By Farzad Fatholahzadeh
The noise that followed the Dulude Arena buzzer March 29 sticks out in Brandt Blimkie’s memory. He describes it as one of the loudest cheers he has ever heard at a minor hockey game.
The arena erupted when Centretown’s newest heroes, the Ottawa Centre Grinders, won the Bytown Minor Hockey League’s peewee C championship. This was Blimkie’s first year as the Grinders’ coach.
“One of the dads actually brings drums to the game — little bongos — and starts playing the drums in the stands, and the crowd’s cheering, ‘let’s go Grinders, let’s go,’ ” he says.
The crowd’s reaction was justified, because things were not looking too hopeful for the Grinders at the end of the first period.
The West End Flaming Ferrets had scored early on and were leading by one goal. But things turned around during the second period.
Team captain, Jonathan Favreau, scored the first goal on a breakaway about 10 minutes into the period.
Shortly after, defenceman Luke Goldsmith’s slap shot from the blue line has become a legend of its own.
Teammate Elliott Galpin, 11, says the tiebreaker was Goldsmith’s first goal ever. “(The puck) hit other people’s sticks and skates and bounced and bounced into the goal.”
He says he thinks it may have been deflected off the goalie as well.
Thirteen-year-old Goldsmith says he ended up with the puck after his teammate Leonardo Bruzzi’s shot ricocheted off the board.
Bruzzi and Favreau are both relatively new to the game. They have only been playing hockey for one year and are considered the Grinders’ best players by their teammates.
This is a major accomplishment for Bruzzi as this was his first year in Canada. He, along with his parents, left Brazil last year to move to Ottawa.
Elliott’s mother and team manager, Jennifer Galpin, says although Bruzzi had skated before, it was his soccer skills that helped him become an excellent hockey player. She attributes the noise of the crowd to Bruzzi’s parents.
“For them this was their first experience with anything like this and they really got into it,” Galpin says, adding that the number of signs the Bruzzis brought with them inspired the crowd’s over-the-top cheerleading.
Elliott estimates the Bruzzis hand-made about 50 signs. “We told him he can’t go back now,” says Galpin.
Alison Doyle, the only girl on the team, says the Grinders were concentrating on playing defensively after Goldsmith’s goal. None of the team members were watching the clock, so they were caught by surprise when they heard the buzzer and the noise from the crowd.
She says there are only a couple of girls in the league. “I like playing with boys because they’re easy to interact with and they look out for you,” says the 12-year-old.
After the game, the team celebrated first by tackling the goalie, James Liston, who, according to Blimkie and Elliott Galpin had made a number of good saves.
They later continued the celebration by filling up the trophy with water and dumping it on Blimkie and the assistant coaches’ heads. Blimkie says the team definitely enjoyed this part a lot more than he did.
The Grinders will be a different team next year. Players move in and out of teams depending on age and hockey experience. More experienced players will move on to peewee B teams, while older players will be placed in the Bantam category (ages 13 to 14).
But Jennifer Galpin, Blimkie and the players agree that the team had forged a lasting friendship even before winning the championship. Winning the finals only made the bond stronger.