Take your pick of what impressed you more: the 33 goals that the St Charles College Cardinals scored over the course of a couple of days last weekend at the Garson Arena - or the fact that SCC surrendered just a single goal against in defending their title at the Cardinal Classic Invitational Hockey Tournament.

For as much as the championship final remained close into the second period of play, a 5-0 whitewashing of the Horizon Aigles constituted a pretty fair crowning moment for the defending city champions who claimed bronze at the OFSAA playdowns a few weeks later.

Jackson Noble opened the scoring for St Charles in the final minute of the opening frame, with Liam Judd and Brady Holden hitting the mark in the second and Jackson Noble and Reegan Billard bringing things home in the third.

And for as much as a 16-save effort might not be the toughest shutout that Cardinals' netminder Rowan McCann will ever register, there were a pair of key saves with the game still very much in doubt in the middle stanza.

"There was a shot from the point and I made a pad save - but it was a bad rebound, right to the guy in front," McCann recalled, post-game. "I just tried to get over there and I got it right off my toe."

Advancing to the finals with victories over the Hearst Nordiks (7-1), the St Benedict Bears (3-2) and the St Joseph Scollard Hall Bears (3-2), the final two of which came in overtime.

In fact, the Aigles had just over an hour or so to rest before getting back on the ice in the final and it showed in period one as Horizon mustered just a pair of shots on McCann - forcing the 17 year-old senior to find ways to remain focused.

"I just try and not think too much about what is going on; try and stay in my zone and stay warm in the net," said McCann. "That's pretty much it."

The Cardinals will supplement upcoming league play with yet another trek to Niagara Falls, competing at a Saint Michael Mustangs Invitational Tournament that they have won three of the past five years that it has been held.

The 28 team field includes Lo-Ellen and Horizon from Sudbury, St Mary's and Korah from Sault Ste Marie, but also Westwood Coillegiate / Steinbach Regional / Oak Park Secondary (all from Manitoba), St Edward from Lakewood, Ohio and Meadville from Pennsylvania.