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Oceanic join Remparts at the 2015 Memorial Cup with their sweep of the Foreurs: the coast-to-coast

Mike Sanderson
·Mike Sanderson
Louis-Philip Guindon's Rimouski Oceanic knocked out the Val-d'Or Foreurs Wednesday to make a date with the Quebec Remparts. (CP/Ghyslain Bergeron)
Louis-Philip Guindon's Rimouski Oceanic knocked out the Val-d'Or Foreurs Wednesday to make a date with the Quebec Remparts. (CP/Ghyslain Bergeron)

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

WHL

The Kelowna Rockets bounced back from their most lopsided loss of the season and beat the Portland Winterhawks 3-2 on Wednesday night to make their series a best-of-three. Game 5 goes Friday. (PortlandTribune.com)

The Brandon Wheat Kings are one win away from the WHL final after an 8-3 drubbing of the Calgary Hitmen. (CalgaryHerald.com)

Speaking of the Winterhawks, their owner, Bill Gallacher, was busy on Wednesday, acquiring the Kloten Flyers of Switzerland’s NLA. (TheLocal.ch)

Swift Current Bronco Jake DeBrusk and his father, former Oiler and current Sportsnet analyst Louie, are two completely different hockey players. (NHL.com)

The Seattle Thunderbirds have some great rookie depth they hope will translate into more wins next season. (Seattle.CBSLocal.com)

Winterhawks forward Nic Petan is nearing the start of his pro career, but his Portland team is still alive, and he’s okay with that. He reflects on his Winterhawk memories. (WinnipegFreePress.com)

OHL

The CHL’s number one team, the Oshawa Generals, came from behind twice to edge the North Bay Battalion 3-2 and even their Eastern Conference Final series at two games apiece. Game 5 goes Friday. (DurhamRegion.com)

The Kitchener Memorial Auditorium will not see a corporate name attached to it – for now, anyway. Interesting retrospective on the recent trend of branded arena names and how much they help an OHL team’s bottom line. (TheRecord.com)

The Sarnia Sting want to put more butts in the seats of the RBC Centre next season, so new owners Derian Hatcher and David Legwand have decided to eat the city of Sarnia’s surcharge increase on tickets. Sting tickets will stay the same price, even if the city takes 50 cents more. (TheObserver.ca)

One team has a major impact on the OHL’s conference finals, and they were the worst team in the league this season, but three former Sudbury Wolves are having an impact: Nick Baptiste and Cory Genovese with Erie, and Ray Huether with North Bay. (theSudburyStar.com)

The circuit’s newest team, the Flint Firebirds, opened a rookie camp this week, to get a look at their crop of youngsters. (MLive.com)

QMJHL

The Rimouski Oceanic equalled what the Quebec Remparts did Tuesday, and completed their sweep against the Val-d’Or Foreurs Wednesday, setting up a final where both teams advance to the Memorial Cup, and where no one at all is surprised at the outcome. (NHL.com)

The Remparts have won nine games in a row, and RDS’s Stephane Leroux argues a big part of that has been the sharp play of netminder Zach Fucale. (RDS.ca)

Speaking of the Remparts, they will honour Patrick Roy in a ceremony during the Memorial Cup tournament, and his name and possibly his number 33 will be raised to the rafters of the Colisée Pepsi. Roy never played for the club; he spent his QMJHL years with the Granby Bisons, who are now the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, but he owned the team and coached them for eight seasons, from 2005 to 2013. (24hMontreal.Canoe.ca)

Pierre-Luc Dubois has a great future ahead of him as a 16-year-old earning lots of icetime for the Screaming Eagles, and he impressed as an underage player at the under-18s in Switzerland. (CapeBretonPost.com)

Another player who impressed at the tournament was Nicolas Roy, who can use his play in Switzerland to his benefit heading into the 2015 draft in June. (Radio-Canada.ca)

The Victoriaville Tigres pick third in the upcoming 2015 QMJHL draft, and two players from coach Bruce Richardson’s former midget team, the Châteauguay Grenadiers, might be available: Maxime Comtois and Antoine Morand. (LaNouvelle.net)

Overage netminder Brandon Whitney had a heck of a year. Started with Victoriaville, ended up in Gatineau, then in Miramichi with the Junior A Timberwolves of the MHL, signed with the Wheeling Nailers and finished the year with the Hamilton Bulldogs of the AHL. A former Blackhawks pick, he was also on the radar of the Wild before signing in the Canadiens organization. Where he goes next season is a mystery. (KingsCountyNews.ca)