MANITOBA MAJOR JUNIOR HOCKEY LEAGUE
Raider Nation Shocks
the Manitoba
Hockey
World!
By John Ploszay
Photos by Jeff Miller
and James Carey Lauder
RAIDERS WIN
The defending champion Stonewall Jets were
one of the Top 2 teams in the Manitoba Major
Junior Hockey League all season long.
But in the league final, the Raiders Junior
Hockey Club, a team that finished sixth
during the regular season, played as well as
owner Ned Sanders had always expected they
could. Urged on by a sensational crowd at
Seven Oaks Sportsplex, the Raiders took out
Stonewall in six games to win the
Jack McKenzie Trophy in one of the most
memorable upsets in MMJHL history.
18 GAME ON
2017 CHAMPIONS EDITION
STONEWALL AND WINNIPEG, MB -- It could be re-
ferred to as Mathews 23:25, but that might be blasphemous to
some.
Of course, it certainly wouldn’t be blasphemous to Raider Nation.
Nicholas Mathews (23) and Carson Rybuck (25), the featured
players in Game On Magazine’s 2017 Playoff Edition, are now cel-
ebrating a win they predicted more than a month ago. The thing is,
it was not, by any means, an easy prediction to fulfill.
Back on April 21, Mathews, Rybuck and the rest of the Raiders Ju-
nior Hockey Club, settled into Game 6 of the Manitoba Major Junior
Hockey League championship series and with a huge crowd of en-
thusiastic supporters cheering them on at Seven Oaks Sportsplex,
the Raiders beat the favored Stonewall Jets 5-1 to claim the Jack
McKenzie Trophy in six games.
“They talked the talk and walked the walk” a jubilant Raiders Pres-
ident, Ned Sanders said.
“I’d call our team’s playoff run epic,” Sanders added. “The play-
ers, our fans, the coaches, they put it all together, and man was it
exciting.”
Sanders gave much of the credit for the team’s success to goal-
tender Ryan Brown, the playoff MVP. Just four years ago, Brown
was traded to St. Boniface, only to be re-acquired by the Raiders