Memorial Cup Canadian Junior Men’s Hockey Champions
Year Inducted: 2024

On May 23, 1999, the Ottawa 67’s delivered a moment enshrined in a generation of Ottawa sports fans’ memories.

Coming into the 1998-99 season, there was already a buzz around the 67’s, who’d reached the Ontario Hockey League championship series the previous year.

The team had a new owner in Jeff Hunt, and attendance at 67’s games more than doubled that season, with an average of 5,000+ to lead the league.

Ottawa had a talented lineup in place, with a dozen players eventually drafted to the NHL. Zenon Konopka was not one of them, but the checking centre who embodied the team’s workmanlike spirit wound up having the fourth-longest NHL career of the bunch at 346 games – behind Mark Bell with 450, Nick Boynton at 605 and Brian Campbell at 1,082.

The 67’s did not disappoint, earning a sparkling 48-13-7 regular season record to finish third overall in the OHL.

To further add to the hype, Hunt won the bid to host the Memorial Cup, which assured Ottawa of a place in the four-team national junior men’s championship tournament.

The guaranteed berth wound up being crucial. Ottawa swept North Bay 4-0 in the first round of the OHL playoffs, but the injury-riddled 67’s were knocked out by the Belleville Bulls in the conference semi-finals. The Bulls won the final two games in overtime en route to a 4-1 series win and an eventual OHL title.

But the 67’s had 35 days to plot their revenge before the Memorial Cup got underway, and once it did, they came out with fire.

Ottawa opened the tournament with a 5-1 win over the Acadie-Bathurst Titan and then clawed past the Calgary Hitmen 4-3 with a late goal by future captain Dan Tessier.

Belleville again got the upper hand over Ottawa in the last round robin match, claiming a 5-4 double-overtime win to deprive the 67’s of an automatic berth in the championship game.

But Ottawa got the last laugh with a 4-2 decision over Belleville in the semi-final to advance to the final for a rematch with Calgary.

The Ottawa Civic Centre was packed with a sold-out crowd of over 10,500 as the capital set a new Memorial Cup tournament attendance record overall. And those fans wound up being treated to a wild, unforgettable Sunday afternoon.

Ottawa built a 4-1 lead, but the Hitmen answered back with four goals in a row. When the dust settled, the scoreboard read 6-6 after 60 minutes. That set the stage for the dramatic finish early in sudden death overtime.

Just over a minute in, Ottawa’s forwards were buzzing around Calgary’s end for a full shift. Then came the historic moment.

“The feelings going through you going into overtime were just overwhelming,” 67’s winger Matt Zultek reflected in a club feature to mark the 25th anniversary of their victory. “I remember having an opportunity to go to the front of the net, and (Justin) Davis got free and got the pass out to me, and I made a quick move and got a shot away. I remember turning around and not realizing [I scored] at first, and seeing all the guys rush toward me.

“It was such a big moment for the city and our team, especially with what we went through. I remember the eruption of sound, and not much else until I heard guys yelling that we were going to jump in the canal.”

At the helm behind the bench was Brian Kilrea, who became the first coach to lead a team to Memorial Cup tournament appearances in three different decades. The legend had previously coached the 67’s to a national title 15 years earlier in Kitchener.

“What makes this Memorial Cup so special is that it happened in my hometown,” Kilrea underlined in an Ottawa Citizen story by fellow Ottawa Sport Hall of Famer Tom Casey.