4
Copper Throwers invited to All-Star Game !
Today was
another big day in Copper Throwers history,
the team saw no less than 4 of their players receive an invitation to
play in the GOHL Annual All-Star Game.
While Jaromir
Jagr was voted by the public to be the starting right winger, the coaching
staff elected to invite Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan and Jaroslav Spacek.
So this goes to
show that GM Vachon’s bold moves this off-season seem to be more than justified now. The 2 high priced free agent right wingers
are both gonna be playing in the all-star game, while Shanahan was acquired from Montreal, this leaves
Spacek as the only “original” member of the team to be part of the game.
And some fans
will tell you that Yannick Tremblay who shows the best +/- ratio (+33) of any
defensemen in the league as well as Andrew Cassels would have been deserving of
an invitation. But the biggest loser
has to be Ed Belfour, who after a rocky start has been a wall in nets of late,
and shows the best goalie rating in the GOHL.
Cassels didn’t
really seem to care as he said “Im not surprised, I mean just look at the guys
that got invited, plus they have to bring in a player from every team, so they
couldn’t invite a ton of players from a
single team, having 4 is already a lot ! “
Tremblay seemed
a bit more disappointed though, “Oh well, it’s not what we play for, but it
sure would have been nice to get the recognition, I know Im not a well known
player still and that played against me, but im very happy for Jaroslav ! He’s
been very solid for us all year and he fully deserves to be there.” To Tremblay ‘s credit his stats show 29
points to Spacek’s 23, he his +33 and
Spacek is +16.
As for the
usually easy-talking Belfour, he didn’t have much to say… “well what do you
want me to say ? They could invite only
2 goalies… and look at the Sasquatch’s roster and tell me who else than Roy was
worthy of being called an all-star ??”
Ok I think Eddie’s got a point there !
As for the 4
all-stars, well they were of course thrilled to be invited.
Jaromir Jagr
for one was touched by the fans voting.
“It really surprised me, I did not expect it, after signing my contract
I heard a lot of negative comments towards me and I didn’t think that I would
still get so much appreciation, plus with Brett having such a great year, I
thought he deserved to be voted on the starting lineup, but Im glad that at
least he got invited, it will be fun for both of us to represent the Copper
Throwers, plus we’re gonna have Shany and Spacek with us, it will be a lot of
fun ! “
The Golden
Brett was very excited, he looked like he was a rookie still, “It’s always fun
to go play in an all-star game ! Im
really looking forward to it ! Plus I will have the chance to play with Shany. I think that having 4 players from Rouyn
going to game is a tribute to our great season and to great work of the
organization. Im really looking forward
to it ! “
So the 4
Rouyn-Noranda players were leaving to go the the all-star festivities and
really intended to enjoy their weekend.