Eagles Advance to Fourth President's Cup Finals!

LOVELAND, Colo. - The Bud Poile Governors' Cup champion Colorado Eagles defeated the Mississippi RiverKings in Game 6 of the Northern Conference Finals, 5-2, to advance to their fourth Ray Miron President's Cup championship series in six seasons of existence -- and their third in a row. The two-time Central Hockey League champs won the President's Cup in 2005 and 2007.

The two evenly matched teams played that way in the first period as both carried an equal amount of the play. Mississippi had a slight edge in shots (14-10) and power play chances (3-2), but the two squads were unable to get on the scoreboard and took a 0-0 tie into the first intermission.

The RiverKings struck first in the second period when former Eagle Garrett Larson sent a beautiful, long lead pass to Louis Dumont entering the Eagles' zone all alone along the left wing. Dumont waited for Bobby Chaumont to join him for a two-on-one break before feeding him for a goal from the right circle at 4:10.

Colorado tied the game at one with a power-play goal at 9:43 when Ed McGrane -- who had a 28-game point streak snapped in the previous contest -- sent a pass diagonally from the top of the right circle to Aaron Schneekloth camped out to the left of the crease. The league's Most Outstanding Defenseman made a quick move to his backhand and lifted the puck past Tyler Sims to even the score heading into the second intermission.

The Eagles blew the game open in the third period with four goals -- tying a team record for goals in a playoff period -- with Brett Hammond's second goal of the series opening the floodgates. At 5:53, after a faceoff in the right circle of the offensive zone, Hammond threw the puck on net from the goal line and it deflected past the Mississippi netminder.

Then, just 27 seconds later, Konrad Reeder had a beautiful set-up on Greg Pankewicz's game-winning goal. Reeder took the puck at center ice, faked a shot just inside the blue line to freeze the RiverKings' defenders, stickhandled down the slot and then slid a pass back to the Eagles' captain who buried the puck into an essentially empty net.

Jeff Nelson trimmed the Eagles' lead to 3-2 at 14:44 by backhanding a Derek Landmesser rebound past Andrew Penner from the low slot, but that was as close as the RiverKings would get. Colorado answered right back at 15:29 as Jay Birnie skated down the right wing, fought a defender off with one arm and slid a pass up the slot with his other to Adam Hogg for an insurance score. Kevin Ulanski added an empty-net, power-play goal to account for the final margin of victory.

The Northern Conference champion Eagles will now host the Southern Conference Champion Texas Brahmas in the Ray Miron President's Cup finals. Games 1 and 2 will be played at the Budweiser Events Center on Wednesday, April 28 and Friday, May 1, with the rest of the championship round schedule to be announced in the next 24-48 hours. Tickets will go on sale Monday morning at 10 a.m.


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