London Knights win 2025 Memorial Cup championship

For the third time in their history the London Knights are Memorial Cup champions.

Team captain Denver Barkey scored twice and defenceman Sam Dickinson recorded three assists  and goaltender Austin Elliott stopped 31 shots as London downed the Medicine Hat Tigers 4-1 on June 1, 2025 at Le Colisee Financiere Sun Life.

With the victory the Knights joined the Cornwall Royals, the Kamloops Blazers and the Windsor Spitfires as the only teams to hoist the Memorial Cup three times since 1972 when the championship moved to a tournament format.

Neither team sat back to begin the game.

Through ten minutes and five seconds of the first period the clubs had combined for 19 shots.

Not long after that a puck crossed the goal line as Henry Brzustewicz took a pass from Sam Dickinson and fired a puck forward to the Medicine Hat blue line right on the tape of Jacob Julien who skated in alone and went to the backhand on Harrison Meneghin of the Tigers for his second goal of the tournament to give London a 1-0 lead.

Both Meneghin and Elliott of the Knights were called up to make big saves in the opening 20 minutes and did.

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Easton Cowan and Denver Barkey struck with goals 1:40 apart to extend London’s lead to 3-0 before the second period was five minutes old.

Meneghin lost his stick and Sam O’Reilly found Cowan going to the net and the Mt. Brydges, Ont., native scored to tie Mitch Marner as the all-time Knights leading scorer in the Memorial Cup tournament with his 15th point in his ninth game. Mitch Marner had 15 points in two Memorial Cup appearances in 2014 and 2016.

Cowan’s goal came at 3:13 and Dickinson picked up the second assist.

At 4:53 Barkey and Dickinson and combined to knock a puck away at the London blue line and Barkey raced down the ice on a breakaway and put the puck between the legs of Meneghin for his second goal in two games at the tournament to give London a 3-0 advantage.

The Knights thought they had gone ahead 4-0 when O’Reilly fed Cowan a second time in the slot but it was ruled that O’Reilly had made contact with Meneghin’s arm as he rounded behind the net befdore feeding a pass in front and the goal was disallowed.

London did get their fourth goal on a power play as Barkey blocked a Medicine Hat clearing attempt on the right side and wristed a puck through bodies in front and into the Tigers net.

Gavin McKenna scored Medicine Hat’s goal at 2:43 of the third period and put another puck into the net late in the game only to have the goal disallowed when a review showed that the puck had hit a high stick before it got to McKenna.

The Tigers outshot the Knights 32-24.

Cowan was named tournament MVP after leading the tournament in scoring for the second consecutive year.

London was 1-for-2 on the power play.

Medicine Hat was 0-for-2.

Four former London Knights Memorial Cup champions in Stanley Cup final

There were 26 former London Knights on the opening night rosters of National Hockey League teams. Four of those players have made it to the Stanley Cup Final which begins on Wednesday, June 4 as the Edmonton Oilers face the Florida Panthers for the second year in a row. Matthew Tkachuk was a rather large key to London’s Memorial Cup championship team in 2016 and is after his second consecutive Stanley Cup title after the Panthers edged the Oilers in seven games in 2024. Edmonton returns Corey Perry and Evan Bouchard from last year and they have also added Max Jones. Jones and Bouchard were also on the 2016 championship team. Perry helped the Knights to win their first Memorial Cup crown in 2005.