Views from Section 8 - University Days Part III

View from Section 8" returns! It's a popular column written by Don "Butch" Turcotte. The former Trappers Junior "A" coach and father of former NHLer and Lakers assistant coach Darren Turcotte will be chiming in with his thoughts here on BayToday.ca. Enjoy!

Hats off to the Nipissing Lakers Varsity Hockey Team. The Friday night game was another display of great hockey. The McGill Redmen beat the Lakers on sheer ability and there is nothing to hang your heads down on the defeat. You gave the local hockey fans a great season. Hope that it is a learning experience and you can build on it. Great memories last forever and I hope that you have some to share in later years. If there was a standing for CLASS you would a shoo in for first place. Thanks Vito, Al, Murray, Mike, staff and the boys that made this possible.
Here is another of my University memories.

One February we had a break in our schedule and a break at school. So Bob deBlois (another Kapuskasing lad) and I decided to fly home for a short visit. We left Boston on a Tuesday and flew to Timmins where we were picked up for our trip to Kap. I guess we should have confirmed our return trip to Boston at the Timmins airport because after our short home visit we returned to Timmins on Friday to return to Boston. Our seats had been sold for the rerurn flight. Word got around the airport that we were stranded. Someone UP THERE must have liked us because later that day a scheduled Cargo flight was leaving Timmins with destination Hancome Air Force Base just outside of Boston. We were offered seats on that flight. There was one problem though. We had to ride in the unheated cargo section of the plane. So Bob and I were given thermal sleeping bags for the flight. We arrived in Boston about 7 AM on Saturday morning, taxied to the University and made it for the team bus trip to West Point NY for a game that night versus Army. The rink at West point was international size (200 X 100). I remember getting another breakaway in that game. I cross their blue line and was so pooped that I just decided to dump it in and go for a line change. And that is no bull.