The Niverville Nighthawks won the Centennial Cup National Championship, defeating host Summerside in a tight-checking, hard-fought battle on Sunday, crowning the MJHL team the best in Canadian Junior A hockey.<\/p>\n
Tournament MVP<\/p>\n
Before the final game, it was announced that 20-year-old Niverville captain Adam Vigfusson was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. The dynamic forward made an impact on every single game of the tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First period<\/p>\n
In front of a sold-out crowd, the Nighthawks didn’t flinch, rising to the challenge of facing the host team on the biggest stage of them all.<\/p>\n
Hayden Wheddon gave the visitors a lead as the 20-year-old sniper walked in and wired a shot home to put Niverville up 1-0. Fittingly, Adam Vigfusson and Merik Boles picked up the assists.<\/p>\n
A rare mishap allowed Summerside to even up the game while shorthanded, making it 1-1.<\/p>\n
Austin Dubinsky would not allow Summerside to celebrate again.<\/p>\n
The CJHL’s Top Goaltender lived up to the billing, making some incredible saves throughout the rest of the first period, keeping his team in the fight, deadlocked at 1-1.<\/p>\n
Shots were 13-7 for Summerside after 20 minutes of play.<\/p>\n
Second period<\/p>\n
Both teams continued to stride for stride in the early stages of the middle frame, until it once again, Wheddon would break through, putting Niverville up 2-1.<\/p>\n
His second goal of the game was unassisted.<\/p>\n
Things stayed close and tight throughout the rest of the period, as Niverville brought their 2-1 lead into intermission.<\/p>\n
Dubinsky stopped all 10 shots he faced in the frame.<\/p>\n
Third period<\/p>\n
In typical Nighthawk fashion, the group showed no panic, never faltering as they stayed true to what they’ve done all year, playing mature, simple hockey, waiting to strike to give themselves some cushion.<\/p>\n
Marlen Edwards, the overtime hero of game one, put the Nighthawks up by two, scoring to make it a 3-1 game. Evan Panzer and Dawson Zeller picked up the assists.<\/p>\n
Niverville wore down Summerside the rest of the way, and their frustrations boiled over late, taking a penalty that put them down a man.<\/p>\n
Despite the penalty, they pulled the goalie, and Tyler Bernier sealed the National Championship for Niverville, putting them up 4-1.<\/p>\n
Celebration time<\/p>\n
The horn sounded, and the players roared off the bench to mob goaltender Austin Dubinsky, celebrating their first-ever National Championship in just their 4th year in existence.<\/p>\n
The Niverville Nighthawks of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League are National Champions for the 2025-26 season, and didn’t lose a single game at the Centennial Cup tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Niverville Nighthawks won the Centennial Cup National Championship, defeating host Summerside in a tight-checking, hard-fought battle on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-676965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}