KELOWNA, B.C. — Two.

That’s the number of games the Kitchener Rangers lost in their run to an OHL title and now Memorial Cup championship.

The Saginaw Spirit in the first round? Swept. The Soo Greyhounds’ run the second round? Five games. The Windsor Spitfires in the Western Conference final? Five games. The Barrie Colts in the OHL championship? Swept.

And now, after a 6-2 win on Sunday over the WHL champion Everett Silvertips, a perfect 4-0 Memorial Cup. That’s 20-2 across 65 days, capped off by a 10-game win streak. Over that span, they outscored their opposition 97-53.

“It’s a team effort,” Rangers captain Cameron Reid said. “It was a family in there, and to be the captain of a team like that, you couldn’t be so lucky. It’s everything.

“I think it was around a minute left, I couldn’t hold it together. It hit me really hard.”

On Sunday night at Prospera Place in front of a well-traveled Kitchener-friendly crowd, Senators prospect Luke Ellinas opened the scoring on a redirect off a heady play to the net by 2026 draft-eligible defenseman Alexander Bilecki, but the Silvertips answered back just 28 seconds later after top 2027 prospect Landon DuPont broke up a play and jumped into the rush, putting a puck intentionally off the left pad of Rangers goalie Christian Kirsch and onto the stick of 2026 prospect Mattias Vanhanen.

Though the shots favored Everett pretty heavily early on, Kirsch stood tall from there on out and Kitchener eventually regained the lead on a Silvertips breakdown, with Lightning prospect Sam O’Reilly springing 20-year-old Quinnipiac commit Dylan Edwards for a break.

The Silvertips thought they’d tied it again early in the second period and the mad scramble in Kirsch’s crease was initially ruled a goal, but after a video review, it was called back for goaltender interference and killed Everett’s momentum.

Late in the second period, after the Rangers had swung the shots battle, 20-year-old Kings prospect Jared Woolley made it 3-1. Early in the third, they put it out of reach with a pair of power-play goals from Jack Pridham and O’Reilly, who was named Memorial Cup MVP after the game. Red Wings first-rounder Carter Bear scored a second goal for the Silvertips moments later, but the hill was insurmountable at that point.

“Unbelievable,” Rangers coach Jussi Ahokas said of the win. “It’s three years of hard work that comes to an end. We got the job done. It’s a relief. We did it together.”

The win delivers Kitchener its third Memorial Cup, tying it for second-most among active OHL franchises with the London Knights and Spitfires (who all trail the Oshawa Generals’ five). It’s the Rangers’ first CHL title in 23 years.

Kitchener staff deserve NHL looks

The hockey world has been paying attention to what the Rangers built this year. At the helm is a 45-year-old Finnish head coach and a 40-year-old executive.

Ahokas is now the first European head coach to lead a team to a Memorial Cup. He adds that title to his OHL championship, OHL Coach of the Year Award, Liiga Coach of the Year Award and six medals as a coach with Finland’s U18, U20 and men’s teams at worlds and an Olympics. This is just his third season behind Kitchener’s bench. When he came over from Finland, the talking point was that his English needed work, but it has come a long way and his name will start to pop up more and more in pro vacancies in the AHL and potentially even the NHL moving forward. That’s his aspiration.

Mike McKenzie started as an assistant coach with the Rangers all the way back in 2012 after his three seasons in the AHL and ECHL, and has served as the team’s general manager since 2019. He has put the time in, and he’s a really sharp guy who built a really well-rounded team this year.

“(Working with Ahokas has) been great for me because I can be in the background,” McKenzie said. “It’s nice and easy. He’s been awesome for us right from Day 1 since he got here.

“This team’s special. It’s an unbelievable feeling to be here with them.”

I remember seeing O’Reilly get the call at the airport on his way back from the World Juniors in January, telling him he’d been traded from London to Kitchener and walking across the hall at his gate to tell Reid they were going to be teammates. In hindsight, McKenzie targeting O’Reilly and Woolley as his guys at the trade deadline was the difference for the Rangers.

I think both he and Michael Zsolt, his data-driven assistant general manager, will work in the NHL someday. And that could come sooner rather than later for McKenzie.

They were well-coached and the deepest team in junior hockey this year, and are deserved champions.

Humphreys returns

The biggest headlines of this year’s tournament were, unfortunately, not about the games but rather the tournament-ending suspension handed out to top Chicoutimi defenseman and Northeastern commit Jordan Tourigny after he stomped on the skate of Avs prospect and Kitchener Rangers forward Christian Humphreys. Humphreys left the game and didn’t return, and while the Sags’ statement after the fact suggested that they were relieved he was going to be able to return, that wasn’t actually guaranteed at the time. Humphreys said he was playing with an ankle sprain, taped up for the game and that the skate blade did, in fact, cut through his boot.

“It’s something that we’ll need the summertime to allow to recover,” he said. “Just to be able to play in this game tonight was super special and something that I’d never miss. I got really lucky. It cut through the sock, but it didn’t cut the tendon.”

He lined up on Sunday at left wing on Kitchener’s second line with Luca Romano and Pridham, sealing it into the empty net from center ice while short-handed.

“It’s everything,” Humphreys said, choking up. “It’s hard not to be emotional.”

A season to be proud of for Silvertips

Even in defeat, the Silvertips were in uncharted territory as a franchise on Sunday, playing in the final in their first Memorial Cup appearance. It was a winnable game and a tournament they should be really proud of, too. They were also down their captain and one of the better D in the CHL this season in Tarin Smith (injured in Game 4 of their first-round series), and outnumbered 12-5 in drafted NHL prospects without him.

Bear had half a dozen quality looks and was all around the puck on his shifts. If he finished one of the many looks he had when it was a one-goal game or tied, it’s a different game. They needed more from Kraken prospect and first-line center Julius Miettinen this week, but the Rangers also matched him against O’Reilly, the best checking center in junior hockey this year.

Head coach Steve Hamilton and his staff did a great job this year and the players should hold their heads high. They were pretty clearly the best team in the WHL all year.