A great night last night with Doug Gilmour as the special guest speaker for the Acadia Axemen Hockey Honour Roll Induction Ceremony at Acadia Arena in Wolfville.
(Above: Len Hawley voice of the Axemen and Doug Gilmour share a laugh.)
The Valley’s Drake Batherson of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators was also a special guest, we sat together with Drake, so many great stories we shared from when he was a kid going to Halifax Mooseheads games to scoring his first QMJHL and NHL goals.
(Above: With our buddy Drake Batherson of the Ottawa Senators who “our Drake” officiated on the way up to the NHL in his Valley Wildcats days.)
His first Q League goal was scored on the Halifax Mooseheads at the Scotiabank Centre when Drake was playing with the Cape Breton Eagles. After the puck went in I announced “The play is under review.” After the Referees reviewed the play, his goal counted. Drake said “I was relieved when I heard you say that” – he went on to score another goal that night.
(Above: Drake Batherson take a look at my QMJHL Memorial Cup Championship ring and texts Nathan MacKinnon the pics.)
Drake’s sister May Batherson was also in attendance last night at Acadia after just being drafted to Minnesota in the Professional Women’s Hockey League. Congrats Mae!
(Above: Drake Batherson took this picture that went viral this week of Sidney Crosby while Sid, Nathan MacKinnon and Drake were golfing in Ireland recently. Drake said they don’t get recognized as much over there. 
)
Congratulations as well to the Class of 2024 Hockey Honour Roll former Acadia Axemen players: Dr. Blair Jarrett, Matt Price and Mike Simm on their inductions. Well deserved.
Thanks to the play-by-play “Voice of the Axemen” Len Hawley for the events voice-over announcer assignment and the event invites.
(Above: Some Doug Gilmour memorabilia and us with Doug after a January 2005 Oldtimers Halifax game, NHL legend Steve Shutt was making us laugh.)
Len asked Doug: after playing for several NHL teams, what team did he wished he played for? He replied “somewhere warm!”
Doug also said Darius Kasparaitis was the player he disliked playing against the most and his dad was his biggest inspiration.
Great job as MC Lenny! Dougie is a funny storyteller, check out his book “Killer” for an awesome read. 👍🏒🎙🥅
-Ian
(Credits: Ian Robinson and Drake Batherson photos.)
