Red rays of hope

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

It’s a ray of hope, and it’s bright red.

The Oshawa Generals entertained fans for one last time on Sunday, May 31 at the Colisée Pepsi in Quebec City – and entertainment it was, with the Generals beating the Kelowna Rockets 2-1 to hoist the Memorial Cup for the fifth time in franchise history.

However, going into that final game, which just so happened to be the last game of hockey played in the arena that was the previous home of the Quebec Nordiques, several Oshawa Generals knew the game was about more than just a trophy.

“With the fans, they’ve supported us so much that they’re just as much a part of this as we are,” said Dakota Mermis.

The fans were a part of that last game in a big way.

A conservative estimate would put the Generals jerseys in the stands in the upper hundreds. However, the numbers could have been in the thousands as chants of “go Gens go” echoed through the rafters from warmup to overtime winner.

“You know the saying, ‘Once a General always a General?’ Well, once a Generals fan, always a Generals fan,” said fan Linda Taggert, who made the trip from Kingston with her husband, Allan, and a group of 20 other members of the Gens Army.

The retired couple have been Gennies fans for the last 43 years, despite moving away from Oshawa 15 years ago.

“You have to back somebody and enjoy rooting for somebody and you don’t want to be switching ships,” Alan says. “You pick one team and you stick with them, through the good, through the bad.”

And this Generals season has definitely been the good, with the team breaking franchise records for most wins and points in a season and finishing as one of the top junior teams in Canada.

Generals fan club president Tim Finch made the eight-hour trek for the final game to show his appreciation for what the team has given to the fans throughout the course of the year, getting the community out in the dead of winter to watch a solid hockey game.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams at the beginning of this year that we would even be here…this is a dream come true,” Finch says.

And for many Oshawa Generals, skating around the ice of the Colisée with the Memorial Cup hoisted above their heads, that is another dream come true.

Their roars of victory rising into the rafters and into the TV cameras and back to the fans watching on their TVs in Oshawa.

It hasn’t been the easiest 12 months in Oshawa, with the downsizing of the GM plant and recent announcement of 1,000 jobs set to be eliminated.

“They’re bleeding Oshawa Generals right now, it’s such a tough time in the economy,” said head coach DJ Smith. “For the little that this is worth, these people are following us and it gives them a little bit of enjoyment.”

For Mermis and Gens’ captain Josh Brown, who played their final games as junior hockey players, the win meant that much more to be able to bring a Memorial Cup home to Oshawa for the first time in 25 years.

“They’ve fallen on hard times and they’ve just been kind of watching us and it gives people hope in a sense,” Brown says. “So if we can be any small little piece of that, for me, bringing home the cup, just to see everyone at a parade or whatever we have going on, it would be an incredible feeling,” he said.

Any sense of impending job losses or gloom about the economy evaporated from the Colisée when Anthony Cirelli pounded in the overtime winner.

Generals fans burst to their feet, their seats slamming back into place behind them as their arms opened to the sky and their mouths opened to cheer.

Flags fluttered and once again, “go Gens go,” filled the rink.

“It means everything,” said Michael Dal Colle, speaking breathlessly during post-game celebrations. “The city is probably going through some tough times right now…this is awesome. I’m so happy to win it for the city.”

Off to the big leagues

That feeling of hope could fade for some Generals fans as they watch such star players as Brown, Mermis and Chris Carlisle take their leave from junior hockey.

Fans could also be forced to wave goodbye to Cole Cassels, Michael McCarron, Tobias Lindberg, Matt Mistele and Hunter Smith who could be off to their respective NHL draft teams.

For DJ, who claimed his third Memorial Cup win in Quebec, the previous two coming in back to back years with the Windsor Spitfires as assistant coach, this win was bittersweet. Tough goodbyes are ahead as the players DJ has coached since his arrival in 2012 will no longer sit behind the bench.

“It’s a say day that I’ll never coach these guys again,” he said. “But we’ll remember it as champions, that’s special.”

Assistant coach Eric Wellwood, who was brought on by DJ at the start of this year, views the moving on of the players in a different light.

“It’s why you coach. You want to mold them into NHL players and NHL teams want champions,” Wellwood said. “A lot of them are going to have long careers in hockey and that’s why you coach.”

The Gens’ lineup will certainly look different come next fall, but for fans worried about the loss of leadership, DJ says there will be young guys moving in to take their place. Young guys who have learned from the veterans and know the style of hockey DJ preaches, really works.

“That’s the good part about winning, people have seen that it works,” DJ says. “So the (Sam) Hardings, the (Mitchell) Vande Sompels and the Cirellis of the world, these guys that are coming back, they can carry it on and they know how to treat young guys and they know how to treat each other.”

That treatment is knowing that the team isn’t about the individual, but about the group, DJ says.

“I think everyone that’s here now, knows that there’s a certain element or standard that they have to abide by,” he says. “Which is off the ice, on the ice, how we play, how you conduct yourself, how you treat your teammates and I think when I first came here, there was some individual stuff and a lot of more about me and not about we, and I think now it’s become a team and that’s the biggest thing,” DJ says.

It will be a long summer for Generals fans as they await the start of preseason in the fall. For some, it may be a tough one as the layoffs at GM begin to roll out.

But if there’s one thing the Oshawa Generals want Oshawa to know, they won the Memorial Cup just as much for you, as they did for them.

A success that culminated with Josh Brown hoisting the Memorial Cup high above his head. As he did, the light caught the polished silver surface, casting a bright ray of hope from Quebec City to the GTA, and it isn’t white, it’s bright red.