Beyond The Buck: "The Holy S*** Moment"

The Pickering Panthers have won the Buckland Cup and are headed to Estevan Saskatchewan to play for a National Championship.

The Panthers are pleasantly surprised at how good they actually are compared to the other JR. A champions from other leagues.

In this episode Pickering played their first 2 games against the Red Lake Miners and the host Estevan Bruins.

A new voice joins the show, Ethan Lindsay along with Cael Cavallin, Matthew Altomare, Ryan Johnstone and host Thomas West.

Transcript

Ryan Johnstone 0:00

Like, that's a game winning championship goal. I mean, obviously scoring your first goal in the AJ and first goal in the BC is pretty exciting, but it's kind of like winning a championship from for your hometown junior A team.

Thomas West 0:52

So they're champions of the OJHL, which means that now they head on to the national championship where all the teams from all the other junior A leagues play to see who becomes the Centennial Cup champion. Now, Ryan Johnstone was the Game 7 hero scored with 37.7 seconds left on the clock, and the Panthers ended up winning the Buckland Cup, and what a story that was. But just to give you some perspective on what this team was actually made up of, you had players who were playing their last season in the OJHL, playing their last season in junior hockey, which had been such a ride. And then you also had players like Ryan Johnstone, which he was just starting out his career. He had never played junior A at all before this season. And Ryan Johnstone, he was just a kid that was trying to get through all his classes in high school. Listen to this story.

Ryan Johnstone 1:48

Like that was that was a special moment, and it's it's still the most special moment of my hockey career.

Thomas West 1:54

So now, all of a sudden you get celebration's over. Uh you've just won the Buckland Cup. Who would have thought young Ryan Johnstone, who just came to the team, would win an OJHL championship with his first taste of the OJHL, and you're getting on a plane in the next two days to go to Esteban, Saskatchewan. Like, did did you ever take a moment, you know, on that off day before we got on the plane? I don't even know if we had an off day before we got on the plane the next day and think like, oh my god, like what am I doing here?

Ryan Johnstone 2:22

Yeah. So we won the Sunday night. The Monday. I I was still in high school. I went to high school that day on the Monday, and my one teacher, who was my afternoon teacher, uh Mr. D and was my business teacher, and he knew about me leaving school early sometimes, leaving class early to go practice with the Panthers, and he was he was totally fine with that because I was keeping up with my schoolwork. But when I got to school on Monday, and I dropped the bomb on my teachers, saying, Hey, um, I won't be here for two the next two weeks. Um, I played in a game last night where we won the championship and now we're going to nationals. So I need the schoolwork that we're gonna do for the next two weeks sent to me so I can keep up with class. And all my teachers were just when they kind of just opened their eyes and went, holy cow, like, congrats. Just make sure you stay on top of your school.

Thomas West 3:21

Okay.

Ryan Johnstone 3:22

So that's all that was going through my mind in that day off was holy cow, won a championship. Holy cow, I'm gonna be missing school for two weeks, playing in the championships. I gotta get all my classwork figured out, and then all of a sudden it was like the next day I'm on a plane going out to Estevan. It was just a huge blur.

Thomas West 3:52

Well, one of the very important players that we haven't talked to yet in present day has been Ethan Lindsay, who was the heart and soul of the Pickering Panthers. And you remember, he was a big part of why the Pickering Panthers got to this point. When they swept the Milton Menace, it was on the back of two big goals by Ethan Lindsay that propelled them to the series sweep. That was a big defining moment for Ethan Lindsay in the playoffs series, but it wasn't his legacy that he left to Pickering. He was a leader. And he was a Pickering Panther through and through. Lindsay's first season with Pickering came back in the 2018-19 campaign, when he AP'd for the team. Then in 2019-2022, he got his first goal as a Pickering Panther, played 45 games that season, and played all the way through the Pickering Panthers Buckland Cup run, and then even the next season in 22-23. And just to magnify the impact that Ethan Lindsay had, I you know, I just remember for myself personally, Lindsay got traded to the Aurora Tigers after the Panthers season in 22-23. And I I remember that being a tough one for me. I I w when I saw that message that Ethan Lindsay had been traded, that was a tough one because he was a fan favorite of both myself and and a lot of people in the Pickering Panthers organization. Well, Ethan Lindsay has been listening along for the first five episodes and experiencing all the emotions of this Buckland Cup run, just like you and I. And I got a chance to chat with Ethan Lindsay as he joins Beyond the Buck.

Ethan Linday 5:31

Oh man, like, you know what? One moment in particular, when you were talking about the uh the Buckland Cup at Game 7, all like when I was listening, like my palms started sweating. I started getting a pit in my stomach, like I was so nervous, even though I knew the outcome. But it's I just remember how special that team was, and you know, that that run was just unbelievable, and you know, obviously a lifelong memory for all of us. It's all very it's all very key in our hearts for the rest of our careers and for the rest of our lives. But I think the one thing I just remember from that is resilience. Like the amount of games that we went down one, like we lost we were we got the goals scored on us first. We always had to climb back and always made it a little hard on ourselves, but you know, at the end of the day, we got the job done, so I just nice move resilience.

Thomas West (Commentary) 6:13

Trying to play it out in front of the net. Elects not to. who cycles it to Lucas LaPalm, who's there comfortably, and it goes in! Ethan Lindsay from a sharp angle, and the Pickering Panthers take the lead. Ethan Lindsay out of nowhere.

Ethan Lindsay 6:34

Uh, there's no words really. You know, this is what we worked for since the beginning, and you know, it's crazy feeling I've never been part of a team like this before, so it's pretty special. You know, we got a really tight group of guys in the locker room, and I don't know, honestly, we deserve this and we work really hard, so we're pumping with a buck.

Thomas West 6:48

Little did you know what was about to happen next in the next series because that was not as easy. You had swept every team, and then you came in and you played the Toronto Junior Canadiens. Like, was that the moment where you guys knew if we do anything but win the Buckland Cup, like that this would be a disappointment?

Ethan Linday 7:06

Um, I think well, I think honestly, like one thing about our team is that we split like the year into like little goals, right? I think I remember you talking about that. Like, we we split like, hey, let's get the let's get the point record, and then let's like okay, let's finish first. Let's try to get Hallmice advantage, right? And then honestly, we just took it series by series. Like, obviously, the ultimate goal at the end of the day was to win and be the ultimate like be get the buck. Um so I think we had that belief anyway, of like even I I remember party like a partridge um after that stone ball game, that crazy game in round one, where we won in game three. I remember him like we got off the ice and I like our door was locked for whatever reason, where we couldn't get in the locker. And all I remember's party being like, dude, we're we're gonna win, we're gonna win this year. And then uh I think that was just anything on the cake that game three was like, okay, like now we're actually playing for it. Like, okay, we've accomplished all like these little mini goals that we want to do to get to the ultimate goal. So I think that was always there. But I think maybe the reason why that was the first time you heard us say it is because like we we were just so hyper focused on like those mini goals of winning each series, and then obviously our goals are in the year. So like that was when it became really like holy I can't say that word. Holy jeez, we're going to the buck. Like it's crazy.

Thomas West 8:17

So uh yeah. Yeah, it's okay. Cavi already made me do lots of editing.

Ethan Linday 8:21

Oh, okay, okay. Holy shit, we're going to the buck.

Thomas West 8:41

So this is the point in the story where the original Beyond the Buck actually started. Specifically at 6 52 a.m., May 17th, 2022, at the Pickering Recreation Complex. This was the first iPhone video that I started taking. Now, okay, here's the backstory. So, I had no idea that I was gonna go to Estevan, Saskatchewan with the team until I think it was until sometime in the JRC series, in the series against the Toronto Junior Canadians. Scotty Nicholson told me, he said, hey, we have some roster spots available for staff that, you know, if you want to come and run the social media as a volunteer, you can come to Esteban, Saskatchewan with us. So, you know, I remember I I do a couple other teams. I think the the Toronto Maple League's baseball team, who I also call games for uh in the Intercounty Baseball League, as it was called at the time, they were starting up their season, so I was definitely a bit conflicted thinking, oh man, you know, I I might I might miss the beginning of this season. Obviously, I still had lots of things to do. It's it's kind of hard as someone in sport media just to drop everything for two weeks. But I also thought in the middle of that JRC series, it's like, man, it's a win-win. No way we actually win the Buckland Cup, right? So I was like, yeah, sure, I'll I'll 100% do it. That would be an experience of a lifetime. And it was. Like, it absolutely was. There's no way this podcast is happening if I didn't end up going on that trip. But lo and behold, we won. And now we're heading out to Estevent, Saskatchewan. So I think I went home, I I got you know whatever ID or passport I needed to get on the plane, and we were off to Estevent. So we arrive at the arena at 6 52 a.m. and it was funny. If you look around, maybe some of the overagers like Matthew Walter, he might have been looking a little bit tired coming into the RIC, but the there was a there was a high chipper attitude in the air. Everyone got on the bus. Uh we were riding the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League. We rode their bus to the airport, then we got to Pearson Airport, and we boarded our flight to head off to Esteban. And one thing, I'm actually just flipping through some of the videos that I took on that day, and I'm gonna be doing that throughout uh the remainder of this podcast, because I actually have video footage because I was filming everything uh throughout the whole run in the national championship. And I'm flipping through, and it's funny because when we get into the airport, COVID-19 was had just I mean, it was still very much a thing, but it was the season prior that had cut it that had shut everything down. So everyone was wearing a mask, and I totally forgot about that. So everyone walks off the bus, they're all wearing the Pickering Panther mask, and you walk on the plane, and obviously the rules were very strict for that, and everyone gets on the plane, and then I'm scrolling through here. I think it was just after noon that we landed uh in Esteban, Saskatchewan, and we headed over to the rink. Alright, let's get into the national championship. Uh you know, this was this was such a cool experience for everyone. You know, I remember you guys walked into that rink at Affinity Place, and everyone was looking around, especially guys who didn't play major junior hockey like yourself and so many other players uh on on the team. Uh you guys must have been thinking, like, man, like we made it. This is this is really cool.

Cael Cavallin 12:12

Yeah, I don't think it I guess for myself. I was not expecting like when you're like, okay, we're going to Estevan Skatchon and then you get to Estevan Sketchwan. You're not expecting to walk into that arena and see that kind of facility. Like we're like actually about to have a chance to play for the national title on TSN. Like obviously there's a lot of work to be done before that moment, but like there's a there's a possibility that like we're playing here in front of like at that point we're like we can be playing here against Estevan in the finals in front of like an absolutely packed arena on TSN for a chance to win a national title. So I always think it's a very surreal surreal moment.

Thomas West 13:03

Yeah, the Estevan Bruins were the home team and they had a gorgeous facility. So it was called Affinity Place. That was the home rank that they played at, and that was the host venue for the Centennial Cup. And there were a lot of players that were kind of in awe when they walked into that rink. I mean, take Lucas LaPom, for example. I I spoke to him right afterwards.

Lucas Lapalm 13:27

You know, you never know what to expect walking into a new rink, but um it um it met the standards of a national championship, is all I have to say about that.

Thomas West 13:36

And for a lot of these players, this was a major junior rink, and there weren't a lot of players that had played major junior hockey. I mean, it it looked like an OHL or a WHL or a QMJHL facility.

Owen Brady 13:49

Um it's gonna be again, it's gonna be super cool to play in in that rink. Um we went there today before we came to the hotel. Um it's pretty cool. It's um yeah, it's it's it's one of the coolest rings I've ever seen for sure.

Thomas West 14:03

So with all the excitement and the spectacular rink, it didn't leave the Pickering Panthers much time to get ready. In just two days' time, they would play their first game of the national championship against the Red Lake Miners.

Ethan Linday 14:16

I'd say the next morning, like when we're kind of getting our plane tickets sorted, all of our stuff. It was like, okay, like we're gonna play for Natty, like we can go win some, we can win more. That's kind of what it was. And we were red hot, so we were like, let's bang it, like let's go. Like we had so much confidence in our room, like going over there. Like, we're coming off fresh. We only we we we played two days ago for like the biggest game of our careers at that point. And uh, you know, there's some teams like we were off for a month, so we already felt like we had an advantage. So I'd say like the day that we were, the day after the championship, um, when we were flying, I was like, okay, here we go. Let's get back to work. Let's go win a natty. Like, we we we went there with all intention of winning. Like, we were like, we can win it.

Thomas West 14:59

And that was a huge factor that Ethan Lindsay brought up. The Pickering Panthers were one of the few teams that had actually played a hockey game together in the last month. There were teams like the Red Lake minors who the Pickering Panthers were about to face, who won the championship in their respective junior A League, but that was over a month ago. This was my interview with Ian Martin before the Panthers' first game.

Thomas West (Commentary) 15:23

Okay, Ian, first game here in Esteban, what are your expectations coming into this one?

Ian Martin 15:28

You know, like we haven't really seen that many other teams. You know, I think if we come in here, we play our game, um, especially against Red Lake, you know, we got the speed, you know, we got the possession, and I think if we come out with the same game plan we had against JRC, then we'll do just fine.

Thomas West (Commentary) 15:46

What do you expect from this team and a different league team team?

Ian Martin 15:49

Yeah, we'll watch any number. They're big boys, but um, I think that might benefit us. We're a fast team, we're a speedy team, and I think if we uh rebring our speed today, I think we'll be fine.

Thomas West 15:58

And this is how Pickering's first game went against Red Lake. First period, Lucas LaPom scores three minutes, that makes it one nothing. Then Elijah Pilisov tacks on a goal three minutes later. Immediately, Red Lake makes a goaltending change. They switch things up. Then Dustin Hutton scores. Then Red Lake comes back with one, then Pickle scores, Ian Martin scores, and after the first period, it was 5-2 Pickering Panthers. By the end of the game, the Panthers had won their first game of the national championship 9-2. It wasn't even close. Were you expecting to be I don't know if you thought this way, but were you expecting to be that much better than some of the teams that were in that tournament?

Ethan Linday 16:43

I don't want to be negative to other leagues, but like there were some teams where, okay, like we're gonna make a statement. And uh, you know, obviously we had Red Lake, they're in the SI, they're pretty up pretty far up north. Um I'd say I didn't think we were gonna be like like I didn't think there was gonna be those kind of margins. Um I would say we had a lot of confidence, but I didn't think it was gonna be like OGs, like that that much, like that many, that that much goal differential.

Eli Pilosoph 17:08

Yeah, I mean, we just came off uh OJ Championship game, so we've had a long playoff run and a few days off, so it's it's nice to come here and kind of build off that.

Thomas West 17:20

That was the voice of assistant captain Eli Pilisov, who had added one of the many goals that the Pickering scored in that game. So the Panthers had a couple traditions that they would do after wins or whatever it was, and we'll get into some of those as we go along. But one of them I thought was really cool. So they had this wooden red pea that had a bunch of slots in it. In fact, there were sixteen holes, all the exact size to fit a puck. So after every win the Panthers had in the playoffs, they would get the game puck, Rob Pearson would give it to one of the players that he chose from the game, and the player would punch the puck into the slot in the P. So as of now, before this game, the Panthers had 11 of them to represent the wins that they needed to win the Buckland Cup. And there were still five empty slots that they needed to fill to win a national championship. So when the Panthers won their first game against Red Lake, Rob Pearson threw the game puck to Ian Martin, who slammed it into the wooden pee that the Panthers had hanging on the wall in their locker room.

Rob Pearson 18:38

Hey, everybody up, let's go!

Thomas West 18:40

Another one of the more silly traditions they had on this trip, and this one was wild. So there was something, and I'll be honest, I probably am telling this story a little bit incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure what it was where every time we went to a restaurant, someone would go and try and put some butter on someone's shoe. And bear with me here. If you got butter on your shoe, it meant that you had to stand up in front of the entire restaurant that we were at and sing karaoke. So th this happened almost every single time we went out for dinner, lunch, breakfast, anything. So I'm very sorry, Scotty Nicholson, but I'm playing yours first here. Because this was this was one of the more ruthless ones. So Scotty and I are sitting down at a really nice dinner that Richard Pilasoff, the Panthers owner, had had bought for everybody. And in the video that I'm looking at right now, there's Richard Pilisov, there's Marty Savoy, the commissioner of the Ontario Junior Hockey League, Rob Pearson and Rico Sirizotti. So a big cast of characters all in this video, in including the entire restaurant. And Scottie Nicholson stands up and just bells out Don't Stop Believin, and it was it was glorious.

Rob Pearson 19:57

Woo! Oh my god.

Matthew Altomare 20:22

The rink is beautiful, but when you go to Saskatchewan and you you were there too, there's not much to do otherwise. I remember sitting there, I'm like, okay, we're done the game or whatever. Um beautiful rink. We can walk around the rink, but we've already done that. What else can we do? And um not not a whole lot not a whole lot, but uh it was there was still some good bonding moments throughout the throughout the thing. We played some cards and stuff throughout the hotel and we're together. Uh Jen, Jen, uh our trainer, wake us up early in the morning for uh morning walks. I know a lot of our uh guys like myself and the older guys were like, no, no, no. We're gonna sleep in today, Jen. We don't need to go for our morning walk over here. It's okay. Like, I'll walk in my sleep. How about that? But uh she she ended up kicking her doors down and going for the morning walk. Which they did help. Uh you know, you gotta get up and get the the body moving and stuff like that. But uh yeah, Esteban. Esteban were great hosts. It was a good organized tournament.

Thomas West 21:22

So, look, regardless of the circumstances, the Pickering Panthers definitely felt the enormity of the situation that they were in, a chance to win a national championship, and absolutely no one took that for granted. But they also found ways to entertain themselves, and at this point, this team was just so well bonded together. They had been through so much together to get to this point, and they had a lot of fun when they weren't on the ice. So the Panthers were 1-0, and before we get too much further, I think we should describe how this tournament works. So there were 10 teams: teams from Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, and just like in the OGAHL, remember how the Toronto Junior Canadians and Pickering Panthers were going back and forth all year to see who was gonna be the one seed? Well, that was an even bigger deal in the Centennial Cup, because whoever won the one seed in their group would get a bye to the next round. And after the Panthers beat the Red Lake Miners 9-2 in their first game, they were pretty confident, and all of a sudden they were looking at the schedule and thinking they should be the team that would be the one seed. So that became the goal. Another one of the mini goals that the Pickering Panthers had all season long. Pickering's group consisted of Red Lake, Estevan, College Francais de Longuille, themselves, and the Brooks Bandits. And Pickering knew that it was gonna come down to them or the Brooks Bandits. That's what they thought at the time. So that was group A. And group B, they had the Dauphin Kings, the Summerside Western Capitals, the Flynn Flon Bombers, the Ottawa Junior Senators, and the Sioux Thunderbirds. And when the round robin ended, teams would cross over and play teams from the other group.

Lucas Lapalm 23:12

Hey Lucas LaPom. Hey man, why are you in such a good mood? I mean, playing the hometown team? No better reason why not to be.

Thomas West 23:21

If you're gonna win tonight. The next game for the Pickering Panthers was big. As you heard Lucas LaPom say there, it was the hometown team, the Estevan Bruins, playing in that spectacular barn that we had talked about earlier. And look, on paper, the Panthers knew that they had a much better team than Estevan. But there were some factors to contend with. Estevan was the hometown team, the fans in Estevan loved the Bruins. I mean, you would go around the city, every restaurant you'd look at, they'd have Estevan Bruins flags up in the window, you'd see trucks pulling around with Estevan Bruins license plates and flags coming out of their windows. There was a lot of hype around this town, and the Estevan Bruins, being the hometown team, they fed off that. Now you might be wondering as well, they were the hosts, so they had an automatic buy to play in the national championship. They were not just there because they were the hosts. They actually won the SIJHL up against the Flynn Flon Bombers, which meant the two teams that went to the finals in the SAJHL were both going to the national championship no matter what. But they were also champions of their respectively. They were SIJHL champions. And the Esteban Bruins took it right to the Pickering Panthers. They scored the first goal of the hockey game and came out of the first period leading 3-2. And the second period didn't solve a lot for the Panthers either. After two periods of play, this game was tied 5-5, and the Panthers had just 20 minutes to try and sort things out and get their second win of the preliminary round. Next episode will continue the Panthers' journey on their quest for the Centennial Cup in Estevan, Saskatchewan, and of course give you the conclusion of this wild game between the Pickering Panthers and Estevan Bruins. Also, if you want, there is a video version of this podcast as well. So we kind of talked about this at the beginning of the episode, but Beyond the Buck was originally a video series that I started when I got invited to go out to Estevan, Saskatchewan, with the Pickering Panthers on this run. So the original Beyond the Buck, that actually started right when you're listening to this podcast in May 2022. But I will say it is very brief. At the time we were working with two-minute episodes, so we could post them on Instagram and Twitter as well at the time. So there are very abbreviated versions of what happened. But if you are interested in kind of seeing some of the sights and sounds and getting a visual on what everything looked like in Esteban, Saskatchewan, you can go over to the Pickering Panthers YouTube channel. That's where I originally started this series, and uh you'll see some familiar faces and some you'll hear some familiar voices that you've heard in this episode as well. So thanks so much for tuning in and we'll see you in episode seven.