Page 40 - Sports Energy News, Cornwall, Issue No 121

40 Issue #121 February 2023
Continued from page 33 GM of the Edmonton Oilers) was Hardy Cup we had Neil Sandilands,
the big drawing card. Keith brought Dwayne Spink, Ian MacInnis,
Hockey career. The following
his sister Kim with him on the bus Steve Seguin, Rod Mackenzie, and
season Chris, along with Gerry
to all of our games.”
Ingram, played with the Hampton
Virginia Road Gulls of the Atlantic For a few years Chris, along with
Coast Hockey League. “I was there several other Cornwall area players,
for about three months; the team were members of the Smiths Fall
was about to fold, and I had the Rideau’s Sr. team which represented
option to come back and work at the area twice in the Hardy Cup. “We
Domtar.” had Pat Harriman, Marc Lalonde,
Brian Fontaine, Gilles Crepeau, and
Chris’s hockey career took a
myself. Dave Ezard was on the team,
unique turn in 1981-82 when he
but was unable to go with us due to
played one of the goalies in Slapshot
work commitments. We played the
Live. The production was based out
Charlottetown Islanders coached by
of Toronto and was presented on
Erroll Thompson. We won the first
ice. It was similar to the Harlem
two games of the five-game series
Globetrotters, we had two teams,
and may have been overconfident.
two busses and travelled mostly to
Thompson, who had played several
American cities and we would be
seasons in the NHL with Toronto,
gone for the weekend. There were
Pittsburg, and Detroit, dressed for
three of us from Cornwall; Larry
the rest of the series and we ended
Staye, who played the role of one of
up losing the next three games.
the Hanson brothers, Paul Marshall,
The second time we went to the
and me. Keith Gretzky (now Asst.
In business since 2009.
would win a tournament and I would
After the Hubs, Chris went to the that never went over well.” Chris
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Murray MacDonald. We played
the Halifax Moosehead Mounties
and lost the series 3 games to 1.”
Chris then joined the Cornwall
Hubs, playing with them for more
than twenty years. “I first played
for the Hubs when I was only
about twenty-years-old, just out of
Junior, and they asked me to play
in a tournament in Char-Lan. It was
very good hockey, Char-Lan had
Doug Gilmour, Neil Sandilands,
Todd Gill, Steve Driscoll, and Ian
MacInnis. We had a pretty good
team as well with Steve Seguin,
Rob Currier, Jean Payette, and
Eddie Latumb, we beat them 2-0
in the final to win the tournament.
One game that stood out for Chris
was the time that Moe Lemieux
put three of his goalies - Chris,
Mario Vien, and Rick Fillion on the
same forward line in a tournament.
“Mario had been a forward before
he became a goalie, and he could
put the puck in the net. Mario wore
his goalie skates that game. Rick
and I had both played forward
before and between the three of us
we had seven or eight goals in that
game. I had a lot of good times with
the Hubs, and we won quite a few
tournaments.”
Cornwall Classics, a fifty and over
team run by Alex Herrington. We
did really well there also, going to
the Canadian Championships twice
and got beat out by the same team
(Brampton) in double OT both
times.
Chris started playing fastball
when he was fifteen years old,
playing two seasons in the John
Denneny League before moving
over to the Sportsman League. “I
played in the Sportsman League
for six to seven years, pitching for
Burger King and Fat Alberts, then
when that league folded, everyone
went back to the John Denneny. The
teams that I pitched with changed
but many of the players remained
the same. The guys that I grew up
with seemed to stick together, my
uncle Joe Harvey was the catcher,
my brother Roy was 2nd base, and
Gerry Guay was 1st base and coach.
Randy O’Neil, Mike Branchaud,
my brother Scott, and myself were
pitching. One year that we were
playing with the Fifth Wheel, we
must have won twenty tournaments
and we were rated as one of the
top Intermediate teams around. In
2013 Chris was a member of the
Canadian Fastball team that won
the World Championship in Torino,
Italy. The team had several other
local players in addition to Chris,
including Jim Martel, Brian O’Neil,
Steve McGillis, Brian Lamarche,
Frank Marceau, and coach Bunny
Warner.”
Chris spent approximately three
years at Domtar, saying that “It was
a good job, but it was a difficult
place to work when you are around
twenty years old and love playing
sports. A couple of times, I called
in sick on the weekend, my team
be in the team photo in the paper -
then worked nineteen years at Kraft
(now Lactalis) in Ingleside, and
for the past ten years he has been
a foreman with Cornwall Gravel.
Chris summed up his sporting career
by saying, “Growing up playing
sports teaches you life qualities like
team play, respect, and friendship.
These are tools that you will use in
everyday life. I would like to thank
Orval Tessier, Joe Harvey, and
Gerry Guay for the inspiration they
provided and also Mike and Jim at
Sports Energy for the stories on area
athletes”.