At the start of the 1980-1981 season we rented the gym at Dartmouth High School because our players wanted to play on a week night. We played on Thursday for two hours. Our season started in early September and ended in late June. The size of this gym enabled us to play four on four with a goalie in each net.
For seventeen years, John was the backbone of our team and one of the main reasons for the team’s longevity. John was Team Captain when we played exhibition games plus he also held the positions of Vice President and Treasurer over the years. When John retired I was the only founding member still playing.
As Team President from our inception I was able with the help of Executive members, such as Jack Harding, Alfred Clark and Brian Day to keep the Team moving successfully along during the nineties.
In May of two thousand, we moved to Admiral Westphal Community School. After being at Dartmouth High for almost twenty years, it was hard to leave.
From our first Thursday night at Admiral Westphal Community School we were welcomed by the caretaker and the evening custodian. Our excellent reputation, as a group that respected and took care of our playing facility, had preceded us. With the help of Executive Members such as Sean Crosby, Rick Cluett and Gary Martell, “THE 6 PACK” was able to make a smooth transition to the new location. Ball hockey in the new millennium was the best it had ever been.
I continued as President until the end of our thirtieth season at which time I turned the job over to the current President, Rick Cluett. But I kept playing and my self-imposed title now is “Director of Player and Public Relations." Al Paquet is the team’s Vice President while Gary Martell is the team’s Treasurer.
Our thirty-first, thirty-second and thirty-third seasons at Admiral Westphal School seemed to fly by. Season thirty-three ended rather sadly when an illness forced Mike Barkhouse, one of our most stalwart players, to retire after more than sixteen seasons with the Team.
My thirty-fourth consecutive season of playing ball hockey for "THE 6 PACK" was in my opinion one of our best due to awesome goal tending and a great bunch of current players.
We started Season 35 without Al Paquet. Al sustained a serious knee injury in July while playing soccer and he will be sidelined for the whole season. Hockey will not be the same without Al who has been our "Mr. Charlie Hustle" seven times since the award was first presented in 1996.
Our last night of ball hockey for 2008 was Thursday, December 18. It was hard to believe that we are more than one third of the way through our thirty-fifth season. I guess that old saying "time flies when you're having fun" is really true.
We started 2009 on Thursday, January 8. Our roster for the evening included fifteen of our current players plus a spare goalie. Our number one goalie, Craig Jackman, wasn't in attendance because his significant other half, Krista, had just given birth two days earlier to a baby girl.
In honour of our 35th Anniversary, I commissioned the owner of "Geneva's World of Stitches" to embroider new hats to commemorate the occasion. The hats are black with a red brim and they have our Team logo on the front plus the years 1974-2009. Each Team member is getting his or her respective number on the back of their hat.
On April 20 a story entitled "Ball Hockey Buddies Pass 35-Year Mark" was printed in the Dartmouth HRM East Community Herald. An action shot of some of our guys playing at the gym made the front page and a 600 word story was on page 2. We had finally received some recognition for our Team's longevity. The story was excellent and it truly captured the essence of the Team.
On Friday, May 1 another story entitled "6 Pack Still Thirsty after 35 Years of Games" was printed in the Dartmouth-Cole Harbour Edition of The Weekly News. An action picture from 1981 and a picture from the present appeared on page 10 along with a 500 word story. Their story told our story in a way that anyone reading it would certainly know what we are all about. We were extremely pleased to receive more coverage.
On Thursday, May 21 we presented the Team Awards for 2009. Shane Shaw won the Rookie of the Year. Steve Gallagher won the Charlie Hustle. Jim Curry won the Cory Wells Award for the Most Gentlemanly Player. Randy MacKenzie won the Most Defensive Player. Craig Jackman won the Most Valuable Player.
On Saturday, May 30 we held our 35th Anniversary Team Bash at Dooly's in Bedford. The response to this event was awesome as we had thirty-two people in attendance during the course of the evening that started at 5:00 p.m. and ended at 2:00 a.m. Of our sixteen active players, fourteen were at the Bash plus another eighteen alumni attended this historic event.
Some of the highlights of this Bash were the yearly tournaments in the areas of darts, pool and cribbage. Laurie McNeil and Paul Dyer, who called themselves "Lucky Boys," won the cribbage trophy and the pool trophy. Mike Robicheau and Matt Seto, who were known as "Poker Geist," won the dart championship. Craig Jackman did an awesome job as the Tournament Events Organizer. Our Team members were also determined to break the existing record for the total number of pitchers of beer consumed during the evening. The record was 41 and it had been established at Bash 32 in June of 2006. At 11:09 p.m. the record was surpassed when pitcher number forty-two was purchased. By the end of the evening a new Team record for pitchers of beer consumed had been established at 48.
Our last night of Season 35 will be Thursday, June 4. Never before in the "History of the Team" has our ball hockey season ended so early. This season will end on night number thirty-one. Gone are the days when "THE 6 PACK" played ball hockey for 44 weeks of the year.
We started Season 36 on Thursday, Sept. 24. Even though we had five regular players away, the games were very evenly matched.