A few more thoughts on the Junior A Crushers’ final home game of the season, a 4-3 overtime loss to the Truro Bearcats.
• Even with nothing to play in terms of playoffs or standings, the Crushers wanted this one – you could see it in their eyes, and in the ferocity with which they played.
“What I'm learning is, when you lose with someone, you see more of their soul,” coach Doug Doull would say on Friday, when asked specifically about the play of veteran Alex Bonaparte, but also about his team in general; in the fading moments of a season where most of the breaks they got were bad ones, the players were still willing to lay it on the line.
“Bones has been a warrior for us and a model for younger guys to emulate. He goes after a player last night who cheap shots Michael Dill – that's Bones, a stand-up guy. He's a guy that will succeed in whatever he does, because of character (and) I like how other leaders have been examples for the young guys through this, as well.”
• Just after the game ended, it was classy of Truro coach Sean Evans to reach out to former Bearcats goaltender Luke Melanson, who played his final game of junior hockey.
• The refs weren’t terrible.
• All those minor hockey players wearing their team jerseys brought some much-needed energy into the stands at the Pictou County Wellness Centre.
• Jacob Hickey took exception to being kneed by Truro’s Mark O'Shaughnessy, went hunting for the Bearcats’ defender and started swinging – “rifling them” as the guy beside me said – almost before Hickey even got there. It cost the Crushers a power play opportunity, but it was one of those things that had to be done.
• The Crushers should mothball jersey #47 next season. Any player who asks for Michael Dill’s jersey number so soon after his departure needs to be traded to the Flin Flon Bombers.
Non-Sports Thoughts of the Week:
• You know how people will say “Twitter just exploded!”, meaning “something crazy has happened and everybody is talking about it on Twitter”?
Well, I wish Twitter really would explode – get blown to tiny bits. I don’t need everybody’s opinion on every little thing that has ever happened, or might happen.
• Wednesday of this week was International Women’s Day, although you probably didn’t know because it hardly got a mention in the media. International Men’s Day will be Nov. 19 this year, and this will likely be the last you’ll hear about it in 2018.
• If I were a card-carrying member of the Conservatives and voting for a party leader, I just might vote for leadership candidate John Lohr. Really, I don’t know much about the MLA (and also, don’t care), but he seems to have an issue with political correctness.
A theory: the main problem with social justice warriors who don’t want to hear opinions that don’t mesh with their own: they were coddled, sheltered and didn’t get slapped around a little when they were kids (figuratively speaking), but now that they’re all grown up and living in a world that will, in fact, slap them around – and sometimes more than a little – feelings are easily bruised.
When you’re a kid growing up on the farm, there’s no time for whining about problems when bales of hay need to be stored in the barn. Because sooner or later it’s gonna rain, you see, and the cows need to be fed, so shut up and stack the hay.
Stack now, cry later, and on your own time.
Kevin Adshade is sportswriter with The News. His column appears each Saturday.
