QUEBEC CITY

For several years, Rocco Tullio and D.J. Smith shared a running gag.

Tullio, the Oshawa Generals owner and developer, operated a couple of Lifestyle Family Fitness Centres in Windsor. Every morning, he would walk through the gym with his newspaper and pass Smith, then a Windsor Spitfires assistant, huffing and puffing on a treadmill.

“D.J. would say to me (in his booming voice), ‘Hey, have you had enough of losing yet’,” Tullio recalled. “Then, hire me. Bring me in’. We joked about it for a long time.”

Three years ago, the laughing stopped.

Tullio really had grown tired of losing.

He pushed Smith’s name hard to then-Oshawa general manager Jeff Twohey, who hired the former NHL defenceman with a chip on his shoulder after his pro career was cut short by concussion problems.

Now, the Generals need one more win — in the Memorial Cup final against Kelowna Sunday night in the last hockey game ever played at Pepsi Colisee — to deliver the first Canadian junior title in 25 years to a city that could really use a celebration right now.

“For us to win would not only boost the economy of Oshawa,” Tullio said, “but it would put us back on the map as one of the elite franchises of all time. You look at this club and the names associated with it — Orr, Tilson, Lindros, Tavares. This is where we belong. The Generals are like junior hockey’s Green Bay Packers or Montreal Canadiens.”

A fifth Memorial Cup would push Oshawa past the Regina Pats for most in Canadian Hockey League history. They aim to bring the crown back to Ontario, which hasn’t produced a champion since Smith and the Spits did it back-to-back in 2009 and ‘10.

The final is a clash of styles, with Oshawa the undisputed best defensive team in junior hockey and the Rockets, led by early-season Edmonton Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl, an offensively dynamic powerhouse backed by golden world junior defencemen Madison Bowey and Josh Morrissey.

In their two wins this week, the Rockets exploded for 16 goals.

“They can do scary good things up front,” Generals forward Michael McCarron, the Canadiens first-rounder, said, “but we have tremendous defensive mentality. We’ve been better and better in this tournament and we’re going to have to be spot-on.

“Whoever makes the most mistakes and the most turnovers will lose.”

If Oshawa finishes off this unbeaten run and stifles Draisaitl again after snuffing out Connor McDavid in the OHL final, they belong in the pantheon of all-time great winners. They deserve to rub shoulders with the 2010 Windsor team and even the 2005 London Knights, the squad Generals overage captain Josh Brown grew up following.

“There’s no doubt,” Tullio said, “but we have to win the last game. That’s the one we’ve worked so hard to do and that’s how we’ll be judged. The boys are pretty humble, balanced and hungry. Oshawa is abuzz and it’s red everywhere there.

“We’ve been getting emails from all over the world and the excitement has grown all week.”

Kelowna, under GM Bruce Hamilton, doesn’t have the same ancient puck history as Oshawa, but the Rockets are a rock-solid junior organization.

This is their fifth Cup appearance in 12 years, and they’ve been there with four different coaches. They have one victory, at home, in 2004.

This season, Dan Lambert was hired to coach a team that had won 50 games the previous two campaigns, but fell short in the playoffs. In the summer, he called every member of his team to get the scoop on what they were going to do to finally get over the top.

“We talked about how disappointed we were not to go further,” Nick Merkley, the top scorer and NHL draft prospect, said. “This is a winning culture and the process of getting to the final was the biggest thing for us. We wanted to be ready to go for the Cup this year and this is what we worked for.

“I think that’s going to help a lot in this (last) game.”

The first Oshawa-Kelowna meeting, a 2-1 Generals squeaker, was one of the most entertaining of this tournament.

The OHL champs established their will early and forced the Rockets’ stars to the fringes of the scoring areas. Late in the game, Kelowna made a tremendous push and did everything but force overtime.

“Their top line is probably the best line in the tournament,” Smith said. “We had their team getting 30 chances against Quebec (Friday). You give them that, you’ll lose. They had 16, including power-play, against us and that’s high.

“We’ll probably have to hold them to 12.”

Oshawa has last-change luxury, but it’s impossible to tell who the fed-up Quebec fans will support. The jilted Remparts faithful littered the ice with debris in Kelowna’s last game.

“I don’t know if they don’t like the Rockets now,” Lambert said. “It’s going to be interesting. I hope they understand that I do speak French and this (rink) was a big part of my history. I hope they cheer for us.

“Maybe I should get my wife to send me my (old Nordiques) jersey.”

Smith wasn’t letting Lambert steal the crowd.

“I’m an ex-Avalanche, so it’s kind of like I’m a Nordique,” the Oshawa bench boss cracked. “I’m the last guy to play with Patty Roy, so I think that should carry some weight.”

On Sunday, when the Colisee lights go out, one of them will walk out with the greatest souvenir ever — the Memorial Cup.

GENERALS EYEING 100TH MEMORIAL CUP

The 100th Memorial Cup is three years away.

The Oshawa Generals expect to be there. And on home ice.

“We’re going to pursue it aggressively,” Generals owner Rocco Tullio said. “Our plan is to re-tool this within three years and be right back at it. We’ll put a great team together and I would love to host it (in 2018).

“The city deserves it.”

Problem is, the Canadian Hockey League still hasn’t decided how to handle its Memorial Cup centennial.

An original idea was to put it in a larger, NHL-sized facility. But there has been talk of format changes for future events past next year’s tournament in Red Deer, such as increasing the number of teams involved and even scrapping the host model.

But no matter how it shakes out, Oshawa wants to be involved.

“We have a beautiful arena (the 5,100-seat General Motors Centre),” Tullio said. “Our fans have demonstrated they support this organization through good times and bad. Hopefully, the league will recognize that we can put ourselves in the category to run a first-class event.”

ryan.pyette@sunmedia.ca

Twitter.com/RyanatLFPress