Francis Dupuis called it the greatest pre-game speech he had ever heard. It left half the team in tears and “motived the Hell out of us,” said Dupuis as he looked back on the greatest moment of his junior hockey career. It was Mother’s Day, May 8, 2011 and the Pembroke Lumber Kings, led by […]
Mason McTavish played in only five games for the Pembroke Lumber Kings in the 2018-19 season, but it was clear he was a special player. He was only 15 years old and because his age restricted him from playing regularly with the Junior A club, Lumber Kings fans never really got to appreciate his talent. […]
It has been more than nine months since a meaningful game was played in the Central Canada Hockey League and still the league has no timeline on when it might be able to resume play. It’s been frustrating and worrisome for team owners, players and fans, but the league understands that starting its 2020-21 season […]
Hockey Night in Canada’s Twitter feed had some fun with hockey fans recently when it tweeted, “Name your favourite small-town hockey rink to play in and why?” The tweet generated a lot of interest as Canadians posted pictures of their favourite rinks and explained what made them special. Among the responses was the Pembroke Memorial […]
Lionel Barber was often the last player to leave the dressing room. His Barrie Flyers had just played in St. Catharines and as the 18-year old left the arena and headed to the bus that would take the team back to Barrie he noticed the police officer standing near the front of the bus. The […]
Training camp for junior hockey players has never looked like this. Players putting on their hockey equipment in parking lots, wearing masks into rinks, carrying helmets, skates and sticks and then sitting six feet apart along the lower rows of the stands to fully get dressed for practice before taking to the ice. This is […]
Jim Farelli watched intently from the press box at the Pembroke Memorial Centre. The veteran junior A coach was making his final cuts as training camp and the pre-season wrapped up for his Pembroke Lumber Kings. The start of the 1986-87 season was just around the corner and the team’s director of player personell, Gavin […]
To understand how special it is to play for the Pembroke Lumber Kings, one only needs to attend the team’s alumni golf tournament once. Players who wore the red and white jerseys emblazoned with the well known Lumber Kings crown decades earlier, come from across the province for this annual get together to share stories […]
In the spring of 1978 the Pembroke Lumber Kings were coming off a second consecutive league championship and another run at a Centennial Cup national title, but most of the headlines being generated by the club were about what was happening off the ice. The media firestorm that began as the Lumber Kings season ended […]
With the National Hockey League season on pause as the world deals with the COVID-19 virus pandemic, television networks have been scrambling to fill hours of programming time normally consumed by Canada’s national sport. The Saturday night slot held by the iconic Hockey Night in Canada on CBC has been replaced by Movie Night in […]
