Matt Barron named Yarmouth Mariners captain
Matt Barron of the Yarmouth Junior A Mariners has been a scoring leader over the years. This year, he is being given a stronger leadership role as he’s been named team captain for the 2019-2020 season.
This year marks the fifth season Barron will play with the Mariners. He started with the team during the 2015-2016 season when he was 16 years old – although his ties to the team go back to when he was a kid and helped around the rink by filling team water bottles before eventually getting to drink out of them.
Barron is looking forward to his new role.
“I feel very honoured to be named captain of the team I grew up watching and admiring,” he says. “I’ve been lucky enough to have several great captains over the last four years and have been able to learn so much over that span. I’m really looking forward to leading this team and being someone the players and coaches can lean on.”
One of last season’s captains – whose time on the ice with Barron dates back to their minor hockey years – says Barron is a great choice for captain.
“Matt, as captain, will be great for the younger guys coming through the organization,” says Chris Goreham, who played his last year of junior A last season. “To have a guy like that who has spent four going on five years in Yarmouth is huge for them.”
In reality, Goreham says Barron has always been a team leader, even without a letter on his jersey.
“He has always led that team, even throughout our first years together,” he says. “There is no guy who deserves to wear the ‘C’ and lead Yarmouth more than Matty B.”
During the 2018-2019 regular season, Barron led the Mariners in points and finished third overall in the league with those 72 points, which broke down to 31 goals and 41 assists. Barron had led the Mariners in points the previous season as well with 49 points.
In the MHL Canadian Tire
Cup playoffs last season, Barron helped propel his team towards the league championship by contributing 17 points in 14 games, which included six goals and 11 assists. He was named the playoff’s MVP on the night the Mariners swept the Campbellton Tigers to win the league title.
Matt isn’t the only Barron on the team. His father Laurie is the head coach. Never one to play favourites where his son is concerned, when Laurie Barron contacted the Vanguard newsroom he joked he was looking to announce that “some Barron kid is going to be our captain.”
Laurie Barron has seen his son’s progression on and off the ice, both from the perspective of a coach and a father. He also coached him during some of his minor hockey seasons.
While he was likely always deserving, Laurie Barron says throughout his years coaching his son he never personally gave his son a letter.
“I’ve always said you don’t need a letter to be a leader,” he says. “But his progression as a leader and being more vocal in the dressing room has really come far.”
And like fishermen in this seaside community who constantly talk fishing when they’re on the wharves, neither Barron can escape the talk of hockey, whether at the rink or at home.
“He’s obviously grown up in a hockey household. Everybody else has to worry about hockey for two, three of four hours a day, he gets to hear about it every waking hour,” his dad laughs. “But I don’t have any worries that he’s not ready or that being captain is viewed as a gimmie.”
As for Matt, like everyone, he’s anxious to get started on the regular season. The Mariners home opener will be Friday, Sept. 13 when they host the Truro Bearcats.
“I can’t wait to get this season underway as I am super excited about the new role and defending our MHL championship,” the team’s new captain says.