UTICA, N.Y. – Both the Metro Jets and MJDP teams qualified for the USPHL National Championships this season, making it five straight for the Jets and three in a row for the MJDP.
This year, the event was held at the new Utica University Nexus Center.
The Jets and MJDP teams each made it to the round of 16, with the Jets going one step further to the quarterfinals, before each squad bowed out.
In Utica, the Jets defeated the Las Vegas Thunderbirds 5-2 Thursday and the USPHL regular-season champion New York Aviators 7-2 Friday in the seeding round. The Jets then beat the Ogden Mustangs 4-2 Saturday before losing 5-1 to the Florida Eels in the quarterfinals Sunday.
The MJDP fell 1-0 in a shootout to the Eels Thursday before suffering a 3-0 setback to the Northern Cyclones Friday in seeding round games. The Cyclones then took the rematch 5-1 on Saturday.
“First off, I want to congratulate all our guys on the hard work and success they had this year,” said Jets head coach-GM Justin Quenneville. “This time of the year is always difficult, but we were able to get to nationals and compete against the best. We’ve been fortunate to go all the way and win, and go all the way and lose, but falling a little short this year in the quarterfinals is difficult because we knew we didn’t play our best. Sometimes it’s not the best team that wins, but the better team that day. We stayed true to our model and loyal to our guys and I’m proud of their effort and how they represented the Jets. They deserved better fate, and I know many will remember this moment and say we missed an opportunity to go all the way. This group had it in them even while dealing with adversities and challenges throughout the year.
“But we have a bright, young group coming back with even more experience now and a veteran group that has nothing to hang their heads about. I want to thank the entire Jets players, staff and community for their efforts and support, and look forward to announce many of our commitments and opportunities for next year. We will be back.”
Jets associate head coach Jamie Lovell was on the same page as Quenneville.
“Two tough losses for our guys,” said Lovell. “It’s a tough format in these one-game elimination settings and you have to be at your best each game. It’s March madness and it’s not necessarily the best team that wins, but the team that plays best that day. For the DP, they ran into very good Cyclones team, and we just couldn’t get our offense going at all. For our Jets, we just weren’t very good this quarterfinal game and Florida got the goaltending they needed and capitalized on our mistakes. Not taking anything away from our opponent, but it really felt like we beat ourselves.
“Big picture, as a staff, we are proud of what we do as a program year in and year out. We focus on developing these guys as individuals both on and off the ice in an effort to make them better hockey players and better people. Our main goal is to promote them on to college or to higher levels and, ultimately, the next chapter in their hockey careers and lives. We have been fortunate to have quite a bit of success on the ice challenging for a national championship each year with both our groups, so in our minds this was another successful year despite falling a little short on what every team wants to do – win that last game and hang a championship banner, but we know there’s a lot more to this than that. We had another incredible group of human beings that we got to coach and work with each day and look forward to continuing to do so next season with next group who will join our returning players.
“As far as our graduating players, we know it’s tough for them to lose their last junior game, but they know they’re off to bigger and better things. They have plenty of hockey left ahead of them, starting that next chapter at the college level, but they know ‘Once a Jet always a Jet’ and we wish them all the best.”
The USPHL Premier national championship game is set for Tuesday at 1 p.m., pitting the Charlotte Rush against the Cyclones.
