67’s, Olympiques set to revisit their childhood
Junior outdoor classic set for day after Senators-Canadiens tilt at TD Place
It will almost be like old times for Brian Barron, Bill Keating, Wendel Clark and the rest of the Ottawa 67’s fathers, one more time seeing their kids back playing hockey in the great outdoors.
Just this time the fathers won’t have to shovel (or blow) the snow. Or shut off the lights and yell at the boys to get off the ice because it’s a school night. Or go back out late at night to flood when the temperature dipped to its lowest.
The 67’s Wednesday delivered on one of the worst-kept secrets around TD Place in recent weeks, finally confirming they will host the Gatineau Olympiques Dec. 17, one day after the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens battle in the NHL 100 Classic outdoor game.
The junior outdoor classic will be a first for Ontario, though the Ontario Hockey League has hosted such events twice in Detroit with Saginaw and Plymouth as host teams, the second game between the Whalers and London Knights setting a Canadian Hockey League record with 26,384 fans on hand.
TD Place has the capacity to break that mark though no one is predicting it right now. Officials are cautiously hoping for a crowd in the 15,000 to 20,000 range.
Ottawa captain Travis Barron and his Olympiques counterpart Alex Breton, who used to play on an ODR with Senators top prospect Thomas Chabot back in Ste-Marie-de-Beauce, Que., took part in a ceremonial faceoff where centre ice will be. Now it’s “game on” for the two teams as the countdown begins.
Every Canadian grows up with some great memories of their days on outdoor ice. Few will ever play in an outdoor classic.
“We had a sick backyard rink,” said Barron of his days growing up in Belfountain. “Dad did a real good job.
“We had boards all around, good nets and big floodlights over top and four more floodlights in the corners.”
Barron, the 19-year-old Colorado Avalanche draft pick, can easily recall getting the call for dinner and not wanting to takes his skates off. He can also remember how games ended on school nights.
“I had to crawl into the house to the dinner table and then we had this little carpet under where I sat,” Barron said with a laugh. “And they’d just cut the lights off if it was a school night. But on weekends we could play just about all night.
“Cousins, brothers, friends ... it didn’t matter who showed up. It was rock-paper-scissors to see who went in nets and then we went at it. We had some great battles out there.”
Much the same for Austen Keating, 18-year-old son of the aforementioned skilled icemaker Bill. Keating, who like Barron is a first-round pick of the 67’s, might be on the verge of taking that next big step in this his third year with the 67’s.
He has great memories of outdoor hockey in his hometown of Guelph and can’t get enough of skating on the canal when he gets the opportunity.
“I think Guelph winters are just a little warmer than Ottawa winters and Christmas Day used to be about the day the rink would be ready,” said Keating. “We’d spend all Christmas holidays out there.
“We had the lights and (high) boards at the end with netting above it ... just in case we ‘ever’ missed the net. The benches were snowbanks and the rink was more conducive to 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 hockey.
“Dad would be out there until two or three in the morning flooding it, then get back up at six and head to work in Toronto.
“I would go out there and spend
Cut the lights off if it was a school night. But on weekends we could play just about all night.
three or four hours working on things . ... And one of my brothers (Conner) was a goalie and he was three years older. He just played house league, but it was nice having a goalie all the time.” Then there’s Kody Clark. The 67’s winger said he used to have an outdoor rink on the pond at the family farm in King City. That’s until dad Wendel and two friends built an “indoor rink” — a rink inside the barn.
“We had chillers for the ice ... everything,” said Clark, adding his dad wouldn’t hesitate to put the skates on. “Boards, lights, it was pretty good. We had it until we moved to Toronto.”
The only 67’s player to take part in an outdoor game is overage goalie Olivier Tremblay, then a 17-year-old with the Victoriaville Tigres. His team played an outdoor game against the Shawinigan Cataractes in 201415 before about 3,000 fans at a fairgrounds in Sainte-Tite, Que., northeast of Shawinigan.
“It was cold,” said Tremblay. “Maybe minus-20 or minus-25. And I was the backup.
“I had hot chocolate on the bench and I put Hot Paws in my skates to try to stay warm.”