Page 40 - Sports Energy News, Cornwall, Issue No 119

40 Issue #119 December 2022
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Stories And More About The People In Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry with Area Senior : Brian Ladas
By Jim Riddell
rowing up in Ottawa, Brian Betty Bread at the time, Nestle, the
GLadas played football and was milk companies, and several others.
a fan of most other sports, hockey Anybody that I was doing business
in particular, and especially if the with at the time, I talked with them
Montreal Canadiens were playing. about the Colts.”
“I started working in a Dominion
store when I was thirteen years
old, bagging groceries, stocking
shelves, mopping floors, running the
cash, whatever needed to be done.”
Gaining experience and additional
responsibilities over time, Brian
moved on to Steinberg’s, then to
Loeb, and finally to Independent
Grocers. When the opportunity to
purchase an Independent Grocery
franchise came in 1992, Brian
became the owner of Lada’s Your
Independent Grocer, located at the
east end of Cornwall Square. “It was
a tough location” Brian said, “We
only had fifty-five parking spots
outside our door, and often many
of them were taken up by people
shopping in the mall and preferred
not to park in the parking garage.
Cornwall Square was a busy place
in those days, there were no empty
store spaces and lots of customers,
I would walk the mall and talk to
people, it was a family atmosphere,
and it was great.” Shortly after
arriving in Cornwall, Brian was
heading over to the radio station to
do an advertising spot for the store
when he ran into Mike Piquette,
who, along with Ken McLaughlin,
was in charge of marketing for the
Cornwall Colts. “Mike and I got
together after, he gave me a tour of
the Si Miller arena and explained event between the first and second team, he went back home for the
Presents Jim Riddell’s Sports Talk
Presents
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what he could do for me. It turned
out to be very good for me, I got
several companies that I dealt with to
buy some advertising as well. It got
so at one point that we were out of
advertising space on the boards. We
had Ron Primeau, who was doing
Brian kept Ladas Independent
Grocer very visible during the years
that it was the primary sponsor of
the Colts, often taking a hands-on
approach. Brian remembers, “Ken
McLaughlin and I got sumo suits,
and we wrestled each other on two
occasions between periods at a game.
Ken won the first match and he had
gotten a fake Championship belt for
the second match. Ken had me down
at one point in the match, then got
up and started parading around with
his arms in the air. I managed to get
up and proceeded to hit him over the
head with the belt, knocking him
over and then jumping on him, and
had boos raining down on me from
everywhere. One lady in particular
was very upset, and Mike Piquette,
(Colt’s G.M), received a couple of
phone calls from her. Another time
we used our giant plywood BBQ
that we had for promotions at the
store. It was about eight feet long
and we had giant utensils to go with
it. The Smith Falls Bears were one
of the top teams in the league and
when we played them, we brought
the BBQ to Center ice with a big
Teddy Bear on it and when we stuck
the fork into the bear and held it up,
that got the crowd going!”
Chuck-a-puck was a constant from the Maritimes playing for the
www.sportsenergynews.com
summer and decided that he didn’t
want to return to Cornwall. A team
from the Maritimes called, offering
two players in return for his release.
Knowing that the team wouldn’t be
getting equal value back, Colts GM
Mike Piquette told the other team
that he would give the player his
release in exchange for 2 cases of
lobster. The other team agreed, the
lobster arrived by courier a few days
later, the player got his release, and
we had a feast.”
Brian always had a couple of Colt
players hired to work at the at the
store packing groceries, customers
were always coming in and talking
with the boys, and it was a great fit. I
just had to make sure that they didn’t
work very hard on game day. They
were all terrific kids that we had. Part
of our sponsorship deal was that I
got a certain number of Colts tickets
to hand out to customers. One day
a couple of young guys were going
Photo Submitted through the cash, and I asked them if
periods, but the team was looking they would like tickets to the game.
for something to keep fans engaged One of them was surprised saying,
between the second and third “You have Aces tickets?” I replied
periods. Brian suggested that he that no one wanted to go and watch
would bring some pop, put the the Aces, these were Colts tickets
cans in front of the net and bring and it’s a lot better hockey. They
fans out to shoot a puck at the cans, declined and as soon as they left,
with a successful hit winning the one of the Colt’s players said, “Do
shooter a case of pop. “ It worked you know who that was? That was
well, but the problem was that if the Garth Snow, the Aces goaltender.”
puck was shot hard enough, the can Garth Snow, as we now know, went
would explode all over the ice and on to play 12 years in the NHL, later
the arena staff wasn’t impressed, becoming GM and President of the
so we had to switch from a puck New York Islanders. “There was
to tennis balls. We had to be a bit always something happening, and
creative and maybe deflect a few we always had a lot of fun,” Brian
shots to make sure that everyone said, remembering the aftermath
was a winner.” Sometimes the of the Colts winning the league
Colts got creative themselves, Brian championship. “ We won the final
recalls, “One time we had a player game in Ottawa and got back to
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