Beyond The Buck: "Do it for the OAs"

On this episode the Panthers face their toughest test yet. A game against the best team in the country the Brooks Bandits. 

After a key overage player was suspended Pickering plays a do or die game vs Flin Flon in the quarterfinals. The players know that any loss now would mean the end of eight of their teammates careers.

Cael Cavallin, Ethan Lindsay, Matthew Altomare and Ryan Johnstone help tell the story.

The episode is hosted by Thomas West

Transcript

Thomas West 0:02

I don't know if a lot of people could have predicted this. The Esteban Bruins, the heavy underdogs, have kept pace with the high-flying offense of the Pictoring Panthers. We are tied 5-5 after two periods of play. And the Bruins with their backs against the wall, this will be a massive third period coming up for them. Yeah, those fans in that bar tonight, they're probably not gonna be on your side. Is that something that worries you guys don't?

SPEAKER_11 0:29

Uh no, you know we've been dealing with big crowds all year long, especially in the postseason. Uh you know, Collingwood's got some big crowds, Milton, so it's not something we're not sorry, not something we're not familiar with, so I think it will be good and ready to go. You know, I think we just gotta play Thrippy Panthers hockey. You know, we're a team that we play the way we can play. I think that there's nobody in this country that can beat us. Um we just gotta stick to it.

Thomas West 0:51

Well, thanks for tuning in to Beyond the Buck. This is episode seven, and as promised, we have the conclusion of this game between Pickering and Esteban. So, third period we go now, game tide five-five. And I'll be honest, the Estevan Bruins were big, big underdogs in this game against the Pickering Panthers. But they had the home crowd behind them, and this was something the Panthers were talking about since the start of the tournament. They had this game marked as a game they wanted to win, and it wasn't really going the way they thought it would. They were much better than the Estevan Bruins, but Estevan was playing the game of their life. They had the home crowd behind them, and they were feeding off it. Well, in the third period, Pickering put that to bed. A minute in, Jacob Partridge scored to make it 6-5, and the Panthers never looked back. Ian Martin scored a couple minutes later, and then they really put the game away late with three goals in the final five minutes of the third period. They scored five times on eleven shots in the third. They absolutely got down to business against the Bruins and closed things out for their second win. Now, of note in this game, Dustin Hutton had scored two goals in the first two periods, and this was something that he had talked about a little bit, but he talked about it after the game as well. Even though Dustin Hutton had had this career playing in major junior hockey and was such a good player this season for the Pickering Panthers, he had never scored a hat-trick in his junior career. Well, with three minutes to go, Hutton scored on the power play. Tomlson and Pilisau picked up the assists, and Dustin Hutton got his first career hat-trick in junior hockey.

SPEAKER_07 2:32

Dustin, you got a hat-trick tonight. You got the last one late. Tell me about the adrenaline you're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

That's one of the better feelings I've had in junior hockey. Yeah, that's my first and only, so uh, I'm pretty happy, and I'm pretty happy it's with this group of guys.

SPEAKER_07 2:44

Can you take us inside the locker room real quick as well? How excited are these guys to come back to third grade like that?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Oh, the boys are always pumped to get a big dub like that. I think uh you made him knock them out, so it helps us with the seating, so I uh you know we're happy today.

Thomas West 2:57

And inside the locker room we will go. That was the voice of Dustin Hutton there. We'll walk you down the tunnel. The players were singing the Esteban Bruins goal song as they came off the ice. And then we got into the locker room, and there's a funny moment that you're about to hear in the locker room. So, you know about the tradition where the Panthers slammed the puck into the red pee to represent the number of wins they need to get to a national championship. But there were two pucks to give out. One was to Dustin Hutton for his milestone, the other was gonna go to Brett Henderson to put in the red pee. But Rob Pearson throws the milestone puck to Dustin Hutton, he immediately gets up to try and slam it into the wooden pee, and Rob says, What are you doing? That's your milestone, that's your first hat-trick puck. Win or lose. And most of the time, assistant equipment manager Luke Whiteside was the one right in the middle, and the players really rallied around him. And of course, he was the one who ended up singing karaoke after getting butter on his shoe in the dinner after the game.

SPEAKER_07 5:40

Overtime winner, the current answer, college calls played a long deal at our three-o in the preliminary round of a 19-off.

Ethan Linday 5:50

I think we again, like we were pretty like, I don't want to say cocky, but we were very confident in ourselves. Yeah. So like we knew. We knew we had the ability to win. Like we knew. Um I mean you called it the no respect to her. Yeah, exactly. So that pretty much tells you all about our kind of vibe in the room and our vibe with our team. Uh but again, like, we kinda always I think we always had the mindset of underdog. Like, again, we had that no respect for it. Like, you know, nobody believes in us, fine, we'll show you. So I think we kind of carried that into nationals, right? So I think uh we just again, we were battle hardened and we're like, we just want to prove everybody wrong. So I'd say, like, yeah, we had that confidence that we could beat everybody.

Thomas West 6:29

The Pickering Panthers were 3-0 in the prelims, the Brooks Bandits were 3-0 in the prelims, and these two teams were going to play each other on their final game to determine who was the one seed. And before this game against the Brooks Bandits, there was a growing confidence inside the Pickering Panthers locker room that they were the best team. But on paper, there's no question it was the Brooks Bandits. So I think we should give you some context on exactly why Brooks of the AJHL was such a good team. There was a rule in the 21-22 season in junior hockey where if you played major junior, like teams in the OHL, the WHL, and the QMJHL, you were not allowed to go play Division I college hockey in the US because these D1 NCAA schools claimed that major junior in Canada was actually professional hockey because players would get a certain stipend per week in the OHL, the WHL, and the QMJHL. That's now been disputed, but back in the day that's the way it was. So, teams like the Brooks Bandits would try to become these superpowered Division I feeder teams, and Brooks had done it better than anybody else in junior A hockey at the time. In fact, all but I think two or three players on this team had already committed to play Division I hockey the next year. That is a crazy thing that nobody else in junior A hockey, any team, could say that they had. The OJHL was not a bad league if you wanted to go play Division I. The AJHL, not bad either, but the one team the Brooks Banner's had found the secret formula to getting players to go play NCAA Division I. So all the best players went to the Brooks Banner's and they kind of created a super team. They had players like Ryan McAllister, who had 139 points in 60 games in the AJHL regular season, TJ Hughes, who had 127 points, Zach Bookman, who was a defenseman who had two points per game the entire season. It was ridiculous. And they even had players that got drafted in the National Hockey League, which is almost unheard of in junior A hockey. Aidan Fink was a draft pick of the Nashville Predators. They even had a guy by the name of Harrison Brunick who got drafted and eventually played in the NHL for the Pittsburgh Penguins. I will admit he only played one game, but that does give you some context on just the caliber of players that the Pickering Panthers were up against. For most of these players, this was the stiffest competition they had ever faced in their junior career. And I don't think I can even build this one up as something because what happened in this game was exactly what all the outsiders thought was gonna happen. The Pickering Panthers got crushed. The aforementioned TJ Hughes, Zach Bookman, and Ryan McAllister all got four points, and a lot of that came on the power play. The Pickering Panthers did the one thing that they really didn't want to do coming into the game. They took penalties. The Brooks Bandits had 10 power plays. Pickering racked up 61 penalty minutes, and the bandits went six for ten on the man advantage.

Ethan Linday 9:49

Well, I remember we were shorthanded a lot of that game. Like we were very like, I think we were killing, like, I think half of the game. Like we were on the PK. And Brooks, the thing about Brooks, and we obviously we'll probably talk about this later, but they had a lot of skill. They were some of the best players, like TJ Hughes, McAll uh uh McAllister, Aiden Fink, like all these guys who are D1 now and NHL guys. Um so I think where we ran into trouble was is we thought we were just as skilled as them, and like call us fate of spade, like we weren't. We just simply weren't. They were gift very, very good hockey players and a very well-coached team. So and I think peers later on said that we tried to play at their level, we tried to play their game. And they just they just beat us at their own game. Like you're not gonna beat them at their own game. Yeah, I just remember like they're passing, they're shooting, and it was like, this is this is pretty this is pretty lost. Like, this is some good hockey. Um but again, I think we were killing a lot of that game, and it was it's tough to get momentum when you're killing the entire time. Um and then obviously Bing Bang Boom and they got nine goals on us, so that was definitely an eye-opener for us and it humbled us, I think, and kind of made us realize like what we had to do to beat them and try to beat them.

Thomas West 10:55

Yeah. I know there was also part of this too, because you know, once you got into the elimination games, there was kind of an aspect where you got a whole bunch of overragers on your team, and if you lose, it's their last game. So if you remember in that game, Ian Martin actually got suspended for a game for a hit to the head. Like do you remember seeing that and kind of like thinking, man, like how could this get any worse for us after the loss, and then you lose maybe your best player as well?

Ethan Linday 11:25

Yeah, well, that was definitely uh I got fun to lose Marty because Marty was probably one of our best players, if not the best player in playoffs, and that's unbelievable. Um again, I think we did a pretty good job at just kind of forgetting about it, but like just moving on and being like, okay, it happened, like there's nothing we can do about it. I remember right after the game we went work out. I think we had a day off the next day too, so that was nice just to kind of calm the nerves.

Thomas West 11:49

So that was a gut punch for the Pickering Panthers. Ian Martin getting suspended in a game that the Panthers lost 9-1. But it kind of reaffirmed that there were two goals for the Pickering Panthers. One, to win the Centennial Cup, and two, the eight overagers that were on the team at the time. Every player wanted to make sure that they played every single last game in their junior hockey career. And the first one came against the Flynn Flawn Bombers in the quarterfinals.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Merci A to Smith, he shoots a bade rebound, they score. Jacob Vaukler has another power play goal. A big rebound came out right to Vaukler, and he was able to deposit it into the empty net. The bombers have the icebreaker. Point back for Vockler. Vauchler down low. Kuzma, they score, it got in. Yeah, Vockler, I think, is gonna get credit. He just put it on goal, it went off a stick, and it beat Roy, and it's a 2-0 bomber.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

And Drew Kuzma is just such a factor in front of the net, six foot six, and that went off of Tomlson, and Roy couldn't see anything because the planet, known as Drew Kuzma, was right in his way, and just a good bounce there for Flenslaw, not a good one for Roy.

Thomas West 13:14

This was a disastrous start for the Pickering Panthers, losing 2-0 in the quarterfinals to a team that before this tournament had lost a playoff series to the Esteban Bruins, who were a team that the Pickering Panthers handled 10-5 in the preliminary round. Pickering was heavy favorites in this game, but things were not going their way. That second goal was a pass that had deflected off the stick of Brendan Tomlison and found its way into the back of the Pickering Panthers' net, and it just felt like the hockey gods were not on their side. But luckily, Matthew Altamar had his fingerprints all over this game. And he did something that I'm not sure Matthew Altamar did the entire regular season. Remember how Matthew described himself as a defensive defenseman? Well, the Pickering Panthers were killing a penalty, and Altamar decides to go in on the fore-check. There were three Pickering Panthers below the goal line on the penalty kill. That's the offensive goal line.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Hutton tried to barge his way through Cal Shell. Oh, look out! A pass in front! And they score! It's a short-handed goal, and that's a tough one to give up for the bombers, Jamie. It looked like they were just disorganized in their own zone. We saw the rush coming. The Z parted in the middle of the ice, and then they got in, and there was no coverage in front of the net. It's a short-handed goal with just a minute 12 left in the period.

Thomas West 14:37

And when that goal went in, Kale Kavlin was the lone defenseman that was hanging back watching the three four checkers in on the penalty kill, and he recounts what was going through his mind before that putt crossed the goal line.

Cael Cavallin 14:49

I was I was sitting there like, where are you going? Because we were on the penalty kill, and I was like, Where are you going? Why where are you going? That's what I was thinking. I was like, oh my god, there's four people. There's four red shirts beside me, and there's three blue shirts. Behind the red line behind their net. That's what I was thinking at the time.

Matthew Altomare 15:08

Well, I was somehow in the corner when uh Hutz score. Or was it yeah, it was Hutz. When I go into the corner, I checked the defenseman number 22. Uh he was MVP defense of the tournament, right? I checked him off the puck, and I watch it back now because I always watch that game every once in a while, because it was it was a crazy game. Um I'm like, what the hell am I doing in the corner on a penalty kill? I'm a defenseman.

Thomas West 15:33

So, conventional penalty killing or not, it was a huge goal for the Panthers because they scored with a minute left to go in the second period, and that meant that they were heading to the locker room down by one. This was manageable.

Matthew Altomare 15:47

And Roy, I remember, was like, I think in between the periods, he's like, what the hell are we doing? Like, we can't like Roy's very passionate guy. He's like, what are we doing, and blah blah blah blah blah, right? Like I came, and Roy was playing a sick tournament too, right?

Thomas West 16:02

But in the third period, time started to tick by. The 10-minute mark, the eight-minute mark, and then finally the seven-minute mark in the third period, and the Panthers were still trailing by one, but they were running out of time. And then the Panthers took a crucial penalty. And to make matters even worse, their best penalty killer, Ethan Lindsay, was the one heading to the box.

Ethan Linday 16:27

It was late in the third period, we're down two one. I decided to take a penalty. Stupid. So I'm already in the box. Like I think we're seven it was like less than ten minutes left. And I'm in the box, like, oh my god, like what am I doing? Like, I just took a penalty, we're down two one. Are you kidding me? Like, this is this is all my fault.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Played away from him by Weechester, but helping out is Doyle. Look out, here's Altimere working it and shooting. He hit the goalpost, and they score! It went in on the back, off the back of Cal Shell. Altimer skating by the flint flot bench. A little bit of hot dogging there. Off the post, Jamie. You called it a short-handed goal. All four goals have come on a flip-flop power play. There's a look, it went off the back of Shell and into the net.

Ethan Linday 17:08

And then uh Matthew Altimore decides to pull out the move of the year and like do a heel-to-heel, cut into the middle, picture perfect, freaking just shoots it off the post, top of the circle. And I remember sitting from the box. And I literally saw it hit hit the post, go off the goalie's back, roll down his back, and then into the net. I'm like, how did that even like? Are you kidding me? Short-handed. So weight off my shoulders.

Thomas West 17:32

And wow. Another short-handed goal by the Pickering Panthers, and this time it was Matthew Altamar who scored the goal. And there was a range of emotions in those couple seconds while we saw that puck leave Matthew Altamar's stick. Funny enough, I was actually standing with Matthew Altemar's father when this puck went in the back of the net. It was such a fantastic moment for Alto. This puck hit the post and it stayed on the back of the goalie for a while, and we thought, oh my goodness, we came so close. Is this how we lose it? And then it trickled off the pads of the goaltender and found its way into the back of the net, and there was a big cheer from all the parents that were standing watching the game. I I remember that was just such a special moment, and the Panthers had tied it, and that was enough to send the game to overtime.

Matthew Altomare 18:18

And I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna jump in the play. Sometimes I just jumped in the play, and uh not that I blacked out, but like I kind of just was so locked in, I kind of made the move and took just threw a puck on net. You know, I shot for I say I shot for a post, but I kind of just threw the puck on the net and uh hit the post and went off the goalies, you know what, his rear end and uh trickled in. And I uh definitely gave the bench a little bit of a hello because one of their players actually when they went up 2-0 came to our bench and said they were gonna end our season. So that was my chance to say, I don't think you are gonna do that just yet because we're not we're not done.

Thomas West 18:59

In double overtime now, and Kale Kavan gets the puck at the point.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

I mean you can't start it at midnight, can you? LaPointe golfs it to center. Kavlin shoot!

Matthew Altomare 19:14

Yeah, cavi Cavi um during the season, he uh obviously sick D partner, man. Pleasure to play with the guy. Um I mean he's a Cleveland Browns fan, so I gotta get past that. Guy shows up to his first game too, his Halloween, and he shows up. I'm a Steelers fan. Uh in case you know, I hate the I hate the Browns. I hate the Browns. And um he shows up in like a Miles Garrett Browns jersey. I'm like, who the hell is this guy? Like, I don't like the when he when we traded for him, I'm like, who is this guy? Like I don't but then he ended up being like you know one of my good buddies throughout the year in a D partner and uh we had we had some good chemistry. We'd always we'd always joke because I I I kind of viewed myself as an older guy, and um we'd go to practice and stuff, and he and me would be uh hanging out during our uh D zone coverage drills, and I'm like Cavi, let the other guys go. I'm like, we gotta do load management because we're we can't push ourselves too much. I'm like, Cavi, time for some load management. He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's watch this one. Um, anyways, though, he would always during the season he would throw pucks on net, do everything. He didn't score much. And he's like, I can't even buy gold. And I'm like, man, just keep putting the puck through. Just keep putting it on. Like it's gonna good things happen when you get the puck on.

Cael Cavallin 20:30

I think that, I think that, so before that, I think I looked at Alto and I like made a comment, like, I'm gonna score here. Like it was a joke. I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna score here, and I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do some crazy celly down the ice, like watch. Yeah, I think he looked at me, he was probably like, yeah, okay, but yeah, for sure. Yeah, okay. I was I was fully not serious at all. Like, I was like, yeah, here we go. Like this is the shift. Then so the fucking blue line. I literally was like, I at that point, because I was kind of on my back foot and I kinda had to scramble to keep the puck in. I was like, just don't let the puck come out. Like we were grinding in the offensive zone here right now. Like, like keep the puck in a blue line. So I keep I I like I think I like leaned back, kinda and just threw one off of my back foot towards the net.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

They score! It's over! The Panthers have won it! In double overtime, and we will get that second quarterfinal game. The Panthers are celebrating! Jamie, what did I say? A shot from the blue line through traffic, a steam ice job beats Calistell up over the blocker, and the flip-flop bomber season is over the Panthers celebrating a quarterfinal double overtime win.

Cael Cavallin 21:40

That's for every twin.

SPEAKER_10 21:47

Uh you know, I just got a chance, you know. I've had some close ones, you know, get a chance on that. Good night, comes up. I can't be a better.

Thomas West 22:28

I'm wondering if you can relate to this moment a little bit because uh I I think you can agree that you were an unlikely hero to score the game-winning goal in game seven to win the Buckling Cup. But another guy who was absolutely an unlikely hero was a guy who had never scored with the Pickering Panthers before in Kale Kaplan and he flipped on net and it goes in. Could you kind of relate a little bit in that moment when he scored that goal?

Ryan Johnstone 22:51

Definitely. It's definitely like a special moment. Um and over time it makes it even more special because you know that shot just sealed the game. Whereas whereas mine, there was there's still time left, there's still there's still a chance for the team to score. But when he scores a goal that big as his first goal is a Panther, like that's that's a special moment, especially in the quarterfinals and nationals. Like it's a huge goal.

Ethan Linday 23:16

100%. You know, like Gabby was like a stable stay-at-home defenseman, like perfect defender. Like he he he was he was the epitome of a defensive defenseman. Like he was great, he shut down guys, he did his job well. And I remember even thinking that like when he scored, I was like so happy for him because I'm like that. He deserves that. Like his first goal of the year came at the bit probably the biggest moment, one of the biggest moments of that run. And uh, you know, hard work pays off, right? It's just an old saying, hard work pays off, you'll get rewarded if you work hard.

Thomas West 23:43

Obviously, you were so excited in the moment when it happened, but how much did you think, like, man, I I just scored this goal so the overagers would play another game?

Cael Cavallin 23:51

Well, I think that like obviously it was I scored the goal so we can play another game, but like after I came, I think I came off, and I think that I think that Marty was sitting at the glass. I remember coming off because I think that I don't think that it was a I don't remember it being an overly great call for him to be suspended for that game. Like I think he he hit somebody and I think that we were all a little bit frustrated with with the way that they called it. And uh he was obviously devastated because he was like, wow, that could have been because I think that was our last game of of the round robin. Yeah. And he was kind of like, oh, that could have been my last ever junior game. And then I think coming off the ice, I saw him and he was like, he was juiced, obviously, because he was getting to play again. And then we we talked, and it was kind of like wow, like wow, not like everybody gets to play, but like those guys get to keep going. Right? Like those guys get to keep like it's not over, like it's not over for any of us, but like it means something as a 20-year-old having been there to like to like e having solace and knowing when the fact your last game is gonna be, because I didn't know when my last game was gonna be um the next year, but like like giving him the opportunity to kind of be in control of his last game in that situation, you know, kind of meant a lot to me.

Thomas West 25:05

It's unbelievable how things work out sometimes in hockey. Underdogs win, there's unlikely heroes, but I mean, come on, a guy like Kale Kavan, who felt like he had been snake bitten the whole year, like Kale Kavan deserved to score more than one goal as a Pickering Panther that season. Like he had a lot of opportunities to score, and it was by no fault of his own that the puck wasn't going in. But coming into this playoffs and centennial cup, Kale was kind of frustrated that the puck wasn't going in, but it didn't affect him. But I I think Ethan Lindsey said it really well. There was no one on the team that deserved to score a big goal like that more than Kale Kavlan, just because of the work and the steadiness that he brought to this Pickering Panther team. And what a time to get your first as a Pickering Panther. We should mention as well, the Flynn Flon Bombers didn't like that goal. They were watching the video back and claiming that it was a high stick. And I'll let Kavlan and Lindsay kind of take you through the drama of that. I will say, through my Pickering Panther eyes, admittedly, uh I didn't see Ethan Lindsay tip the puck. He he tried to tip the puck uh in a high stick position if he had touched it. But looking back at the video and slowing it down, I I didn't see him touch it, but here's Ethan Lindsay in Kale Kaplan's account of it.

Ethan Linday 26:34

Um and I tried tipping it, I didn't tip it, it rolled over my stick. But I remember him like obviously doing the Heartbreaker Sally, whatever, like down metal of the ice, and we're like, oh my god, we're going to the semis. But I remember my dad uh he pulled up like an article with like the Flynn Flan newspaper saying that the goal shouldn't have counted because I high sticked it. Didn't high stick it. Tipping game wasn't as good back then.

Thomas West 26:56

He almost tipped that puck. Like it was very close to to touching his stick as well, which probably wouldn't have been a high stick. You remember that?

Cael Cavallin 27:05

Yeah, I do, but I after the fact, I had no clue when that was going on. Like I just kind of fired it, and I probably didn't even like I was looking, but I just like I was like, I fired it on that. Probably was like sent me hoping, expecting for it to get tipped. I mean, uh terrible shot for a tip, it was eyeball high, but um, it wasn't until after the fact that I I rewatched it and I was like, oh, he really was really was really I think or maybe I came into the room and was like, hey, I don't think you scored, like I think Lynn scored. And I was probably in there, I was like, are you kidding me right now? I don't know. Are you serious?

Ethan Linday 27:42

Really? You're not gonna give me the hell? It was uh probably Cabby's goal of his life.

Thomas West 27:49

Yeah, it it did kind of look like you dipped it though.

Ethan Linday 27:52

I didn't don't Tommy, I didn't dip it, I didn't touch it. She floated right over my stick.

Thomas West 27:58

Well, thank you for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Buck here on the Sideline podcast. We have one more episode to go of this Beyond the Buck series, and next up for the Pickering Panthers, it's the semifinals when they take on the Dauphin Kings of the MJ HLA.