Shown above in the familiar victory pose, are the 2001 Novice ‘A’ Champions of the Northern Ontario Hockey Association. The boys had just downed Walden by a score of 5 to 1 in the title match of the playdowns held in Valley East. This was the icing on the cake for the club, which is not in its league finals against Sudbury this week.

Head Coach, Steve Richardson, has been involved in hockey all his life. He is best known as a former coach with the Valley East Consbec Midget ‘AAA’ squad and as the owner of Valley Pro Hockey School which provides skill development for local players every summer.

“It was a great season. These kids are an excellent bunch of hockey players and we had a good time,” Richardson commented when summing up his experiences. “What I found most rewarding about this group is that they all accepted the competitiveness and really wanted to compete. They wanted to win and were very receptive to our instructions when we showed them how they could improve their skills to help them succeed.”

“At this level they grow so much in such a short period of time,” Richardson went on. “You could see them get better and better every week. It was a great thing to see over the year. There are some excellent athletes on this team and some of them should go far in hockey.”

Richardson should be a good judge of talent since he has been an OHL scout for many years and spends much of his free time watching prospects at the bantam, midget and Junior ‘A’ levels.

During the playdowns in Valley East, the Rebels finished a double round robin competition with a record of 2 wins, 1 loss and 1 tie against Walden and Rayside. They downed Espanola 4 to 0 in the semi-final before taking Walden in the championship game. Kapuskasing and Nickel Centre were the other two teams in the tournament.

The Novice club will now make a trip to Mississauga to end the season where they will take part in a special eight-team competition with representatives from other regions of the province. They will play five games against different teams in a non-championship tournament. There will be no final winner declared in this event. The weekend will include skills competitions, seminars and on-ice instruction in a way to emphasize the “winning without winning” theme of this Sports and Cultural activity, sponsored by the City of Mississauga.

Members of the Valley East Novice ‘A’ Champions shown in the photo include: Elliott Richardson, Dextron Abresch, Eric Belanger, Jeff Bilton, Christopher Blouin, Christopher Chaput, Christopher Dempsey, Jamie Haines, Kyle Kaven, Alex McIver, Nicolas Melanson, Justin Ouelette, Patrick Prevost and Kirk Vendramin. Steve Richardson (Coach), Dan Haines (Assistant Coach), Rob Browning (Assistant Coach) and Paul Dempsey (Manager) round out the staff. The team was sponsored by Tim Horton’s Hanmer.