Mac Carruth struggled for Portland, allowing seven goals on 35 shots (Steve Hiscock photo)SASKATOON, Sask. — Hey, exactly the way Ron Robison wanted the Portland Winterhawks to receive the message back in November.

Throwing off the Portland Winterhawks probably takes more than giving up seven goals for the first time all season after arriving at the MasterCard Memorial Cup as the tournament favourite. After the 7-4 setback vs. the Halifax Mooseheads, there was the inevitable casually dropped reminder that the sanctions the Western Hockey League handed down against Portland have only become a motivator to the current players, although it might hamper the club competitively eventually.

"Mike Johnston out for the year, there's a lot that's gone wrong," right wing Ty Rattie said. "A veteran team that's been to the WHL final three years in a row, there's a lot of experience with not getting too high and not getting too low. It's not the be-all, end-all. You let off the pedal against Halifax Mooseheads, you're going to pay. They showed tonight they're the No. 1 team in the CHL."

One can only imagine how much the Winterhawks have built up the Memorial Cup experience in their collective mind's eye after coming sadistically close to realizing it with championship-series losses in 2011 and '12. Then they ended up playing a second period that reminded us why it's good hockey games are not covered the way old media covers election night. The Winterhawks were projected to win after going up 3-1 barely two minutes into that frame, but Halifax ripped off five unanswered goals.

MacKinnon congratulates Martin Frk (centre) for scoring the first Mooseheads goal (Liam Richards, The Canadian Press)

SASKATOON, Sask. — What Nathan MacKinnon and the Halifax Mooseheads did Saturday seemed pretty big, although it might not look so big to them tomorrow.

MacKinnon had the hat trick plus an apple and the Mooseheads became the first team all season to roll a seven vs. Seth Jones and the Portland Winterhawks, prevailing 7-4 in both league champions' MasterCard Memorial Cup opener. MacKinnon kept the debate over who is the most likely future NHL superstar in clover with a first-star effort. However, it's only the second night of a 10-day tournament, plus Portland accumulated an 11-4 edge in even-strength scoring chances and 18-12 overall. The sharpness of Halifax's power play and shakiness of Winterhawks overage goalie Mac Carruth forestall labelling it a statement win. One can still go so far to say the Mooseheads indicated they didn't grow large by devouring Baie-Comeau bonbons and Rouyn-Noranda raisinettes, as some from the west have intimated about the QMJHL's representative.

"We definitely earned a little more respect I think," MacKinnon said. "Obviously coming from the Q, sometimes we get looked down upon a bit. I think we definitely had a good game and sent a message."

"We got a lot more comfortable," the 17-year-old said of the sea change from the first period to the second. "This is a big stage and there were some butterflies to chase away after the first period. If we face them again we're going to have to be a lot sharper."

It was hardly a perfect Mooseheads performance. Halifax coach Dominque Ducharme said his players were well-aware they had more puck luck.

"I don't have much worries about that, we've been doing that all year," he said. "Even after the game tonight, nobody was overexcited, everybody was happy with the win. We've been working and having that philosophy that it is one day at time since Day 1 in August. We're confident our guys can be better tomorrow."

And oh yes, Nate 1, Seth 0.

"He's a great offensive player, very dynamic," said Jones, who scored the first Winterhawks goal. "He's got great foot speed. You saw on his second goal coming down against me — a quick inside outside move — it's tough to contain."

"I think we gave them opportunities that we shouldn't have and they capitalized."

Halifax (1-0) faces host Saskatoon (0-1) on Sunday (7 p.m. ET/5 p.m. MT, Sportsnet/TVA Sports, BTN livechat). Portland (0-1) faces London on Monday. On with the post-game questions:

Nathan MacKinnon scored a hat-trick in the second period (CP)

This was the most-anticipated game going into the MasterCard Memorial Cup. Never had the top three ranked prospects ever met each other on the same ice for a meaningful game. After Nathan MacKinnon set up Martin Frk to open the scoring, the projected No. 1 pick Seth Jones tied it up, cutting to the net on a brilliant rush and making the score 1-1.

The Winterhawks took a 3-1 lead, and for a top defensive team like Portland, they could have expected to hold it. But Jonathan Drouin made it 3-2 and then MacKinnon came alive, scoring three goals in the second period and getting the Mooseheads all the way to 6-3. The team's exchanged goals early in the third and it finished at 7-4 for the Mooseheads in an excellent display of offensive hockey.

No. 1 Star - Nathan MacKinnon, Halifax Mooseheads

Rival top prospects Jones and Drouin had already counted before Cole Harbour's Nathan MacKinnon exploded for three goals on his own in the second. He got fortunate on a couple of the goals—the first was a deflection off a Brendan Duke shot and the third was a bank shot off of Portland goaltender Carruth, but the second was a gorgeous skill and power move around Central Scouting's No. 1 prospect:

Storywise, there's the angle that MacKinnon took over the Jones-Drouin-MacKinnon showcase. He did so early on, setting up linemate Martin Frk for a goal that opened the scoring, all while being Halifax's most prominent player on the puck in the neutral and offensive zones. The Portland Winterhawks hadn't given up more than six all season, but the QMJHL champions had little trouble turning on the red light in their opener.

SASKATOON, Sask. — Many players have seemed overwhelmed by their first exposure to the Memorial Cup, so it would follow that stage fright could befall an anthem singer.

Alexis Normand, who performed, in a matter of speaking, the national anthems prior to Saturday's Portland Winterhawks-Halifax Mooseheads game, will probably be appearing on blooper reels for the next 10 years.

The Saskatoon singer, who performs folk and jazz music, started falteringly in front of the large crowd and a Portland team which is not only based in the United States, but also has 10 Americans in its lineup. The rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner seemed to unravel once Normand got to the third line. Then the "whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight" was bowdlerized into "those broad stripes and bright stars... at the dawn's early light." The Credit Union Centre crowd seemed amused initially. Eventually, thousands of Canadians came to the rescue and completed the lyrics.

Normand promptly tweeted an apology.

I'm embarrassed and deeply sorry. I wish I'd had more time to learn the American anthem. Thanks so much for the crowd's help! #memorialcup

— Alexis Normand (@Alex6Normand) May 19, 2013

SASKATOON, Sask. — It might be the most anticipated MasterCard Memorial Cup matchup in many a spring: Seth Jones and the Portland Winterhawks vs. the Halifax Mooseheads' Jonathan Drouin and Nathan MacKinnon, marking the first time the top three prospects for the next NHL draft have all played in the same game.

[Sunaya Sapurji: Seth Jones and Nathan MacKinnon
were friends before becoming foes]

Please join the Buzzing The Net crew of Cam Charron, Terry Doyle, Kelly Friesen, Steve McAllister Sunaya Sapurji, Neate Sager, Scott Sepich and a cast of many at 7 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Saskatchewan time when the action gets underway.

Please remember that all Chatravaganzas are BYOP — bring your own peanuts.

Portland preview | Halifax preview

Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Olli Maatta (OHL Images)

SASKATOON, Sask. — Being at the Memorial Cup means downtime isn't just a catchphrase, it's a philosophy.

There is a tendency for the tournament to slow down once the first-day rush passes; hey, the Canadian Hockey League might want to study playing a doubleheader on one of the weekend dates, just throwin' that out there. For the London Knights, though, have two days to spend in a quiet city that is not too small and not too big kind of agrees with their tired bodies. London had only a day and a half to go from winning the OHL title on Monday to flying to the Memorial Cup, although each player apparently got a row to himself on the plane.

"It's a good rest for us," checker Tyler Ferry said Saturday. "We went to seven games against Barrie. If you look at Edmonton last year, they went through the same thing [seven-game leading final] and we have the same schedule as them. Even if you look back to our Plymouth series, they're a big strong team and they like to hit. Lots of guys were banged up from that series and then the Barrie series on top of that kind of took its toll. These two days, it's important."

Ferry grinned — and defenceman Olli Määttä, a few feet away conducting interviews, looked over impishly — when asked what the Knights have planned to entertain themselves. Coach-GM Mark Hunter took the Knights sightseeing in Quebec City during the 2012 Cup in Shawinigan. In 2011 at Mississauga, Saint John Sea Dogs coaches Gerald Gallant and Mike Kelly took their charges to a Toronto Blue Jays game. Hockey players are people of action, so they need stimuli, but the Knights are also bone-weary.

Stephen Macaulay was part of two championship teams in Saint John (Mike Carroccetto for Yahoo! Canada Sports)

SASKATOON, Sask. — One trait in sports commentary is to always quote a cherry-picked statistics that have an air of inviolability.

Commentators on National Football League broadcasts, for many years, loved to quote that no dome team had ever won a Super Bowl. That worked, until it actually happened. Or that the warm-weather Tampa Bay Buccaneers had never won a game when the temperature at opening kickoff was below X degrees, or something like that. That sort of thing sounds good, but there's probably another reason for why it was the case. That seems germane at the MasterCard Memorial Cup. Since the four-team format was created in 1983, no Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team has won at the 10 tournaments held in the west, with only three advancing to the final.

When one considers that the tournament is a big-budget operation and that the QMJHL champion Halifax Mooseheads are awfully good, maybe it's time to consider that factoid's days might be numbered. Teams are bit more up to speed on the sport science.

"Coming out here Wednesday gave us time to get acclimated with the time change," Mooseheads forward Stephen MacAulay, who has previously played in Memorial Cups held in Ontario and Quebec, said on Saturday ahead of the Halifax-Portland Winterhawks contest (7 p.m. ET, Sportsnet/TVA Sports, BTN livechat). "Three hours [the time zone difference between Halifax and Saskatoon] is significant enough. They’ve done a good job getting us to bed at the right times and getting us up at the right times. The jet lag is out now."

Combing all corners of the country and the blogosphere for your junior hockey headlines ...

WHL

Anticipation is through the roof for the Halifax-Portland matchup. What more can one say to gild the lily? (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

A crowd of 10,000 at the MasterCard Memorial Cup, unless it's in a building that has more seating capacity than the home rink of the NHL's Winnipeg Jets. (rodpedersen.com)

Ty Rattie, the only player with 50 career Western League playoff goals, is finally playing in the big year-end touranment. Yeah, that could be enjoyable to watch. (Regina Leader-Post)

Why the Memorial Cup is, in fact, better than college basketball's Final Four. (The Columbian)

The Blades' one-goal loss to London is not a huge faith-shaker for the hometown fans, writes Kevin Mitchell. (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

Saskatoon's Josh Nicholls got a vibe that the London Knights "escaped with one." (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)

OHL

Ryan Pyette describes the arc of London wing Brett Welychka's past 12 months, from being a healthy scratch in the OHL final in 2012 to scoring the Knights' first goal in the Memorial Cup. (London Free Press)

The London Knights played just well enough to win Friday, that is all. (London Free Press)