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It was in the second round of the Western Hockey League playoffs last season that the kings surrendered their crowns.

At the time the kings – the Vancouver Giants – were seeded second in the Western Conference as the B.C. Division champions and were also the defending Memorial Cup champions after hosting and winning the tournament in 2007.

In the 2008 conference semifinals they met the Spokane Chiefs – who were the third seed in the West after finishing second in the U.S. Division, despite having the second-best record in the league behind the division-rival and top-seeded Tri-City Americans.

It took the Chiefs six games to dethrone the defending champs, and the rest of the story is pretty well-known in these parts.

Spokane went on to defeat Tri-City in a marathon seven-game series in the conference finals and then quickly swept aside the Lethbridge Hurricanes to win the WHL title. The Chiefs capped their magical postseason run by winning the coveted Memorial Cup last May.

Now the Chiefs and Giants find themselves in a similar situation to last season, as again the in Round 2 of the WHL playoffs.

This time, though, there’s an interesting twist to the plot. It’s just the second time in WHL history that the Memorial Cup champions from the past two seasons will meet in the playoffs. The best-of-7 series kicks off Friday and Saturday in Vancouver before shifting back to Spokane for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“We’re very excited,” Chiefs coach Hardy Sauter said. “For starters it’s a big compliment to our league – having a matchup like this. And arguably there are other teams in our league that have been very close, if not as close, to being as good as we were last year when we went all the way and likewise as good as Vancouver was two years ago when they won the Memorial Cup.”

With Spokane winning last year – a year after Vancouver’s championship – it was just the fifth time that WHL teams brought the Memorial Cup to the Western Conference in back-to-back seasons.

Only one time prior, though, had those two championship clubs squared off in the playoffs the following year. That was when the 1992 Memorial Cup champion Kamloops Blazers swept the 1991 champion Spokane Chiefs in a three-game series.

“Especially from a media standpoint this kind of series adds excitement,” Sauter added. “To take something and work some sort of spin to create interest or excitement is only going to benefit the teams involved. More importantly, though, is the fact that it’s going to be good hockey.

“It should be an exciting series, and it will probably be a long one.”

That’s because both teams have such a similar style of defensive-minded play, supported by offensive weapons, stubborn, hard-working defensemen and top-notch goaltenders.

“Both teams rely on hard work, both need their talent to make plays at certain points in games, both teams have really good defense and goaltending,” Sauter explained. “We really are fairly evenly matched.”

The Giants clearly had Spokane’s number in their two regular-season meetings, blanking the Chiefs 4-0 on Feb. 6 in Spokane and winning 5-2 at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver on Feb. 24. However, Sauter feels like his fourth-seeded Chiefs are more prepared to battle the top-seeded Giants this time around.

“We weren’t playing as good as we are now, and we were banged up and had some injuries, I believe, the only two times we met during the regular season,” Sauter said. “Now we feel that we’re real close to 100 percent health-wise – except Jared Cowen (knee injury), of course – and we’re looking forward to it. We didn’t feel good that we didn’t come out with a win in either regular-season game.

“In this series we’re coming in as the underdog and we’re looking forward to the challenge.”