Hump Hockey completes another successful season

After a robust training camp that began early last October, and weekly games thereafter Hump Hockey completed its 2023-24 season on March 27th, creating all kinds of new excitement, and ‘it just keeps getting better every year’ said fourth year player Al Russell.
Apart from the normal Wednesday games, ( we play on Hump Day ), the group ran a father / son and a grandfather and grandson game, and conducted their annual draft on March 20th to define the teams that would play in the Hump Cup Championship Game, the following week.
Griffin Maillot became the youngest player to ever dawn the Hump jersey at 13 years old, when he saddled up beside his dad Jared on a forward line in the father / son game, offset by the oldest player in the group, Tom Iaonne at 81.
In the end, it was the same Tom Iaonne ( Captain of the dark jersey team ) who lead his charges to victory in a back and forth contest, over Steve Rafuse’s light jersey team. The game was well officiated by City Councillor Shannon Dean, who also lent himself to presenting the Hump Cup (Powered by Inland Machine Services- Tim Reid), at the conclusion of the game.
This year, the most creative jersey award went to goalkeeper Mike Smith, ( two time winner ) who dazzled everyone in his stars and stripes ensemble.
The rookie of the year award went to Mike Fernquist who joined the group in early December, after an almost 10 year hiatus from hockey.
The group was also appreciative of the onboarding of sponsorships this year from First General of Calgary ( Jared Maillot ), and Skyline Exhibits – Calgary ( Bobby Scott ), in addition to Inland Machine Services, as the support base for the group, continues to grow.
As a special initiative, the group extended themselves into the community raising money for the Chestermere Women’s Crisis Society, which lent itself to the presentation of a cheque in the amount of $1,000.00, to the Society, following the championship game.
Brent Ladds, who helps run the Hump program, indicated that “when the idea of extending our reach into the community was first introduced to the players everyone was immediately on board”. Special thanks goes to Steve Rafuse for his efforts in helping to match the year-end contributions undertaken by the players .
Co-founder of the Hump program, Peter Carriere, said we can always use additional players. If you are interested in joining us for next season, we play at the Chestermere Community Arena every Wednesday at 2 pm. You can contact Peter at plc_17@hotmail.com or Brent at brent@in.on.ca.