Long-serving Petes staffer retiring
Cathie Webster joined when the Petes were the No. 1 CHL team under Dick Todd
The friendly smile and voice that has greeted visitors to the Peterborough Petes office for 26 years is leaving.
Cathie Webster is retiring as Petes office administrator on Saturday. She is the second-longest serving employee in franchise history next to former general manager Jeff Twohey’s 29 years. Webster joined the Petes in 1992, replacing Karen Brown who had been with the team 17 years.
She was hired by the executive of Pat Casey, Ed Rowe and Herb Warr. The only other full-time staff outside of the coaches and trainer was marketing director Steve O’Donnell.
“We were such a small staff there was real camaraderie then,” Webster said.
“Jeff and I overlapped for nearly 20 years. I watched his girls grow up and he watched Melissa grow up. He wasn’t just my boss, he was my friend. He still is.”
She joined the team at an exciting time. Then coached by Dick Todd, the Petes were the CHL’s No. 1 ranked team all season led by Chris Pronger, Brent Tully, Jason Dawe, Cory Stillman, among others. They won the OHL championship and travelled to Sault Ste. Marie for the Memorial Cup where they lost in the final to the host Greyhounds.
Webster was a single mom, her daughter Melissa was 11 at the time, when she learned she was accompanying the team to Sault Ste. Marie. She was concerned about leaving Melissa.
“Ed Rowe came back and gave me a package for her to go,” Webster said.
“Parnell Peplinskie was the trainer at the time and his wife Jackie and I hit it off. Jackie and her daughter Yvette, who was the same age as Melissa, all went to the Soo. Oh my gosh, we had so much fun. The hotel we stayed in had a bowling alley. We’d go to the game, stop at the Dairy Queen and go back to the hotel and bowl until ridiculous hours. That was a really fond memory.” There were ups and downs. “My favourite memory is that 2006 game when we took London in four straight. This building was bursting at the seams and the electricity and noise,” she said.
“We had some really bad years in here and I lived through them, and I’m grateful for that, but we’ve had some fantastic years, too.”
Her greatest memories are of the people.
“I’ve met a lot of wonderful people, players, coaches, staff. I think of them quite fondly.”
She didn’t want to name specific names and leave others out but a few memories stick out. One was a player who collected funds in the dressing room to buy an ornament for her Christmas tree. Another was a coach who took up a collection among players to help pay for a surgery for her sick dog. Another was a former coach who called her from abroad when he heard her mother was in palliative care.
It was tough, she said, to see people lose their jobs.
“That’s always very hard,” she said. “I do know that happens in hockey but I don’t think about the hockey part. I think, that’s a person and they have to go home and move on.”
She’ll always be a fan.
“I want the best for the boys and we have a wonderful coaching staff and I want the best for their future,” she said.
Most of Webster’s siblings and friends are retired and she’d like to spend more time with them. It’s time for the next chapter, she said. She’d like to travel and do some volunteering.
“You know what they say, girls just want to have fun and I want to be one of those girls,” she said.