PISTONS RAISE THE TURNBULL CUP

Since Paul Dyck took over as head coach of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Steinbach Pistons midway through the 2011 season, the Pistons have won three league titles. No. 3, earned inside the old Centennial Arena back in April, was won in a building that has now been torn down. It’s a memory that Dyck, his players and the Steinbach fans will never forget. After all, first they raised the trophy, then they razed the old barn. STEINBACH – It became apparent that the victory party was about to start when Kirk Mullen scored at 16:52 of the third period in Game 5. That’s when the hometown Steinbach Pistons took a 3-0 lead over the visiting Virden Oil Capitals in what turned out to be the Turnbull Cup championship game. A 2-0 lead never seems to be enough, but when the Pistons made it 3-0, head coach Paul Dyck remembers the noise that he’d never heard before. “It was packed, it was a full-house, completely sold out,” Dyck said. “After we scored the third goal, the fans just really let loose and it was as loud as the building has ever been, so you can’t even script a better ending. “And there are no rafters in the Centennial Arena. There is no place for that noise to go and it comes straight back at you.” In the final game ever played at the old Centennial Arena in Steinbach, the Pistons beat the Oil Capitals 3-0 in Game 5 of the MJHL final to win the championship series 4-1 and claim the third title since Dyck became head coach 11 years ago. THE ROAD TO VICTORY This time, the Pistons had two real battles to just make the final and yet they seemed to get better with every series. They took out a very tough Winkler Flyers team in the opening round four-games- to-three, winning Game 7, 4-2 at home. The Pistons had built a 3-1 series lead and then lost 7-3 in Steinbach and 3-1 in Winkler as the Flyers forced a seventh game. In the semifinal, the Pistons got past Swan Valley four- games-to-two in a series in which five of the six games were settled by one goal. In the final, the Pistons were solid from Game 1. They shut out Virden, a terrific team that had knocked off powerful Portage in their semifinal, by scores of 4-0 and 3-0 to start the series. They lost 6-3 in Virden in Game 3, but bounced back to win Game 4, 6-3 in Virden. Then, they came home and shut out the Oil Capitals for a third time in the series. “Our goaltender, Dominik Wasik was tremendous throughout the playoffs,” said Dyck. “He just gave us an opportunity to win each night. If he had a night that didn’t go his way, we just knew with complete certainty that he was going to rebound and be our best player the next night. It’s such a luxury to have a goaltender that not only can you rely on, but is never a question mark. “It’s so important to get goaltending come playoff time. All the teams are so deserving and there is so much parity in our league that when you have great goaltending it sure helps a coach sleep much easier.” While Dyck was thrilled with the play of Wasik, there were other players who led the Pistons throughout the postseason. “Dawson Milliken is our captain and he was named our playoff MVP and he was a guy who just dragged us into the fight every night,” Dyck said. “He just willed us to victory some nights and he was really deserving of the MVP award. “Ty Paisley had a heck of a playoff with 29 points. He broke our team record for most points in the playoffs as an 18-year-old and that’s a pretty special run for any player. And Kirk Mullen had a tremendous playoff, too. He elevated his game from the regular season and those are things you need to win. You need to find guys that come playoff time, they find another gear and those guys put you over the hump.” GOOD-BYE CENTENNIAL ARENA The Pistons’ players were outstanding, having gone 42-15-0-1 to finish second in the East Division to Portage, the only thing that probably made winning even more satisfying for the coach was winning at home. “That made it really, really special for a couple of reasons,” he said. “Winning at home is always amazing when you can do it in front of your fans. Our preference would have been to wrap it up in Virden if that was possible. You don’t want to let a series go on any farther than it needs to go. “But it was also special because it turned out to be the very last game that will ever be played in Centennial Arena before it comes down. That made it even more emotional. A lot of sentimental feelings came out. This was the end of an era. There is obviously excitement for what’s ahead, but to do it in front of our fans was emotional and exciting.” The new building, which is being constructed just north of the current site of the old arena, will be ready for the 2024-25 season. Next season, the Pistons will play in La Broquerie. Renovations have already started there in order to have the building ready to play the 2023-24 MJHL season, 14 kilometres from Steinbach. In the meantime, the celebration is still fresh in Dyck’s mind. “I feel a little lighter these days,” he said with a laugh. “We’ve won three championships, but we feel we’ve also left a few on the table. In 2022, we lost in the final in Game 7 and that really hurt. We’ve lost three times in the finals and that’s never easy. “So, we’ve played the playoffs in nine out 11 years and won three times. They all feel a little different. They’re all amazing and they’re all special because it’s always a different group of players, but they all have a different complexion to them. This time, the players all just worked so hard and after we won, they just let it out and that raw emotion that comes out afterwards is just a complete release. It was such a pleasure to just sit back and watch that emotion come out. “The adage is, ‘Winning never gets old,’ and it’s very true.”