Playing on home ice is one thing but Justin Barron also gets to play in his hometown at the Memorial Cup.
The 17-year-old defenceman was born and raised in Halifax and followed the Mooseheads closely as a kid. He was 11 when the team led by Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin won the 2013 President Cup and the Memorial Cup. Now he’s the one being watched by the next generation of local hockey players and can still hardly believe he gets to play for a national championship in his own backyard.
“Growing up in Halifax I’ve always been a fan of the Mooseheads,” he said. “They had a good team there a couple of years in a row. I was always coming to the games as much as I could on Fridays and Saturdays when I wasn’t playing.
“I remember (the 2013 championship) pretty well — the atmosphere of the games and the parade after they won. It was pretty cool and pretty special. Even just walking around here for the first day, the atmosphere and the vibe of everything has been pretty good so far. It should be a really fun week. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Barron is the only Haligonian on the team but there are six other Nova Scotians — goalie Cole McLaren (Annapolis Royal), defencemen Jared McIsaac (Truro) and Walter Flower (Lunenburg), and forwards Keith Getson (Bridgewater), Brock McLeod (Dartmouth) and Ben Higgins (Truro).
For Getson, this is his fifth and final year in the QMJHL and he will play his 400th major junior game next week. But he spent his first four-and-a-half years in the league with the Charlottetown Islanders and has only played in 58 games with the Mooseheads.
“It’s amazing,” said the overage centre, who was traded to Halifax in late December. “These are things you can only dream of. Coming back to basically the team I grew up cheering for when I was a kid and playing in the Memorial Cup, the biggest stage in junior hockey, I’ve been dreaming of this my whole life. I’ve just got to go out there and play my game.”
And now that the tournament is here after months of hype and preparation, the players feel like they can finally embrace it. The coaching staff took a deliberate approach with the handling of the host role, insisting everyone leave the Memorial Cup to the side all year.
“We knew from Day 1 we were hosting the Memorial Cup but we really wanted to earn our way here and not just be here because we’re hosting,” Barron said. “So this was never really something we really emphasized during the year. We just focused on the regular season first, then playoffs and we’re here now so we’re talking about it. I think we’ve come a long way since the start of the year. We really battled through some adversity in the playoffs and it should be a good tournament.”
As media from across the country took over the Scotiabank Centre on Thursday and with every part of the rink going through its event transformation, it was impossible for the players to ignore the hype building around them. The Mooseheads kick off the tournament when they face the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders on Friday night.
“We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time so it’s pretty exciting and we’re ready to go,” Getson said. “The crowd’s always amazing here but I can picture it going to another level. I know just from playing in the playoffs, the atmosphere in this building I can’t even put into words. It’s going to be pretty special.”
