KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- As the final horn blared inside Wings Stadium on Saturday night, the Alaska Aces threw their sticks, gloves and helmets overhead -- hockey's celebratory version of fireworks exploding -- and raced to embrace Gerald Coleman, their 6-foot-5 goaltender and pillar of prosperity.
Coleman stood in the blue paint of his goal crease, his long arms outstretched, a smile cutting across his gaunt, unshaven cheeks, and awaited their embrace in a scene that looked like a mob of screaming kids swarming an adult at recess.
At that moment, the Aces were all children again, coursing with adrenaline and joy and roaring in delight, having finally captured a rink reward they have spent eight grueling months chasing.
The Alaska Aces are the ECHL Kelly Cup champions, by dint of their 5-3 victory to close out the Kalamazoo Wings in Game 5 and their surpassing superiority since October.
"I won a ring! I won a ring!'' Coleman crowed as he drifted around the ice and an adoring contingent of Aces fans cheered and took photos of the team.
The Aces, who needed five games in the best-of-7 Finals to dispatch the persistent K-Wings and lost only one of their 13 playoff games, became the fourth team in the league's 23-season history to win both the Brabham Cup as regular-season champions and the Kelly Cup as playoff champs. The franchise became the first to accomplish that twice -- the Aces' 2006 Cup winners also claimed both crowns.
"The character oozed out,'' Aces coach Brent Thompson said of his club. "There was never a time when they doubted themselves, doubted this team or second-guessed me.''
Thompson, a second-year coach, came under fire from fans in his rookie campaign as a bench boss -- the Aces suffered a first-round playoff elimination for the first time in their eight-season ECHL history -- but forged a winner out of tireless offseason recruiting and several acquisitions that each seemed to turn golden. He was the league's Coach of the Year in the regular season, then guided the Aces to their minor-league circuit's ultimate achievement.
"I think he vindicated himself,'' said Terry Parks, one of three owners on hand for the clinching win. "Don't you?''
The Aces closed the season, which featured 85 combined regular-season and playoff games, with a remarkable run in what amounted to the last half of that campaign -- 35-5-1 (.866 winning percentage) in their last 41 games.
For Aces captain Scott Burt, who has endured four surgeries in the last two years and suffered the sorrow of Alaska's Game 7 loss to South Carolina in the 2009 Finals, seizing the Cup delivered him into the history books. He will become the first player to have his name engraved on the 26-inch high, 27-pound silver Cup three times -- he won Cups with the Idaho Steelheads in 2007 and 2004.
As Burt prepared to accept the Kelly Cup from its namesake, Patrick J. Kelly, one of the league's founders, he looked to Aces fans in the crowd and raised his right hand to flash three fingers.
After the Aces took pictures with friends, family and fans on the ice and decamped to their dressing room to exalt over beers -- they would later take the Cup back to a sports bar in the their hotel -- Burt took a moment to sit in a stall off to the side and reflect on his sense of redemption after 2009's crushing disappointment.
"After 2009, I almost felt like I was done, spent,'' Burt said, his eyes moist. "Thomer put a great team together. We always said we were going to win. It's pretty special. Nobody was going to deny us.''
Wes Goldie wandered up, grinned and laughed. Last summer, when the Victoria Salmon Kings stripped Goldie of his captaincy, he began to look around for a new team. He is the league's No. 2 all-time leading goal scorer and the only man in league history to reel off five straight seasons of 40 or more goals, but he lacked a Cup and considered it a glaring hole in his rink resume. Burt soon called Goldie and asked if he could give Goldie's phone number to Thompson. The rest is history.
"Burt called and said, 'We're gonna win a Cup,' '' Goldie recalled. "He always says that. He's no liar, I guess.''
Veteran center Brian Swanson of Eagle River came to the Aces after six seasons in Germany because he and his wife, childhood sweetheart Lynn, wanted to bring their three kids back to Alaska full-time, but also because, like his linemate Goldie, he had never hoisted hardware.
The former NHLer spent the Finals bruised and battered -- broken left toe, sprained left ankle, sore neck; his hobbled gait off the ice making him look older than his 35 years -- yet Saturday he furnished two assists.
"When you ask why I came home, it's to play for this organization and win,'' Swanson said, his voice wavering. "I've been second so many times -- midget, junior, college, pros even. It finally happened. I won.
"To win. That's what it's all about it. If you don't sacrifice, you'll never win anything.''
The Aces won Saturday by virtue of Coleman's 27 saves, rookie center Chris Langkow's two goals, one goal and one assist each from defensemen Steve Ward and Chad Anderson, and winger Curtis Fraser, and a resiliency that has been the team's trademark.
Kalamazoo took a 1-0 lead three minutes into the second period. Ward delivered the equalizer 32 seconds later. When K-Wings defenseman A.J. Thelen forged a 2-2 tie in the second period, Anderson answered. And when Kalamazoo's Trent Daavettila cut Alaska's lead to 4-3 with 3:59 to go, Fraser required 28 seconds to restore the comfort of a two-goal lead.
"Every time they scored, we responded,'' said Tyler Ruegsegger, who was acquired from Utah during the regular season.
The Aces led 3-2 after two periods, and that's when it dawned on alternate captain Bryan Miller, the defenseman who is the only holdover besides Burt from the 2009 club, that everything would work out. He recalled that the Aces were unbeaten all season when holding a lead after two periods -- 38-0-0 in the regular season and 10-0-0 in the playoffs before Saturday.
"It hit me -- 'We're undefeated all year when we lead going into the third,' '' he said. "It calmed my nerves.''
Thus did the Aces, the team from the 49th state, finish the season 49-0-0 when leading after two periods.
"It was a great year,'' Goldie said. "It was really a fairy-tale year. Everything we set our minds to, we accomplished.''
It was enough to make grown men roar with childlike delight.
Find Doyle Woody's blog at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.
Aces 0 3 2 -- 5
Kalamazoo 0 2 1 -- 3
First Period -- None. Penalties -- Strong, Kalamzoo (hooking), 13:21; Aces bench minor, served by Gentile (too many men), 16:54.
Second Period -- 1, Kalamazoo, McGuirk 4 (O'Neill, Svendsen), 2:58; 2, Aces, Ward 1 (Swanson), 3:30; 3, Aces, Langkow 7 (Ward, Kissel), 13:54 (pp); 4, Kalamazoo, Thelen 4 (Daavettila), 15:54; 5, Aces, Anderson 2 (Fraser, Swanson), 18:53. Penalties -- Landry, Kalamazoo (hooking), 3:56; Fournier, Kalamazoo (slashing), 12:36.
Third Period -- 6, Aces, Langkow 8, 14:29; 7, Kalamazoo, Daavettila 6 (Fournier, Ftorek), 16:01; 8, Aces, Fraser 6 (Anderson), 16:29. Penalties -- Goldie, Aces (slashing), 2:39.
Shots on goal -- Aces 11-13-10--34. Kalamazoo 10-8-12--30.
Power-play Opportunities -- Aces 1 of 3; Kalamazoo 0 of 2.
Goalies -- Aces, Coleman, 11-1-0 (30 shots-27 saves). Kalamazoo, Nie, 12-4-2 (34-29).
A -- 2,947 (5,113). T - 2:26.
Referee -- Graham Skilliter. Linesmen -- Matt Macpherson, Ray King.
Aces captain Scott Burt, 34
• The first player in the ECHL's 23-season history to have his name on the Kelly Cup three times and just the second person with his name on the Cup three times. Jared Bednar won two Cups as a player with the South Carolina Stingrays (1997, 2001) and was head coach of the 2009 Cup-winning Stingrays (they beat the Aces in seven games).
• He extends his ECHL career record for most playoff games to 104.
• This is his fourth trip to the Finals. He won Cups with Idaho in 2004 and 2007, and lost in 2009, when he captained the Aces.
By DOYLE WOODY
dwoody@adn.com