Feature Story

Lancers wrap up journey with Clark Cup

 

By Jon Garver

 

The journey started back in early September with a long; check that, a very long trip to eastern Canada to play a pair of exhibition games against Major Junior teams from the QMJHL. It included a late September victory in the 2007 USHL Fall Classic, followed by an East Division championship and eventually, the USHL regular season crown. Then in mid-May, the Omaha Lancers claimed the Clark Cup, the symbol of the playoff champions of the USHL and put a capper on one of the finest seasons in USHL history. 

Barry Almeida’s goal at 6:08 of overtime lifted the Lancers to a 4-3 victory in the fifth and deciding game of the Clark Cup Finals before a raucous crowd of 4,083 at the Mid-America Center. The win brought to a close one of the greatest series in recent Clark Cup history, and gave the Lancers their second national championship. They won their first in 2001.

“This is such a special group of players. They’ve been on a nine-month journey and they understand that it is about the journey and not just the result in the end,” said then-Lancers head coach Mike Hastings. “On that trip to Quebec, our team really came together. I think the trip home was 28 hours and they really got to know each other and I think it was at that time that I knew this team had a chance to be special

“All season long, even in the playoffs, this team had peaks and valleys but they showed an ability to fight adversity and find a way to win. It isn’t like we swept our way through the playoffs. We had to battle hard for three rounds to get here. What they accomplished this season is something that is very tough to do.”

Omaha played 14 of a possible 15 games in the postseason. They were forced to rally from a two-goal deficit in game four of their first round series against Sioux City, doing so and ending the series in four. They were on the brink of elimination in the second round against Lincoln, but once again erased a two-goal gap in the fifth game and went on to victory.

In the finals, they found themselves down two games to one with game four being played on Waterloo’s home ice. All they did there was watch Drew Palmisano shut out the Black Hawks and bring the series back to Omaha for game five. Palmisano would later be named the Planet Hockey Clark Cup MVP.

“This was an important postseason for me and the team. We needed to get out of the first round and we did that. We were taking it game by game, series by series. We had a good start and got on a good roll,” Palmisano said. “I’m just so happy for all of the guys for what we were able to do together. It’s a special team”

And perhaps the playoff win, and the season as a whole, meant more to one person then to all the rest. That would be Chris Hepp, the Lancers captain and a four-year veteran.

“This is four years in the making for me and there’s no better way to end your junior hockey career. Right now I’m on top of the world,” Hepp said.

 

 

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