The atmosphere at the Memorial Gardens lately has sure brought back some memories.
Yes, it was 30 years ago today the North Bay Midget Pinehill Coffee Shop Midget AAA hockey team won the Air Canada National Championships. Sure doesn't seems like it was that long ago.
With the help of Terry Talentino, the Gardens Manager at the time, North Bay was selected to host the Nationals. The hockey club had previous successes in their earlier years so Terry decided to make a bid to the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association.
It was a 5-day event featuring the 6 regional AAA Midget teams from across the country. Dartmouth Midgets from the Maritimes, Lac St. Louis representing Quebec, Ottawa West Golden Knights, Notre Dame Hounds representing the West, Edmonton Sherwood Park representing the Pacific Region and Pinehill N.O.H.A. champs and hosts.
It was nice as hosts to come into the tournament as champs coming in the front door.
Each team played each other in the round-robin. As one of the top four teams after the round-robin Pinehill moved on to the semis to face Sherwood Park coached by Ken Hitchcock. I lost my assistant coach (Guy Blanchard) for a few minutes during the warm-up.
As a Hitchcock game plan, Ken sent his 220 pound defenseman to skate around in our end zone during the warm-up.
What was going on? I looked down the bench and Guy was not there. I finally saw him going around the section 9 end zone to have a few words with Hitchcock. It was a 2-1 victory for the locals and on to the championship game versus the Notre Dame Hounds. A 3-2 victory gave the club the National Championships. Hard work and team discipline were the keys to our success.
The Gardens is humming once again and it is nice to attend the Battalion games to bring back these memories.
