| Subject: Paul McFarland truly an inspiration |
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Date Posted: 20:01:45 04/03/06 Mon
Captain inspires Spits
Bob Duff, Windsor Star
Published: Monday, April 03, 2006
Tents were in the process of being folded.
Eulogies were about to be penned.
Letters were stamped, soon to be mailed in.
For all intents and purposes, the Plymouth Whalers looked to have the Windsor Spitfires dead and buried.
Then, somebody lit a fire under the team.
That somebody was Windsor captain Paul McFarland.
He supplied the inspiration. They supplied the perspiration.
Facing elimination in Game 6 of their Ontario Hockey League opening-round playoff series with the Whalers, the Spitfires rallied from a 4-1 first-period deficit for a 7-4 triumph Sunday at Windsor Arena.
Both teams will head to the Compuware Sports Arena Tuesday for the seventh and deciding game and logic would suggest the Spitfires will take the ice with a decided advantage.
Not that logic has played one iota of a role in Windsor's wild and wacky 2005-06 campaign.
Leave it to the Spitfires to fall back and spring forward all in the same day.
His left shoulder bandaged, his right knee encased in a brace, Windsor's captain downplayed his role in the turnaround.
"It's a great testament to the character in this room," McFarland said.
"As a group, we wanted to rebound. We're not going to quit."
McFarland, an overager who won a Memorial Cup with the Kitchener Rangers, was humble regarding the substance of his motivational message.
"It was nothing special," he said.
His teammates begged to differ.
"He was really passionate about it," defenceman Mitch Maunu said. "The guys who weren't on board, jumped on board with Paul. He's a great leader. Paul really inspired me to go out there and play the next two periods and we got the job done."
Just by stepping on the ice, Maunu was providing his own inspirational leadership.
A knee injury suffered in Game 4 was supposed to sideline him for the remainder of the series.
He hasn't missed a single shift.
"I've just got to put it out of my mind," Maunu said. "It's just a little bit of pain and you've got to play through it.
"It's just something you've got to do in the playoffs."
When Plymouth, trailing 6-4, was afforded a five-on-three advantage situation with 5:03 left in regulation time, McFarland and Maunu killed off the entire stretch.
Maunu thrust himself in the path of a James Neal shot and you could clearly hear him grunt in pain in every corner of the old barn.
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