PJHL Media
The Stonehouse Cup PJHL Finals start tonight and it just so happens the league’s previous two Cup winners are going to go at it in the best-of-seven. This will be the third-straight trip to the Finals for the Ridge Meadows Flames as they look to repeat while the Delta Ice Hawks were here in 2023, when they got the better of Ridge Meadows in a series that went the distance. For that matter, we’ve had a Finals Game 7 in each of the last two years. Will there be another in store here in 2025? Let’s check the tale of the tape.
How They Got Here: It’s the league’s top-two teams squaring off after Ridge Meadows finished first in the Harold Brittain Conference while Delta was tops on the Tom Shaw side of things. The Flames were 14 points better than Delta in the regular season but that won’t matter much now.
Delta dispatched the Richmond Sockeyes in five games in the Tom Shaw Conference finals while Ridge Meadows needed just four games to get past the Chilliwack Jets and into the Finals. No series in the 2025 playoffs has yet gone more than six games, but Delta found themselves in one of the matchups that did. They were pushed by the Port Coquitlam Trailblazers in the conference semis as Poco actually got up 2-1 in the series before the Ice Hawks reeled off three straight wins to clinch it.
Ridge Meadows has played just one game over the minimum here in the postseason on account of the Surrey Knights winning Game 3 in their conference semifinals. The Flames, who were looking up at the Jets in the standings for parts of the regular season, outscored their Fraser Valley rivals 24-8 over four games to put an end to their season.
Head to head, the Flames and Ice Hawks have had some wild games this season, starting with a Flames 10-3 win back on Sept. 17. Delta responded with an 8-6 win on Nov. 1 and Ridge took the season series with an 8-5 win the last time the teams played back on Dec. 10. That’s 40 goals combined over three games but it’s a good bet the results will feature tighter scores here in the Finals.
Who’s Hot: The top-six scorers in the postseason are all present and accounted for in the Finals with Grady Lenton, Mateo Sjoberg and Tye Hemenway leading the Ice Hawks attack while regular-season scoring leader Zack Lagrange, heads up the Flames offence along with running mates Nolan Bowsher and Theo Kochan .
Tale of the ‘Tenders: It’ll be Matthew Candusso for the Flames and Merik Erickson for the Ice Hawks. Between them, the netminders have 14 wins with just one loss in the playoffs while Candusso has also fashioned three shutouts in playing all but two games in the Ridge Meadows crease. Erickson and backup Thomas Popa split time in the last round against Richmond, with the latter posting a win and a loss against his former team.
OT Heroes?: The Flames and Ice Hawks have gone past 60 minutes once each in this postseason, each coming out on top. Pierce Whyte scored the winner for the Flames in a double-OT win over Chilliwack Mar. 7 while Sjoberg authored the decisive tally for Delta, also in double overtime, Mar. 11 against Richmond.
What Comes Next: The team that hoists the Stonehouse Cup as 2025 PJHL champs will move on to play in the Mowat Cup against the winner of the KIJHL. Currently, eight teams are still alive in the interior loop with the Kimberley Dynamiters looking most likely to advance right now as they hold a 3-1 series lead on the Columbia Valley Rockies.
