Mike Farwell

You know the little dial in your car, the one that controls how hot the heat blows in winter and how cool the AC blows in summer? I’m not much for winter at all. I truly detest being cold. So I consider it a good thing when I can finally turn that dial away from the heat and back to the cool side. That means it must be getting warmer outside.

I’ve turned it to cool, and back to heat, twice already this spring. Just tonight, I turned it back to heat for a third time. Since when is it so cold as we head into the Victoria Day weekend?

Forgive me for being a day late with this post, but the past 36 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind. After watching the Kitchener Rangers capture the J. Ross Robertson Cup as 2008 OHL Champions, I hosted a radio post-game show and then continued the talk Tuesday morning with Jeff Allan. There is definitely a buzz about town and people are genuinely excited. And rightly so.

But a word about this team is in order because the 2007-08 Kitchener Rangers are devoid of those big OHL names you hear so much about. You know the guys — Steven Stamkos, Stefan Legein, Drew Doughty, et al. In Kitchener, all we have is the hardest working group of young hockey players you’ll ever want to meet. Or watch. From the top to the bottom of this line-up, they may not “out-dazzle” you but they will certainly outwork you. For proof, look no further than the 53 regular season wins posted by the Rangers this year, a team record. And even if you missed all that, all you needed to see was Monday’s championship game. When the chips were down, the Rangers responded with a dominating performance.

People in my line of work are supposed to have a way with words. But after watching this team since last September, I find myself with only one way to describe what I have witnessed.

 Wow.