More than a game
In excess of 7,300 fans joined in a celebration of their city and springtime playoff hockey. Oh, and our boys in black and gold won.
SHOOTING FLAMES, fireworks pop-pop-popping, Monster Truck pounding through the sound system, and: “Ladies and Gentlemen, your Hamiltuhhhhn Bulldogs!” with P.A. announcer Aaron Walsh holding a five-second count on the third syllable of “Hamilton.” (Walsh could hold it longer; he fronts local hard rock band The Castor Troys.)
With that modest intro Monday night (which included The Avengers theme music), the black-and-gold clad Bulldogs circle the ice warming up for Game 3 of their Ontario Hockey League best-of-seven championship series against the Soo Greyhounds.
More than 7,300 fans pile into FirstOntario Centre, a near sellout, which is what may happen at
Wednesday’s Game 4. The warm bloom of late spring is not hockey season, unless you are among the best of the best in playoffs battling for glory to the bitter end.
Twenty-six of the NHL’s 31 teams are no longer playing, including Toronto’s.
But Hamiltuhhhhn’s OHL boys are still alive and kicking. And “boys” is the word: 21 of their players are 18 years old or younger, and four are just 16. They are potential pros in the making, unknowns for the most part.
Those thousands of fans gathering at Bay and York aren’t attracted by star power that fuels pro sports, or because they are all diehard followers of junior hockey. It is something more. Fans eat and drink at The George Hamilton across from the arena. It bustles, but is not packed like it would be for a concert night, says a server.
Among the tailgate crowd in Bulldogs shirts and hats is Marybeth Payne and Scott O’Neill. They bought the gear especially for when they have a chance to attend a game on the road someday. They work as paramedics and try to get to games when they can, but should get to more, laments O’Neill.
“Go Dogs!” he says.
“You have to be more specific,” joked Payne.
“Right, they’re the (grey) hounds. We’re the dogs.”
WITH A HALF-HOUR
to game time, the parade down Bay Street of hockey sweaters in the sun reflects Hamilton’s venerable, if checkered hockey past, including the red and blue and orange of previous incarnations of the Bulldogs in the American Hockey League (AHL).
STREET THEATRE: One man wears a Tarzan outfit; a shirtless man seems to be attempting an intimate act with a traffic pole; another, fully clothed, wears a shirt bearing the likeness of Donald Duck with the caption: “With a shirt this awesome, who needs pants?”
“Tickets! Tickets!” calls a scalper — although he says he is selling them at face value.
Further along the street, Ryan Goodale, in Bulldogs regalia, finishes a smoke and a Monster Energy drink before heading into the arena toting a dogs flag he bought during the first round of the playoffs. He only recently came back to the team. He was a big AHL Bulldogs guy, but loyalty can get complicated. He was bitter when those dogs stayed in Hamilton, but switched NHL parent clubs from Edmonton Oilers to Montreal Canadiens. (Goodale has an Oilers logo tattooed on his chest. He’s not from Edmonton, but simply a fan.) And when the AHL version left Hamilton altogether three years ago it didn’t help. But Goodale went to a Bulldogs OHL playoff game earlier this spring and was hooked all over again. He has gone to every home game since.
“I thought, ‘why have I not been coming?’” he says. “This is fun hockey. I’ll be coming next season, too.”
He is pumped for Game 3, with the Bulldogs splitting the first two games in Sault Ste. Marie. “We did what we had to do up there in the Soo, but now we have to win back home. This is our time.”
Fans leave the gentle warmth outside for the arena, where the chill wafts from ice level into the concourse.
WITH
SEVEN MINUTES to puck drop, popcorn, pizza, and tallboy cans of beer sell briskly. The souvenir kiosk line is 20-fans deep; hats are $25 and “Hamilton is Hockey” T-shirts are $19.99.
GAME TIME: frozen rubber clacking against sticks, blades slicing ice, armoured bodies slamming into the glass and boards.
Two minutes in, the Soo scores an ugly, soft goal. 1-0. A bunch of Soo fans in red and white who made a 10-hour trek to Hamilton rattle their cowbells.
Bulldogs fans moan but do not get down on their players, and the home side storms back. This is the nature and charm of junior hockey, perhaps owing to the youth of the players. The action is nonstop and unpredictable. Raw talent, big-time plays, but also mistakes.
“They are just kids, sometimes they trip over their own shoelaces,” says Robin MacPherson, who is also known as “Bones,” decked from head to toe in dog-themed wear, including furry leggings and a bone in her mouth.
MacPherson ends up winning that night’s 50/50 draw, worth $9,467, the second biggest jackpot of the season. The largest, $13,037, was just before Christmas.
Surely the newest fan in the building is a four-month-old baby, sleeping through the roars and the requisite music blasted during stoppages in play, from Guns N’ Roses to Zeppelin and AC/DC, and occasional exhortations from the video screen to Make Some Noise.
One of the longtime fans is Gayle Borer, sitting in the row behind the baby with her 15-year old granddaughter Malaysia. When her husband passed away 11 years ago, she bought seasons tickets. She’s loved hockey since her days living up near North Bay; the youth, enthusiasm, and she knows the game as a selfdescribed armchair coach.
The game is back and forth, the Bulldogs kill a couple of key penalties and prevail in a nail-biter, 6-5. They lead the series two games to one. Outside, Soo fans load onto a bus for the drive back to their hotel. One of them says he had heard a rumour that Hamilton fans were a nasty bunch.
Turns out, he says, it’s not true. “Boo the Soo!” calls out a Hamiltonian, as if on cue, to preserve some measure of Steeltown dignity.
Even in the afterglow of victory and beer, the crowd filing along Bay after dark seems mellow.
Many of the fans are surely not aware who plays left wing on the second line. But they bind themselves to the team, wear the colours and Bulldog over their hearts because they love hockey, their city, and the feeling of gathering with common souls to offer a full-throated testament to it all.
“Boo the Soo!” calls out a fan as if on cue, to preserve some measure of Steeltown dignity.