Marquardt shares the Kelly Cup

Matt Marquardt (back) helps tip the Kelly Cup for his dad Paul to sip out of the championship trophy at the Fox and Fiddle Wednesday night. Photo by Chris Dawson.

No, it’s not the Stanley Cup, but for Matt Marquardt it was a very proud occasion for the North Bay product as he shared the Kelly Cup trophy with family and friends on Wednesday night at the Fox and Fiddle.

On May 23rd, Marquardt and his Florida Everblades won the East Coast Hockey League title with a 3-2 win over the Las Vegas Wranglers taking the best-of-seven series in 5 games.

However, Marquardt never thought that he would be allowed to share the trophy with his hometown.

“Oh it was awesome, winning the cup was unbelievable,” admitted Marquardt about the trophy which had the names of former North Bay Centennials Steve Chabbert and Mike Burman engraved on it.

“To have the owner come in and say we would have our day with the cup was pretty neat, none of us were expecting it. I didn’t think twice, I thought you know I’m from North Bay, grew up in North Bay, and come home to North Bay every summer and we need to share it with family and friends.”

Dozens of former teammates, family and friends got to pose for a photo with the Kelly Cup; some even took a sip of beer out of the historic trophy.

For the 2007 Columbus Blue Jackets 7th round draft pick, the title was a very rewarding experience after spending the past 3 seasons bouncing around from AHL farm teams of the Blue Jackets, Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers.

Marquardt started the year with the Bakersfield Condors of the ECHL but midway through the year, he was traded to the Everblades based in Fort Myers, Florida.

With the Everblades, Marquardt found his game again; especially in the playoffs where he recorded 18 points in 18 games in the ECHL playoffs along with 3 game winning goals in the final series.

“I learned a lot from those years and pro hockey is very much a learning process and some of the things I’ve learned there I’ve tried to keep a positive attitude,” he said.

“With the CBA it’s hard to get a contract so I went down to the ECHL and I had a really good start to my season and I got traded to a championship caliber team. Florida gave me the opportunity to go there and play every opportunity, play every scenario I played on the penalty kill which I hadn’t done before, power play, I played all situations and played a lot of minutes which gave me the confidence I had back in junior, I was a 40-goal man in junior and it means a lot, the business of hockey is winning and I was lucky enough to win a championship in junior and just winning a pro championship means a lot to me and it means a lot to the hockey world as well when you are looking for a job.”

Marquardt didn’t want to talk too much about the upcoming season. Instead he wanted to enjoy the moment.

“Win today and walk together forever and its exactly how it is and that’s exactly how the team makeup was,” he said.

“You ask anyone who has won a Stanley Cup, Calder Cup, Kelly Cup, John Loyst Cup in ball hockey you remember everybody that plays on those teams. “

But Marquardt admits that playing the ECHL and being a playoff star may allow him to take a bigger step forward in the future.

“Just to be able to pump the breaks, take a step back and get back to where I know I can be performance wise, just to get that opportunity to have that kind of backing,” said Marquardt.

“In the American league everybody is trying to go to the next level and sometimes it gets tough with the grind and the schedule. I was young stepping in there and now I’ve done a lot of maturing for a 24-year-old guy to have a pro championship for my resume is going to really help me out for next year and hopefully my future if I get to do this again maybe with a higher echelon cup.”