For cousin Johnny...

We are in the midst of the playoff season for the Stanley Cup.

Our beloved Vancouver Canucks have made it through the first round and then last night....

A huge upset...The Montreal Canadiens beat The Washington Capitals to move on to their 2nd round.

They are the only Canadian team left in the eastern division.

Which brings me to my next post on Toronto...

The Hockey Hall of Fame.

A shrine for some. 

They come to pay their respects to those who skated to glory...

To bathe in the religion to some, that which is OUR game...Hockey.

These hallowed halls are filled with the ghosts of Saturday night...

The glass cases glow with relics of heroes from boyhoods of days gone by...

The history of the gear...

Here, Jaques Plantes' gaolie mask he designed himself...the very first.

1959..

Tired after years of being slashed, bruised and broken, he was the one who finally started the trend of keeping your face in one piece...from that....

to this...

 I spent many a Saturday night hearing the theme song for Hockey Night in Canada come on the t.v,

the snow falling outside, my brother and father, brown stubby beer bottle in hand,

sitting in happy anticipation...

The larger than life players making their way around the ice...

The announcer shouting those 4 words you either dreaded or loved...

"He shoots...he SCORES!"

There was something more which I came here for though.

It was to remember my dad's second cousin Johnny Quilty.

This is what he would have seen when he walked into the locker room in 1939-41...

He played for the Canadiens during this time...

Look...there he is up on the team rouster...3rd from the bottom right.

Johnny even won the Calder Cup for Most Valuable Player...

I found it here, in the same room as the Stanley Cup, with his name engraved on it.

Unfortunately, Johnny sustained a terrible broken leg in the following year with the Boston Bruins and never played again.

But he's remembered here...in this great building of hockey legends.

I felt obliged to have my photo taken with 'Lord Stanley'...

Yes, I was in the presence of greatness...

All of those years, growing up in the shadows of this great game...sometimes hating it for pre-empting favorite t.v shows...

But sometimes loving the feelings of pride when a country unites for the love of the game...

The 2010 gold medal game puck.

Cheers Johnny!

Digging up roots...

I've been trying to research my dad's side of the family who lived mostly in the Ottawa valley of southern Ontario. By a fluke I found an extensive family tree which goes as far back as his Great Great Grandparents who were from a small village in County Limerick called Mohernagh, Ballyhahill. There are some family graves located in Kilcolinan, though not the great greats, as they came to Canada sometime during the famine years. The ones still lying there are of a few brothers who remained.
I found this out by Googling my own name. How incredible to finally have some thread of  long ago. Its too bad we didn't find this out before we made our way to Ireland last spring...it would have meant a lot to my dad to go and visit these graves.
Anyway, through the process of looking into the records I also found some great pictures of another not so distant relative. His name was John Quilty(everyone called him Johnny) and he was my dads second cousin. I had known for a long time that he was a great hockey player and that he is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but I had never seen any pictures of him. For those who aren't aware of it, hockey is a BIG deal to Canadians and to have blood in the royal palace of hockey is pretty monumental. I had to take pictures of the computer to get these so the quality isn't the best but you get the idea...

Here he is in his prime in his Montreal Canadiens sweater, hopefully happy after winning a game!

He was also the winner of the Calder Trophy for Rookie of the year.

With the lads...I beleive he is top left hand corner...

...hmmm , maybe they lost this night...they don't look too cheerful.

This one looks like a card you would get in a pack with a stick of bubble gum.

The interesting thing about these pictures, is that when I look into them I see such a strong resemblence between my dad, his brother John, my Grandpa Jack and strangely enough, my older brother Danny....Oh how the DNA wanders and swims around in our bones...

Johnny even won the Calder Cup once for MVP

Post Script....Unfortunately  Johnny's career ended after being traded to the Boston Bruins.On January 12th, 1948, in his 6th game, he violently collided with Chicago player Bob Goldham and badly broke his leg which left him unable to play as well as he had in the past. He later rejoined the Air Force and played with their teams before dying suddenly at the young age of 48, on September 12 1969, Ottawa.