Nuggets golden in defeat

By ANDREW MATTE
Ottawa Sun

[Photographs]
TEAM SPIRIT: Dawson City's Aedes Scheer, left, and former NDP Leader Audrey McLaughlin cheer on the Nuggets at yesterday's game at the Corel Centre. Diamond Tooth Gertie (Patricia Dahlquist) and fiddler Willie Gordon, left, acknowledge the crowd after singing O Canada.
UNDAUNTED: Dawson City Nugget player Kevin Anderson hams it up for the crowd after the game, while fan Suzanne Crocker, below, of Dawson City applauds.

   THE good news is they did better than last time. The bad news is they still got beat 18-0.
  Yet the Dawson city Nuggets walked away winners yesterday in the eyes of the 6,139 fans at the Corel Centre and in the hearts of anyone who has followed their amazing odyssey.
  The drubbing at the Corel Centre by the Ottawa Senators Alumni, the Nuggets said, was an ironically perfect ending to their historic journey.
  In 1905, the original Nuggets were defeated 9-2 and 23-2 in a best-of-three series against the Ottaw Silver Seven for the Stanley Cup.
  While the origianl Nuggets went down to humiliating defeat, the 6,400 km they travelled by dogsled, boat and train to make the challenge is one of the NHL's greatest legends.
  It was that legacy that spurred the modern-day Nuggets -- a group of all-star oldtimers -- to retrace the original journey and take on a bunch of NHL veterans.
  Unfortunately for the Nuggets, after Diamond Tooth Gertie sang the national anthem to the fiddling accompaniment of Willie Gordon and the puck was dropped, the end result wasn't much different from the first time around.
  "I knew this was going to happen but I didn't think it would be 18-0," said team leader Pat Hogan, who lived up to his bet to shave off his beard of 20 years after the loss.
  Hogan said the game gave him and the other players an opportunity to participate in history.
  "I got to play in an NHL arena with the lights before a crowd that had the enthusiasm of a real NHL game -- it was just great. It's something you can't duplicate," Hogan said.
  "My hat goes off to people in Ottawa and right across the country. We had a great time."
  In the Alumni dressing room, spirits were equally high.
  Captain Brad Marsh, who was limited to an assist in the blowout, said fans should realize the teams agreed before the puck was dropped that to ensure the integrity of the game both sides would give it their all.
  "We talked about it beforehand and we agreed we didn't want a Harlem Globetrotters kind of game," Marsh said.
  "They came here to play a real hockey game. We could have given them a breakaway or something but that doesn't happen in the NHL," Marsh said.
  For the fans the game was a chance to become part of history.
  "I saw these guys come across the country and you could tell they loved the game of hockey. It reminded me how much I loved hockey, too," said Brad Levinson, 44, who came to the game with his sons, Randy, 11, and Stephen, 8.

[Front Page Photograph]
History repeats itself ... but thanks for the memories Nuggets Ottawa Senators Alumni goalie Gerry Armstrong consoles Harvey Downes of the Dawson City Nuggets yesterday after the Sens blasted their Yukon opponents -- just like it happened in 1905. The score in the long-awaited rematch at the Corel Centre was 18-0.
EARL MCRAE, NUGGETS: PAGES 2-3, 19, 21

  "It was nice to see a game where the players played for the love of the game rather than just money." he said.
  Carole Letrim, 38, said she "couldn't stay away" after reading about the Nuggets' journey chronicled by the Sun Page 3 columnist Earl McRae.
  McRae travelled with the team to Ottawa from Dawson City and his dispatches were published along the way.
  "I kept reading what Earl was doing and the more I read the more excited I got about the game," she said after the second period.
  "I like a good game where there's meaning behind it. I hope I'm around in another 100 years for the third game."
  Jason Ritchie, 11, admitted he didn't know much about the first game, but he liked what he saw yesterday.
  "It's kind of cool seeing those old guys with white hair. They're pretty good hockey players actually," he said.
  Buddy Nathan Carey, 12, agreed the stars of yesteryear are as exciting to watch as today's NHLers.
  "They don't skate as fast but you can see the plays easier. You can tell these guys were really good a few years ago," Carey said.
  Jennifer Morris, 23, grew up in Northern British Columbia and remembered how important hockey was to her friends and family. Out of nostalgia for her home town, she attended the game to be among her fellow Northerners.
  "People from the North are the best people going. They're the salt of the earth ... and you got to love those beards," she said.
  Dan Stevenson, 33, liked the game but wished the Alumni had given up a goal or two.
  "Here are these guys who came all this way and they didn't even score a goal. They could have let one or two in just to get the crowd going," Stevenson said.
  The teams travels to Kingston tomorrow to play an exhibition game before flying out for home Wednesday from the Macdonald-Cartier Airport.