After 544 CHL regular season contests and surviving three grueling playoff rounds, the Colorado Eagles and the defending champion Laredo Bucks both sit four wins away from hoisting the Ray Miron President’s Cup. The final battle for CHL supremacy begins tonight in Game 1 at the Budweiser Events Center in Northern Colorado. The entire Finals series is available live to high speed internet users on www.chltv.com.

Watch Game 1 Live on CHLTV.com

The Bucks will look to capture their third title in the last four seasons and make their record fourth straight appearance in the Finals, while the Eagles are hoping for the second championship in their second appearance, defeating these same Bucks in 2004-2005.

How crucial is Game 1? Critical, historically speaking. In a total of 19 previous CHL/WPHL Finals, the club winning game one has gone on to victory 18 times. The lone exception was the 1998/1999 Huntsville Channel Cats, who fell to Oklahoma City in the opener then won four of the next five to capture the CHL title. The Coach of that Huntsville club was none other than Chris Stewart, who’s been behind the Colorado bench since franchise inception.

Quotables – Ray Miron President’s Cup Finals

Colorado Coach Chris Stewart in the Fort Collins Coloradoan
"I would have been happy to be playing anybody, just as long as we got a chance to come to the finals. We get to the dance, I don't care who we're up against. Now, we're here, and now we want to win four more games. That's not asking too much. I don't believe I'm asking too much to ask this hockey club to come up with four more wins."

Colorado Right Winger Fraser Filipic in the Loveland Reporter Herald
“It’s not every day you get a chance like this. A guy like Pankewicz (Eagles Captain Greg), it took him 14 years to win a championship. To see that, you know it ain’t going to happen every day.”

Laredo Coach Terry Ruskowski, in the Laredo Morning Times
“We are going to have to give 100 percent in every shift. They are a very talented team that has three lines that can score, play tough and have speed. We have to find a way to nullify that power. We know we have to win four games and my philosophy is you should play as well on the road as you do at home. We’ll just do the best we can and hopefully we’ll have 8,000 fans when we come back to Laredo.”

Finals Notes
-The club winning the Finals opener has won 18 of the previous 19 championships

- In the 19 previous Finals, there have been four 4-0 sweeps, eight series ending 4-1, three ending 4-2 and four going to full seven games to determine a champion.

- There have been a total of 20 Finals games go to overtime. Only one of those (Memphis 4-3 over Austin on April 25th, 2003 to capture the 2003 title) went to double overtime. There’s never been a triple overtime Finals game.

- That game is the longest CHL/WPHL Finals game was played, totaling 85:06 in length, ending in double overtime to give Memphis their second of back to back CHL championships. The winning goal in double overtime was scored by Kahlil Thomas (older brother of current Buck forward Leo Thomas), and the Memphis broadcaster at the time was Joe Dominey, also now with the Bucks.

- Home teams are 13-7 in Finals overtime games

- The CHL has had at least one overtime game played in the last eight consecutive Finals series.


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