A Halifax Zamboni driver will take his final drive around the ice this weekend.
Kelly Saunders is retiring after more than 38 years of flooding the Scotiabank Arena. His last game will be this Sunday.
Saunders is known for his longtime tradition of bringing kids out on the Zamboni when he clears the ice. He said the kids are always excited, although some are nervous.
“But I’ve had a couple, they’ll see me turn the blade up, going through the goal crease and that, and they’ll reach over wanting to do that as well. And I usually tell them, you just wave or drive the steering wheel. I’ll look after the rest. So some of them, I have to keep my eye on that way,” said Saunders.
He said his wife did some rough calculations, and based on how many times he drove around the rink, it equals driving around the world about 1.85 times.
Although, he has one regret—he does not remember the first time he flooded the ice at the arena.
“I don’t know what that date was, what the teams were. That’s the only thing.”
He says he will never forget when the Mooseheads won the memorial cup in 2013.
It was the first time a Halifax team won the championship, and it was on home ice, as well, with Nathan MacKinnon, Jonathan Drouin, and Zachary Fucale on the roster.
“And it wasn’t, ‘Are they going to win?’ It was, ‘How many points were they going to get, those two combined?’ And the cast of characters they had with them, they were just fun to watch,” said Saunders.
“We may never see a team like that again.”
with filed from Ian Robinson
