March 24, 1997

More than just a game

Nuggets lost by more than a hair, but say it was all worth it

   THE Dawson City Nuggets didn't lose by a whisker -- 18-0 isn't even within a full beard -- so Nugget Pat Hogan lost his.
  "I haven't seen this face in 20 years," said Hogan, who shaved off his 20-year facial growth after the Nuggets fell to the Senators Alumni yesterday at the Corel Centre.
  His ruddy cheeks, tanned by weeks on the trail recreating the journey by the 1905 Nuggets to play the Ottawa Silver Seven, gave way to a milky white jawline and chin.
  He had promised to shave off his beard if his Nuggets weren't able to avenge their ancestors' loss 92 years ago.
  You pretty much knew Hogan's beard was a good as gone, though his feisty frontier spirit bristled like his soon-to-be-departed whiskers.
  "I didn't even bring any shaving cream to the rink," he said.
  "No, but I'm sure (ex-Senator) Laurie Boschman did," shot back one of his teammates in the Nuggets' giddy dressing room after the game, the happiest bunch of losers you'll ever see.
  "Boschman kept saying to me, 'It's coming off, it's coming off,'" said Hogan.
  The Senators Alumni showed no mercy yesterday, adminstering a whupping on the Klondikers.
  The crowd -- a great credit to Ottawa hockey fans who turned out more than 6,000 strong for yesterday's game and had to pay $5 for parking, to boot -- seemed to run in the Nuggets' favor as the afternoon progressed, but the Alumni kept a tighter grip on the game than the guy holding the 50 ounces of gold which went to charity in the winners' names.
  The Alumni had a certain duty, an obligation to history to give a legitimate effort. That would honor not only the Silver Seven, but the Nuggets as well.
  "Our attitude was to give them a hockey game," said Senators Alumni defenceman and organizer Brad Marsh. "This wasn't going to be any Harlem Globetrotters game with pies in the face and buckets of water. These guys came all this way to play a hockey game.
  "I was saying to the guys before the game, don't feel sorry for them if we start to get ahead. There was some question about giving them some penalty shots or something like that. It doesn't happen in a real game and it shouldn't happen in this game."
  Forget the outcome of yesterday's game. The result -- unless you are Pat Hogan's barber -- was the last thing that mattered to the Nuggets.
  The Nuggets' 23-day odyssey which brought them from little Dawson City to a rink where six times that city's winter population watched yesterday's game reminded us again how important hockey can be in our lives.
  Anybody who came in contact with the Nuggets couldn't help but be touched by their sense of adventure, enthusiasm and appreciation of hockey and history.
  Ottawa turned out to embrace them, at the train station when they arrived, at Moe's World Famous Newport Restaurant Friday night, and at the Klondike Blowout at the Westin Saturday night.
  "What a thrill to make a trip like this and play in a rink like this," said Hogan. "It was pretty exciting to step out on the ice like that with all the poeple, the lights, the noise, all the bells and whistles and play against NHL players .. We didn't lay down. We gave it our best shot."
  The 1905 Nuggets lost their second game to the Silver Seven 23-2. Let's see. Yesterday's score was 18-0, so that makes them three goals better.
  "We saw why NHL players are everybody's heroes," said Hogan. "Because they're that good. If we brought it to 'em, they would have just turned it up from a half to three-quarters. We didn't expect to be 18-0, but Canadians expect hockey to be played at 100%. They didn't pity us.
  "At this rate, in 700 years we'll be able to avenge the 1905 loss. And I have no doubt that in another 90 years there will be another team that will try to avenge it."
  "I hope the game was good for the Senators, too," said Nuggets captain John Flynn. "We were told they never practise for alumni games, but they practised to play us. When you look at the number of people who came out, there were no losers. We travelled a long way, but there were no losers."
  

FIRST PERIOD
1.	Alumni, Mitch Babin 1 (Laurie Boschman, Brad Marsh)	1:24
2.	Alumni, Babin 2 (Boschman, Fred O'Donnell)	7:50
3.	Alumni, Murray Kuntz 1 (Rick Smith, Eddie Hatoum)	10:41
4.	Alumni, Rolland Hedges 1 (Bill Kitchen)	12:28
5.	Alumni, Bob Charlebois 1 (Smith)	13:31
6.	Alumni, Hatoum 1 (Larry Skinner, Kitchen)	18:25
	Penalties: None
SECOND PERIOD
7.	Alumni, O'Donnell 1 (Boschman, Babin)	3:33
8.	Alumni, Mark Paterson 1 (Frank St. Marseille)	8:40
9.	Alumni, Boschman 1 (Babin)	10:34
10.	Alumni, Boschman 2 (O'Donnell) )	11:00
11.	Alumni, Babin 3 (Boschman, Smith)	13:12
12.	Alumni, Skinner 1 (unassisted)	15:55
	Penalties: None
THIRD PERIOD
13.	Alumni, Boschman 3 (unassisted)	0:22
14.	Alumni, Jean Payette 1 (Paterson) - sh	7:00
15.	Alumni, Babin 4 (Boschman) - sh	8:20
16.	Alumni, Hedges 2 (unassisted)	12:50
17.	Alumni, Payette 2 (St. Marseille)	16:07
18.	Alumni, Babin 5 (Fred Barrett)	17:15
	Penalties: St. Marseille A.

SHOTS ON GOAL
Dawson City	8	7	7 -- 22
Alumni	16	13	14 -- 43
Goalies: Poncho Rudniski (30:34, 23 shots, 9 goals) Richard Nagano (20 shots, 9 goals), Dawson City; Gerry Armstrong, Alumni
Referee: Jeff Johnston
Attendance: 6,139

  
  

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