Doyle: Home team on the board at Memorial Cup

After dropping the opening game of the 2012 MasterCard Memorial Cup, the host Shawinigan Cataractes have assured themselves of advancing beyond the tournament round-robin.

The Cataractes were lead by Canadian World Junior defenceman Brandon Gormley, who scored two goals, en route to a 6-2 victory over the OHL Champion London Knights. Michael Bournival, Loik Poudrier, Pierre-Olivier Morin and Michael Chaput added singles for Shawinigan.

"Puck management - that's what we talked about before the game. That's what we saw we needed to do yesterday watching them play. That's exactly what we did the best today," said Shawinigan coach Eric Veilleux.

Most of the Shawinigan goals were the result of deflections, many off London defenders. "You can't blame the whole game on that by any means," said Knights defenceman Scott Harrington. "It's unfortunate that it happened in a tournament like this. Luckily we'll live another day and forget about it and correct our mistakes tomorrow."

While the Knights frustrated Saint John on Saturday night, it appeared London was the frustrated group on this evening. They took some late-game penalties - but all came when their fate appeared decided. "I thought they had a good forecheck and we played too much in our own zone," said GM/Coach Mark Hunter.

"We needed more energy in parts of the game...we had some bad breaks today. There were some goals we tipped in and monkeyed around. Turn the page and move on to the next game"

Josh Anderson and Andreas Athanasiou replied for London, who see their Memorial Cup recorded evened at 1-1. They'll wrap up the preliminary round Tuesday against the WHL champion Edmonton Oil Kings (1-0), who take on Saint John Monday. A Sea Dogs win would assure a tiebreaker game would be needed Thursday to determine who will play in Friday's semi-final.

-Attendance at Centre Bionest was announced as a sold out 4,674.
-Mike Craig, the son of NHL ice guru Dan Craig, is reportedly headed to Shawinigan to assist local officials with ice conditions. Teams have complained of the ice being choppy throughout the tournament. Temperatures in Shawinigan reached as high as 29C Sunday afternoon. Condensation could be seen on the arena glass and small amounts of fog at ice level.

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