A city, and its fans, get to celebrate again
They came up and shook his hand. They posed for photos with him. They caught his eye across the crowd, waved and got a wave and a smile back. And they said thank you.
As Steve Staios wandered through the Teenage-Head-listening, black-and-gold-wearing crowd in front of FirstOntario Centre on Sunday afternoon before everyone filed inside to celebrate an Ontario Hockey League championship, one person after another stopped him and expressed their appreciation at his work building a winner.
He would have had to return a lost wallet with a few thousand dollars in it to receive as much gratitude.
The president and general manager of the Hamilton Bulldogs? On this day, more like the Mayor of Bay Street.
The warm wishes for the guy who constructed the team are understandable.
It’s a unique thing to celebrate a title. It took over a decade and a change in teams and leagues (AHL to OHL) for Hamilton to experience one on the ice. It’s been seven years since McMaster won its only Vanier Cup. This city is pushing the two-decade mark to enjoy one on the pro football field. Sounds obvious perhaps, but when they come along, they’re significant.
So much so that head coach Dave Matsos, who’s been sidelined since collapsing on the bench last weekend and who the crowd had been told couldn’t make it to this game, actually did show up. Even knowing he couldn’t be on the bench.
“This banner raising is a special thing,” he says. “I wasn’t going to miss this one.”
The unspoken ending of his thought being that this doesn’t happen every year. Better fully enjoy every single one.
So they had the street party, gave out bobbleheads, raised the banner (three, actually, one for the division title, one for the conference crown and one for the league championship), introduced the players under dramatic lighting and even found time to play a game.
While the ceremonies were a fun reminder of the immediate past, we now move into the present. Which is traditionally where the fun ends. Most winners in recent times have sold their souls — or at least a chunk of their future — to sip from the cup. Which means their days of great joy were followed by at least a couple years wandering through the valley of the shadow of death.
That could still happen here. But the first few games of the new season are suggesting otherwise. Rather than sagging, the Bulldogs have looked much better than a defending champion in this league should.
Despite losing seven players to the pros, three to graduation and one to a trade — not to mention dealing with temporarily losing their coach to a scary health situation — Hamilton has come out of the gate strong. On Saturday the Bulldogs clobbered previously unbeaten Peterborough 7-1. And on Sunday, they took a highly touted Ottawa 67’s team to overtime before losing 4-3.
Even with that, it’s difficult to imagine another championship this season. The defence is too questionable to be quite that optimistic. Yet, with enough returning top-end talent and the
results of some good drafting now in uniform, this team will be competitive.
That would be a massive step up from the last time a banner was raised in this building. In the fall of 2007, the AHL Bulldogs followed up their Calder Cupwinning season with a year of mediocrity that saw them fail to make the playoffs.
Weirdly, as the OHL banners went up to the rafters on Sunday, that Calder Cup banner was missing. That has to be remedied. Both of this city’s modern-era titles need to be remembered.
Because they just don’t come along often enough to take any for granted.