Joey Payeur
Good-bye is never easy and six Fort Frances Lakers had to say two of them in less than a day.
Forwards Dylan Kooner, Jared Virtanen, and Matt Tustin, along with defencemen Ryan Gazich, Brandon Zajicek, and Maverick Lynes, all played the last junior hockey game of their careers in the Lakers’ 2-1 overtime loss that capped a four-game sweep by the Dryden GM Ice Dogs in the SIJHL semi-final last Tuesday at the Ice For Kids Arena.
Then the next morning, they had to gather with their teammates and do it again at the funeral service for Lakers’ assistant general manager and coach Grant Perreault, who died of cancer April 1 at the age of 40.
Kooner, who said Perreault went from being a coach to a father figure for him during his three seasons with the Lakers, was a storm of emotions following the overtime defeat.
“When I was 17, there was one 20-year-old on the team and I watched his career come to an end, and that was tough enough,” recalled the Lakers’ captain as he tried to stay composed.
“I never thought this day would come and it’s heartbreaking the way it happened,” he added.
“The last few years of my life have been the best.
“It’s been a tough last couple of days,” he admitted. “But I think we supported each other really good and handle [Perreault’s] death pretty well.”
Kooner respectfully tipped his helmet towards long-time Lakers’ nemesis Derek McPhail, a fellow final-season junior who netted the game-winner with 41.1 seconds left in the overtime last Tuesday to extend his playing days while ending Kooner’s.
“[McPhail] is the toughest guy I’ve ever played against in my junior career,” lauded the Abbotsford, B.C. native, who led the Lakers in goals this season with 37 and was second in points with 68.
“He’s been at this for a lot of years and, hopefully, it works out for him in the [SIJHL] final,” added Kooner, who garnered 146 points in 140 career regular-season games and 22 in 29 post-season ones.
Gazich returned to the Lakers in November after starting the season with the Kenai River Brown Bears (North American Hockey League) and wound up second on the team in defence scoring with 31 points in 44 games.
“To be a Laker has been unbelievable–it’s meant the world to me,” enthused Gazich, who finished with 44 points in 97 regular-season games with the Lakers and was named the team’s top defenceman this season.
“The junior experience is something unique in of itself and to play here has been more unique,” he remarked.
“The support from the fans and the billet families and the coaching staff . . . you feel like you are part of a family.”
Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan will have a gargantuan task making up the absence of his top three point-getters in Virtanen (74), Kooner, and Tustin (55), with Lynes (34), Gazich, and Zajicek (27) making up six of his top-eight scorers during the regular season.
“Pretty much we went as they did,” Strachan said about the six veterans.
“The three forwards are obviously the top players on the team and the three defencemen all had 25 points-plus, which does often happen,” he noted.
“My hat’s off to all of them. They’re going to be tough to replace.”
Kooner wasn’t shy about discussing what being a Laker has meant to him.
“It’s been everything,” he remarked. “I’ve learned so much from [Strachan] and [Perreault], and they’ve helped me become the player and the person I am today.
“I can’t thank the organization or the community enough,” Kooner added.
