Well well well what a finish to our 35th season here at Port Credit Oldtimers Hockey League. Our first game on Sunday featured our #1 seed Scotland and #4 seed Slovenia for the infamous ‘Kiss Your Sister’ game for Bronze. The Portuguese players asked whats the big deal about Kissing your Sister, it happens on the islands all the time!!! Ok then. Scotlands Dave Wodar scored the lone goal in the opening period. Scotland then jumped out to a 2-0 lead as the always happy Tony Carlisle scored. Slovenia got one back on the power play as the other always happy fella Murray Russell scored. With just under 6 minutes to go in the 2nd Slovenia’s Robin Chantaj tied up the KYS game at 2’s. Scotland jumped back on top early in the 3rd as league leading scorer Patty Sharp scores. Slovenians went back on the power play with 7 minutes to go and rookie sensation and new goal record man Chris Deware tied it up at 3’s. Crazy action at both ends of the pond and then some magic with 3 minutes to go as the Freeman boys playing on the same line scored the game winner, Peter from Tim and Bruce, that was a beauty!!!! Bruce who turns 77 this August and had open heart surgery in January playing with his boys scoring the game winner, price less. Lots of Brenda visitors with this one. Players of the Game went to Scotlands Vezina winning backstop Tomi Nieminen. Great shot with his son James who was way too happy putting on the Scotish hat. Over heard him asking his pops when can I join the league????

And for the Slovenians it goes to the Freeman boys, pops and sons!!

So here is one last look at both of our Kiss Your Sister Teams!

Ok now for our Gold medal game, big shoes to fill based on the excitement we just witnessed. #2 seed Italia and the red hot #5 seed Ireland were set for puck drop in our season finale for all the marbles. Thats a lot of verbal diahria. Italia’s fireplug energizer bunny Johnny Fasulo scored the lone goal in the 1st period. Italy took a 2-0 lead early in the 2nd as sophomore Jeff Boulton scores a beauty. At 9:53 of the 2nd Italy took a 3-0 lead off the wood of Rob McKean and this one looked possibly like an Italian blow out, almost the same as the national soccer team had against the North Macedonia for the World Cup qualifier, oh sorry about that. 8 seconds, thats right 8 seconds after Italy’s 3rd goal the Irish get on board with Mattie Goddard scoring. Italy took back their 3 goal lead at 4:55 as Jeff Boulton scores his 2nd of the night. But no quit in these little shamrocks as they score 3 times in the last 4 minutes of the 2nd tieing up the game at 4’s. Unbelievable Push!!! Dave Vincelli scores twice and Dave Skingley scores as well. Brand new game going into the final period. Ireland scores at 10:53 in the 3rd taking its first lead of the game as Brad Stoll buries it to much celebration on the Irish bench. The Italians tie it up at 8:24 as their trade deadline acquisition Rob McKean scores his 2nd of the night. The goalies Rispoli and McCallum shut the doors right down the rest of the way. With the final buzzer going off we are heading to a 5 minute sudden death overtime 3 on 3 battle. You can’t write this stuff in a movie. The fans were beside themselves, all 14 family members in attendance. And with a minute in and from a long way out Irelands Dave Vincelli completed his hat trick and scored his teams Cup winning goal, #5 seed Ireland wins, Ireland wins!!!!!! What a game. Player of the Game for Italy went to Jeff Boulton.

And for the Irish their hero #11 sophomore Dave Vincelli.

Dave also was an unanimous choice from the Exec for this years Conn Smythe winner for Playoff Most Valuable Player. 8 goals he scored which led all scorers and the OT winner so sweet. Congrats David!

A few more images for your one last look at our Gold medal game.

This image was pretty funny as well as Marcello’s credit card company did not believe he was ordering $300 worth of pizzas. Arruda was on the phone pretending to be Marcello and then between shifts Marcello had to go and get things cleared up. Why is Arruda always around for every scandal we have, things that make you go mmmmmm.

So another year in the books, 35th season actually and we hope you all had a good one. Post COVID and getting the best looking Oldtimer back was so sweet. He played the entire playoffs with a torn hamstring but really? I think he tore it at Dixie and Dundas waving the I LOVE TRUDEAU flag every day????? Joeeeeee!!! And a shout out to his beautiful girlfriend who was our number one fan. Al do not say anything, be nice!!

We are also very excited to honour our latest member to be inducted into our PCOHL Hall of Fame as he just completed his 20th campaign. A big congrats to Mr. Robin Chantaj going the Hall of Fame with his older brother Ronnie. Robin just won his 4th Norris trophy this year as our Best Defenseman and has been a stand up and stand out member of our league for 20 seasons. Congrats Big Guy, I had to use the Polish sweater for your induction hahahaha.

And one last look at this years Schlepp Champions Portugal!!!!!!

Want to send out a big thank you to Brenda and our referees this year for a great job. Flumerfelt who set up the horn and music on Championship Day was so very cool I think we need that every Friday night. All the arena staff for putting up with us and being flexible on clean up every week as hockey is fun and good but its all about the rooms. Thanks to Plewsie for selling tickets for our draws and super bowl squares. Spence for heading up the Holiday Food drive. Thanks to Bryon Wright on finding those extra cooler bags, funny story. A big thank you to Gary Julius for donating the PCOHL mats to all 75 members. Thank you to all the EXEC for their unselfish work all season and most importantly to all of our members or as Julius says our Brotherhood. I will be working on updating this seasons stats into our career stats in the next month so you can check back sometime and see that. And am assuming everybody who wants to return next season has sent in their apps to Rukavina and $50 deposits to Guerra. Have an awesome summer, stay safe and healthy and see you all back on the ice in September lads!! Cheers!!