Thomas Milic and Jeremy Hanzel can still say they were part of history.
The Coquitlam hockey players were on the first Seattle Thunderbirds team to ever play for the national men's major junior championship this past weekend.
However, they ran into a fast-paced, offensively hungry Québec Remparts club coached by hall-of-famer Patrick Roy that was looking to end a 17-year championship drought itself.
Milic stopped 30 of 35 shots on Sunday (June 4), but his teammates couldn't light the lamp at the other end and fell 5-0 in the 2023 Memorial Cup final.
He finished the Kamloops tournament with a 2.41 goals-against average (GAA) and .915 save percentage (SV%), turning aside 129 of 141 shots.
Prior to the title contest, Milic was named to the CHL first all-star team, adding to his senior season résumé that includes Western Hockey League (WHL) and U.S. Division goaltender of the year.
The Dr. Charles Best Secondary graduate was also awarded WHL playoffs MVP in leading the T-Birds to 16 wins in 19 games en route to its second league title in franchise history.
Milic also won gold with Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships in Halifax, N.S., in January to kickstart the triple-crown campaign.
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On the blue line, Hanzel managed to record two assists in five games at the Memorial Cup, along with 12 shots on goal and a +3 rating.
During the regular season, he was second among Thunderbirds defenceman with 48 points in 66 games, including 13 goals and 35 assists, and added 22 more points in the WHL playoffs.
Seattle finished with a 3-2 record at the Memorial Cup in Kamloops — both setbacks were against the Remparts.
"Extremely proud of the group," Thunderbirds head coach Matt O'Dette said.
"Every guy battled extremely hard to get here, battled right to the end.
"Obviously wasn't our best game but I can't say enough about the character in that room and the leadership that we have in there. It stings that we didn't get this done, but I think there's a lot to be proud of when the dust settles."
So, what's next?
Both Milic and Hanzel are now patiently waiting until the end of this month to see if they'll get picked up by a professional club at the 2023 NHL Draft in Nashville, Tenn.
The 20-year-old players were ranked on NHL Central Scouting's final season report, meaning there's a chance they could be selected on June 28 or 29.
- with a file from The Canadian Press
