Comments and suggestions can be sent to [email protected].