The second Memorial Cup in three years is too good to be true for Josh Mahura.
The Regina Pats are hosting the 100th Canadian Hockey League championship with Mahura in the lineup as the team’s top scoring defenceman. The St. Albert product also played for the Red Deer Rebels in the 2016 tournament.
“A lot of players don't ever get to experience a Memorial Cup and to be able to go into my second here it’s really exciting and I've been real fortunate to be in a couple of really good organizations that have been able to host it,” Mahura told the Gazette on Monday. “The first one in Red Deer I was 17 so I was a little younger and just kind of fresh in the league still but now this time it feels a little different being a little older and the lead-up to it.”
The Rebels lost the semifinal to the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies as the London Knights, led by the Mitch Marner, Christian Dvorak and Matt Tkachuk trio, finished undefeated as champions.
“Red Deer is a great hockey city. Through the regular season there is a type of atmosphere and then once you get into playoffs it kind of ramps up but then with the Memorial Cup it was really nothing like I’ve ever played in at that time. The whole show the organization put on in Red Deer was spectacular and hearing some of the plans of what Regina has been putting together it’s just going to be a fantastic week for the whole city here,” said Mahura, 20.
Both years the host teams waited for the Western Hockey League champion to be declared before the Memorial Cup started. The Rebels lost the Eastern Conference series final to the Brandon Wheat Kings while the last game for the Pats was April 2, a 3-2 setback in game seven of the Eastern quarter-finals to the Swift Current Broncos.
As for this year’s lengthy layoff, “Our coaching staff and owners have put together a great plan for us to lead up here and we feel like we've really prepared leading up to this week and we know these next few days are going to be really important for us to fine-tune some things that we're going to need to do to try and help us win a championship here this month,” Mahura said. “Also the fact that we’re going to be playing in the Mem Cup it’s pretty easy to get excited for that and pretty easy to want to be playing your best hockey.”
The Pats open the tournament Friday against the Hamilton Bulldogs of the Ontario Hockey League, followed by games Sunday against Acadie-Bathurst Titan of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Wednesday against the Broncos, winners of the Ed Chynoweth Cup as the WHL champions.
The Broncos and Pats waged a titanic playoff tussle with the teams trading wins like heavyweight fighters as the series ended in Swift Current.
“They’re obviously a good team to win the championship. We gave them a good run and felt the series could’ve easily gone our way, instead it went theirs,” said Mahura, who recorded five assists against the Broncos for 31 points in 52 playoff career games with the Rebels and Pats. “It was a great series and the game or games we get to play them in the Mem Cup I’m sure will be just an add-on to that series and it will just be some good hard-fought hockey between us two.”
Matteo Gennaro, a teammate of Mahura with the 2011/12 bantam AAA St. Albert Gregg Distributors Sabres, compiled nine goals and 18 points in 26 playoff games for the Broncos.
“I’ve played with him growing up and he’s one of my best buddies back home,” Mahura said of Gennaro, 21, a centreman who produced 42 goals and 79 points in 67 games with the Broncos and Calgary Hitmen in his fifth WHL season.
“Obviously I’m happy for him. He had a lot of good success in the playoffs,” Mahura added. “It’s going to be fun to play him here when the stakes get a little bit higher.
“It's always fun to play against him and other St. Albert guys in the league too that you played with growing up.”
Mahura established career season highs of 22 goals, 47 assists and 69 points in his fourth WHL campaign.
“Expectations for yourself and your team get a little higher and each year I’ve felt I've come in and got better,” said Mahura, who was acquired by the Pats from the Rebels along with forward Jeff de Witt for forward Lane Zablocki and defenceman Dawson Barteaux at the 2017 WHL trade deadline. The teams also exchanged a bunch of bantam draft picks.
“This year just I just tried working hard and being the best I could for the team. You’ve got to focus on some things more than others and you’ve got to continue to look to get better throughout the season and going into the off-season so I felt I had a good year and obviously it's not over yet so right now it's all about getting ready and hoping to play my best hockey here in the end of the month,” said the assistant captain of the Pats who led all WHL defencemen in the 2017 playoffs with eight goals and was third in points with 21 in 23 games.
The former Okanagan Hockey Academy midget and prep team player broke into the WHL with the Rebels in 2014 and the next year competed at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Cup with Team Canada’s summer U18 gold medallists.
Mahura, captain of the 2012/13 Sabres in his second bantam AAA season, attended the week-long Team Canada junior selection camp and was among the final five cuts but was re-added to the lineup for exhibition games as the team monitored the lower-body injury to defenceman Dante Fabbro. Mahura was later released on the eve of the IIHF World Junior Championship in Buffalo.
“It was a great experience. Obviously I didn’t get to fully play in the tournament but getting called back up it was a lot of fun. The Hockey Canada staff and everyone involved were such great people and treated me very well,” said the 2016 NHL draft pick of the Anaheim Ducks in round three, 85th overall, who signed a three-year entry-level contract last May.
“Obviously it was unfortunate that I couldn’t play but I was really happy that they did win and seeing all the players that succeeded there was just a lot of fun to watch so overall it was a great experience and I was happy to be a part of it as much as I could,” said the former student at Vincent J. Maloney School and Bellerose Composite High School who graduated from Hunting Hills High School in Red Deer.
