NEWS FILE PHOTO
Medicine Hat Tigers head coach Willie Desjardins barks out a line change in the first period of a 5-2 win at Co-op Place over the Swift Current Broncos on Jan. 4.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
What can you learn about a WHL championship beyond what a two-time winner can tell you?
There’s no secret stuff – ala Micheal Jordan in the Space Jam universe, or the fastest way to construct an IKEA dresser. There’s no hidden recipe, tucked away in a box high up on a shelf that can only be discovered by the right group.
The answer of what it takes to win, according to Willie Desjardins, is better answered by another question, what doesn’t it take?
“It takes lots of stuff to win a championship. But I don’t look at that, I look at one game at a time and that’s the way we looked at this year,” Desjardins said. “The thing I know, is that every game you can win, it doesn’t matter if you’re the best team or not, you go into every game and you can find a way to win it. That’s what we have to do is take it one game at a time.
“It doesn’t matter who we play or what we’re up against. We just have to win that one game and find a way after that.”
The Medicine Hat Tigers open their playoffs tonight at Co-op Place, taking on the eighth-seed Swift Current Broncos. Medicine Hat enters the contest five days removed from clinching the first regular season Eastern conference title since 2006-07 and the first Central division banner since 2017-18.
Before that 5-2 clinching win Sunday in Calgary over the Hitmen, Desjardins challenged his team.
“Are you done yet, have you had enough or do you want more,” he said following a 10-1 win over the Lethbridge Hurricanes on March 22. “If you want more, than you’re going to have to earn it. They’re not going to give you anything, so the only way you’re going to get it is to earn it.”
He carries the same message into the best-of-seven series with the Broncos, who they split the season series with 2-2. Desjardins says the series will be a challenge, one they will have to be ready for if they want to avoid a first-round exit for the third year in a row.
“It’s going to be a little bit of a challenge just with everything that’s gone on,” Desjardins said. “But for our guys as a group, we want to do well. We have tons of respect for Swift Current, it’s going to be a really hard series. So we’ll battle hard in Game 1 and then whatever happens, we’ll go after Game 2. It’ll be seven hard games and that’s what we’re prepared for.”
The Tigers enter the playoffs on a 10-game win streak, they’ve lost just five games since the calendar flipped in January and have scored five or more goals in five straight games. They started the season as the top-ranked team in the Canadian Hockey League and finished ranked No. 3.
Expectations couldn’t be higher for a franchise looking to hang a sixth championship banner, tying them for the most all-time in the WHL.
Desjardins doesn’t know what the playoffs have in store, but he’s proud of how the team got there and he looks forward to seeing how they strive to meet the expectations they’ve put upon themselves.
“In lots of ways they overachieved, there was games where we played more talented teams at that time and we found ways to win, so it was pretty special,” Desjardins said. “Where are we at, I’m not quite sure.”
“With (Jonas) Woo and (Bryce) Pickford just getting back, they’re not at the same pace they were when we lost them. So if we get everybody back and everybody’s healthy, then we’re going to be, we’ll be a good team. But right now, we have a battle. Honestly we do because Swift Current has some really good players and we just have to battle.”
