The Kitchener Rangers are one win away from a birth in the OHL finals. The Rangers are hosting the Windsor Spitfires for Game 5 of their best-of-seven OHL Western Conference final on Friday night. The Rangers lead the series 3 - 1. “If somehow people live in this region and haven’t been down to a game while the team is this competitive and this strong, the atmosphere is second to none,” Andrew Merrigan, a host of The AudPod, said. The 2026 Midwest Division and Western Conference regular season champions have rolled through the playoffs so far. The Rangers swept their first round series with Saginaw. Kitchener only lost once to the Soo in the second round. “The first two rounds, I expected a pretty handed win over those two teams, especially Saginaw. I didn’t really expect much pushback. The Soo was a tougher team, so I expected the one game loss,” Justin Born, another host of The AudPod, said. “You’re looking at guaranteed professional hockey players because they’re just so well developed here in the OHL,” Merrigan said. The team has a renewed focus to try to win the Memorial Cup this year. A bidding war with the Guelph Storm to host next year’s CHL championship tournament took up some bandwidth for the organization earlier in the year. Although Kitchener ultimately lost the tournament to Guelph, they followed up by trading with London for veterans Sam O’Reilly and Jared Woolley, effectively committing to hoisting the cup this season. “They took a week, maybe two weeks to lick their wounds over the Memorial Cup loss that they didn’t get the bid. And then it was like, you know what? We’ve got the team this year, the core pieces in place,” Merrigan said. O’Reilly now leads the Rangers in playoff points and has banged home several game winners for the Blueshirts. “I think he’s the best player in the league. I mean, it’s unbelievable watching Sam O’Reilly, it’s like, pinch me,” Merrigan said. For any Rangers fans that are superstitious, this might be enough to convince you; the last time Kitchener won the Memorial Cup in 2003, they also finished top of the league in the season. The last time the Rangers won the OHL title in 2008, they won the Wayne Gretzky trophy in five games. Both things that the team can achieve again these playoffs.
