Back on October 30th, the St Charles College Cardinals opened the 2023-2024 SDSSAA boys hockey regular season with a 5-1 win over the Lo-Ellen Park Knights.

And while a 4-3 win by SCC over that same opponent in mid-January clearly signalled a closer contest, the fact was that St Charles entered post-season play at 14-0-1, versus 10-5-0 for the Knights.

Perhaps the Cards should have been more concerned about the trend.

With the Knights eliminating the second place Horizon Aigles in three hard fought semi-final games (4-1, 0-4, 1-0), Lo-Ellen was riding a wave of momentum as they reached the best of five final opposite the three-time defending league champions.

Games one and two of the final both required overtime, but heading into game three Monday evening at the Carmichael Arena, it's the Knights that hold the 2-0 upper hand in the series.

Last Thursday in Copper Cliff, the teams were tied at 2-2 after two minutes of play - a score that remained intact until Jake Harry netted the game-winning goal early in period number four allowing Lo-Ellen to draw first blood.

Jaden Shawana and Jacob Hayes gave St Charles a very early lead only to see it disappear almost as quickly on counter-strikes from Jacob Barney and Matti Jouppi.

Game two on Friday played out differently as the Knights forced overtime by scoring with eight seconds left in regulation time as Cale Prpic found the back of the net.

This time, it was Hudson Crowder who would provide the heroics, sending the Lo-Ellen faithful into a frenzy and a solid lead in the head to head battle. Jeremy Thall opened the scoring for the Knights in the first, with Jaden Shawana giving the Cards the lead with a two goal effort in the second.

There is little doubt that this season has unveiled a year of growth for head coach Alex Vendramin's troops who now sit on the verge of capturing the league for the first time since 2019 - but with their last banner before that dating back all the way to 1981.

"At the start of the year, we kind of ran around," noted senior Jake Harry of Lo-Ellen. "I think we honestly changed our perspective on just how much competitiveness there is in high-school hockey."

"A lot of guys don't take it serious at the start - but then they realize that they have to take it serious and they start playing the game the way that they are supposed to be playing," added Harry, one of a large number of Knights who can draw upon hockey experience at the AA and AAA levels.

All of which is not to say that there are not innate benefits that high-school hockey offers that differs from most of their youth careers.

"It's nice to come out and have fun with the guys," said Harry. "You're representing your school so you have all of those peoiple behind you, which is nice."

As for closing out the Cards, the youngest of three boys in the family is definitely not taking anything for granted.

"We're excited about being up 2-0 - but we're not done yet," said Harry. "St Charles is obviously a great team and they still have a lot in them."