4/17/2018 1 Comment HONORING HOCKEY & FAMILY Today I as I pulled on my team jersey to honour the lives of those injured and lost in the Humboldt bus tragedy I was remined of what the jersey meant to me and especially what the Team Cey crest on the front means to me as we grieve together. I want to share with you the story of this jersey, what it means to me and the brotherhood and sisterhood that is hockey.
As some may know, I come from a large family, 7 girls, 11 boys, 18 in all. We grew up on the farm and sports always formed a big part of our life. The boys have always played hockey and while my sisters were all extraordinary athletes, alas they grew up in a time and place were female hockey was not as popular as it is today. For the boys, we have all played to varying levels from minor to junior hockey and beyond. In fact, in my extended family, 5 brothers and brothers in law have pulled on the green and gold of the Humboldt Broncos at different points in their hockey career. These are indeed sad and emotional times, but also a time for reflection as to who we are and what we are as a people. This brings me to the jersey I proudly pulled over my dress shirt on this day. Team Cey was formed in 1989, at the point most of the 11 boys had finished with competitive hockey. One of my brothers, Joe, had seen a short clip on the news regarding the World Family Hockey Championships that had been contested in Chandler, Quebec for several years. The tournament had one stipulation, every player on a team had to be directly related as brother/sister/mother/father. My brother Joe began to float the idea amongst my family….what if? Starting with only an idea we began to form plans, but how would we pay for a trip to Chandler for a week-long tournament over the Christmas holidays. No team had ever ventured out from Western Canada to play in this tournament and scouting indicated many of the teams were very competitive….think Sutter brother competitive. I was 22, just finishing university, all but one of my brothers is older than I and furthermore, none of us had ever played goal. We had about four months to pull the whole thing together. First off, sponsorship, fundraising and practice. Local companies and organizations got behind the idea, with a generous sponsorship secured for each player, we began to travel the province playing local senior teams and had been faring well, beating all comers. As word of our quest grew we were contacted by a prominent CBC program at the time called “On the Road Again” that ran for 20 years until 2007, hosted by Wayne Rogstad….kind of a pre cursor to Rick Mercer. Wayne Rogstad brought his Toronto production crew out to Wilkie in early fall 1989 and followed many of us for several days as excitement grew with the plan made to connect with us again in December in Quebec at the tournament. Now fast forward a few months; the practices, games and fundraising in Saskatchewan came to a successful finish and the 11 brothers and several of the rest of the family began the journey to Chandler, QC. We are almost 40 in number, and for many this was their first air flight. The journey was long with several connections and a lengthy bus journey to the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula in QC. This is a French speaking part of Canada with little English spoken and not one amongst us flat landers were remotely fluent in French. No matter, hockey was to be our language of choice this week. The CBC film crew meet up with us again and the games began in earnest. We rolled through the round robin with little difficulty and scouting reports showed another team from New Brunswick, the Plourdes from Pigeon Hill, advancing with equal ease. A showdown was in the making, they were 7, we were 11, but word came to us, each one of the Plourdes had played Major Junior hockey in QC, including their goalie, and they were about 10 years younger than us! Our goalie, my older brother Jamie, had been reluctantly drafted to the position only 4 months previous. Finally, after a long week of round robin play the championship game was set, Ceys from the west vs Plourdes from the east. Of course, we had been treated like gold all week as special guests but with the puck drop it was all hockey. The rink was packed, and CBC had the tape rolling, hoping to cap a Cinderella story they had been working on for the past 6 months. We battled hard but the Plourdes were extraordinary, for the first time since we had formed our team we found ourselves trailing. With only 4 minutes left in the third period we were down by a score of 4-1. My eldest brother Gerry called a time out to try and change the momentum. On the next faceoff my new goalie brother Jamie made a stellar save on what looked to be a sure goal. We stormed back and popped a quick goal. It was desperation time and off the next shift we scored another and then another. With just minutes left we were all tied up and a sold-out crowd was going wild. Though we were the “come from away” team we had become the fan favorites in the tournament. Finally, with 48 seconds left in the game my brother Les slammed home the game winner, we had come all the way back and were World Family Hockey Champions! Wayne Rogstad would later say on the broadcast of the program…” Brothers don’t want to let Brothers Down”. This was the first thought I had on the Humboldt tragedy, “Brothers Don’t want to let Brothers Down”, to that I would add “Families Don’t Want to let Families Down”. We were always a close family, but our experience as Team Cey formed an extraordinary unbreakable bond among us all. That same bond surely existed within the Humboldt Broncos of today, this is at the core of what makes this so hard, we know what we lost, and it breaks our hearts. For all the sadness and grief we are feeling, on this day and in the coming days I say to you, We are all Family and Families don’t want to let Families Down. We cannot and will not let each other down, we will heal, and we will go on. God Bless You All.
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I grew up as part of a big family on a big mixed farm on the Prairies of Canada. All my opinions are my own. I have an Ag degree from Saskatoon and an MBA from New Brunswick. I am happily married with four children. I love my work, my family and my community and will guard them all ferociously. I try to bring critical thought to all I do and all I say. Leadership through example is the best way forward. |