A team clad in Shawville Pontiacs sweaters hit the ice for the first time in a decade as the new senior team made its season debut in Manotick, losing a 9-3 decision to the hometown Mariners.
The Shawville Pontiacs Junior B team played for nearly three decades before folding in 2015 in a league-wide cut. Since then, no high-level team has laced up in Shawville, until last year when the town hosted several Pontiac Senior Comets home games while the Fort-Coulonge arena awaited repairs.
After seeing the positive response from the Shawville community, owner and head coach Darcy Findlay saw an opportunity to buy the team and relocate it to his hometown, re-branding it with the familiar Pontiacs name.
Since announcing the purchase in mid-August, Findlay has been busy finalizing the team roster, organizing tryouts, and coordinating with league officials – six weeks of work that came to a head when the team travelled to Manotick on Saturday night for its much-anticipated first game of the season in the newly branded NPHL (Northern Premier Hockey League).
The team fought hard against an experienced Manotick squad that Findlay said boasts substantial ex-pro talent, including professional players in the NHL and in Europe. The Pontiacs kept pace with the experienced team, attempting 15 shots to the home team’s 20 in the first period and trailing only 2-1 at the frame’s end.
The second period saw the Mariners open the floodgates with five goals in the first six minutes, forcing Findlay to pull veteran goalie Danick Boisvert. Replacement Marc-Antoine Plouffe allowed only three goals on 25 shots, but the deficit was steep. The Pontiacs managed only two goals in the third period, losing by a final score of 9-3.
Findlay said despite the loss the team remains optimistic as his roster is quite young compared to the Mariners, who he said fielded what may have been their best players for the game.
“We started extremely strong, our guys did a great job in the first period, the shots were very close. We missed some opportunities, we gave them a couple of powerplays, which killed our momentum,” he said.
Findlay said his team stuck with the league runners-up for the first and third periods, keeping shot counts close while managing to net a few themselves. He said these are positive points he wants the team to take with them as they begin this season.
“We realized that we could push the pace with the top teams in the league. Whenever we played the right way, whenever we played fast, we took it to them,” he said.
Steve Beck, who played with the Shawville Junior B team in the late 90s and early 2000s, donned the Pontiacs colours for the first time on Saturday after making a push to play for his hometown team once again. He said the fast pace of senior hockey is a far cry from the rec hockey he’d been playing for the past 25 years.
“It was a huge adjustment just to get used to playing body contact again, but also the speed adjustment was a little bit faster than the beer league I’d been playing,” he said, adding that to be able to don the jersey again was “awesome.”
He said the hard work Findlay and others have put in have resulted in a great opportunity not only for the players, but also for the fans and the kids of the community, to see high-level hockey close to home.
“I’m super happy that Darcy was willing to put the commitment forward and take this on [ . . . ] There’s young kids within the community that are off playing high-level hockey in the city, and I’d like to see the team be around for them to eventually be part of the roster.”
Findlay, who is foregoing his stint as a player this season to focus on the management side of things, said that was one of his goals – to see the Pontiacs name return to the Shawville barn, right where it belongs.
“Everybody understood what hockey meant to this town for many, many years, and it was sad to see it go. But it’s very exciting and rewarding for me to see it come back.”
The Pontiacs’ home opener is this Friday, Oct. 10, when the Pontiacs take on the Arnprior Rivermen. Puck drop is at 7:45 p.m. Tickets are on sale online and are also available at the front gate.
