Learning more about the high school system on the Gatineau side has been interesting this year.
Thankfully, the media coverage across the river is quite good. Much gratitude to Daniel Leblanc (Info07) and Martin Comtois (Le Droit) for their quality. I recall that Comtois did a great job covering the Renegades a few years ago as well.
The championship game, the seventh in league history, featured Mont Bleu (0bviously) playing at the Cougars from Le Carrefour. Mont Bleu reached the final by knocking off the “Patriotes” of LJ Papineau 06-03 while Le Carrefour eliminated Hormisdas-Gamelin by a score of 19-06.
Each team is coached by a former member of the Gee-Gees 2000 Vanier Cup championship squad. Both were 6-2 in regular season play.
Mont Bleu is led Guillaume Cloutier. The championship game appearance would be their third in the last five years, having participated in 2005 and 2007. The previous two tries resulted in narrow losses.
Le Carrefour is led by Frantz Jacques, in his fourth year at the post.
Mont Bleu drew first blood when Mathis Laurin returned an interception (one of three by the Panthers on the day) to paydirt towards the end of the first quarter. The convert made the score 7-1. Jonathan Courtemanche accounted for the other Panthers touchdown on a short run. Patrick Bougie intercepted a Cougars pass on his own 13-yard line to prevent a scoring drive by the opponent.
The Panthers’ victory means that they will compete for the “Bol d’or” (Golden Bowl), a provincial championship pitting champions from different regions. No team from the Gatineau area has ever won that championship at this level in seven years of involvement in the competition.
The Panthers were to face the Sherbrooke Barons today in their bid to make a little history. The Barons program dates back nearly forty years and they are defending champions in their conference.
Whew! Okay, so I think I got all that. I’ll add another post about the outcome of the Panthers’ trip to Sherbrooke once I get those results.
Edit, Nov 17th: The Lansdowne Live had my attention over the pastcouple of days, but it turns out that Mont Bleu lost 32-17 in Sherbrooke.