TBT: MacKinnon Jersey Retirement

The Halifax Mooseheads are celebrating their 30th anniversary this season and the club kicked it off in style with the retirement of Nathan MacKinnon's #22 jersey in a pre-game ceremony during the home opener on September 22. Since it is Throwback Thursday, I thought I would share some media from the ceremony. 

"I've never experienced anything like this before... being from here, I spent my summers back home in Halifax. Definitely a close connection to the city, a lot of family and friends here tonight," MacKinnon said to press before the event. "It's cool to share it with people, not just myself. I think the best part is having everyone around me." 

Among the 10,198 fans in attendance were Nathan's parents, sister and girlfriend plus the new Mooseheads owners; Sam and Peter Simon who all joined him on the ice for the ceremony. Before MacKinnon stepped up to the podium, a video was played that showed prominent members of the hockey and Halifax community saying congratulations to the 28-year-old. 

Here are a couple of photos from the night as well. 

Photo - AMH Photography

Photo - Global News

It was a very nice speech that Nate shared. I hope I wasn't the only one but the clips and speech made me emotional. The Halifax, NS native of course spent only two seasons with the Herd, collecting 153 points in 102 games played. He then went on to be drafted 1st overall by the Colorado Avalanche at the 2013 NHL draft. Check out the full ceremony below. 

What a great way to start this anniversary season, unfortunately the current team went on to lose the home opener game 3-1 against the Charlottetown Islanders. 

Nathan MacKinnon is having a pretty good 2023, helping the Avalanche win a Stanley Cup back in June and just picked up his 800th career NHL point on Wednesday evening. He is 3rd in league scoring this season with 41 points. 

#TBT: President's Cup champions

Five years ago on this day, your Halifax Mooseheads won their first President's Cup in franchise history. The Mooseheads were playing in the final against the Baie-Comeau Drakkar who was coached by the Herd's new hire, Eric Veilleux. Halifax won the series 4-1 and were able to win the trophy on home ice.

Stephen MacAulay
Photo - Montreal Gazette

I was one of the unfortunate ones to not be able to witness the game at the Metro Centre that night May 10, 2013 but I did watch it with probably a thousand other people in Grand Parade Square.

Veteran Stephen MacAulay, a native of Halifax who the Moose traded for in the middle of the season, scored the first and last goal of Game 5. Halifax got off to a good start, pulling out to a 3-0 lead after the first period in that deciding match before winning the game 5-1. Goals were scored by Stefan Fournier, Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin as well. It couldn't have ended much better for the fans of Moose Country and the team. Goaltender Zach Fucale made 34 saves to pick up the victory.

The Mooseheads rolled through the 2012-13 regular season, finishing the year with a 58-6-3-1 record and were very close to going through the playoffs undefeated but I guess they wanted to win the President's Cup on home ice. The team had one blemish losing to the Drakkar in Game 3 of the championship series. Below you'll find the scores of the series:

May 3 Drakkar 0 at Mooseheads 4
May 4 Drakkar 3 at Mooseheads 4
May 7 Mooseheads 1 at Drakkar 3
May 8 Mooseheads 7 at Drakkar 4
May 10 Drakkar 1 at Mooseheads 5

Check out the highlights below of Game 5

The team went on to the Memorial Cup tournament in Saskatoon and defeated the Portland Winterhawks in the final game to become national champs as well.

Check out my recap from that night here. You can find more on the final game here.

Hopefully we get to see this celebration again in 2019.

#TBT: 3 years ago

It's hard to believe that 3 years ago today, our Halifax Mooseheads were celebrating a great season with a Memorial Cup championship. The 2012-2013 QMJHL season was an exciting one for the city of Halifax where we hosted the Top Prospects game, won the President's Cup and had 58 victories during the regular season. Since that May 26th day in 2013, all 20 players and the head coach have moved on, some to the pros but most to universities in Canada. The MVP of the tournament, Nathan MacKinnon had his best game in Saskatoon and was drafted 1st overall in the NHL draft a month later to Colorado.

Hopefully we'll have another championship year soon. Check out the video below for a recap of the season.

My recap from that night is below.

WE ARE CHAMPIONS
Your Halifax Mooseheads are champions once again. The Mooseheads won the President's Cup earlier in the month to book their ticket to the Memorial Cup as QMJHL Champions. They have now finished their unbelievable season with a Memorial Cup trophy after beating the WHL champions Portland Winterhawks 6-4.

The Winterhawks let in 3 goals in the first period and wasn't able to dig themselves out of the hole although they came very close. After outshooting the home team 5-0 early in the period, Mac Carruth let in a powerplay goal by Konrad Abeltshauser. Both players played in their last junior hockey game. In the second however, the Hawks got two goals to scare the Halifax faithful back at home and at the Credit Union Centre. It could've been tied at threes if Ty Rattie didn't glove the puck into the net. In the last 20 minutes, there was as many goals in that period as there was in the first two periods with Nathan MacKinnon scoring a hat trick to put it away with an empty net. Portland had a lot of pressure against Zach Fucale and the defense. It was almost the same score as the first game between these two teams but the Herd couldn't get the seventh but they also had a goal taken back.

Stephen MacAulay made history tonight after he won his second Memorial Cup. No one has ever gone to 4 league finals, won three and won two national championships. I'm sure he wasn't thinking of the fact that he made history. He assisted on Nate's third goal.

Photo - CHL website

The all-star team was made up of both teams players.
Goalie - Zach Fucale
Defense - Derrick Pouliot and Konrad Abeltshauser
Forwards - Nathan MacKinnon, Marty Frk and Ty Rattie

Tournament awards were as follows:
MVP - Nathan MacKinnon
Top Scorer - Nathan MacKinnon
Most Sportsmanlike - Bo Horvat
Most Outstanding Goalie - Andrey Makarov

Throwback Thursday: playoff edition

Two years ago today. What an awesome game. Comeback was the theme of the playoffs for the Mooseheads second round series against the Quebec Remparts and it ended with this:

A Game 7 come from behind overtime win to book their tickets to the semi finals. Captain Cameron Critchlow scored all 4 goals in regulation to have an awesome night while Jonathan Drouin scored the nice back hander OT goal. Zach Fucale made an incredible 41 saves during the game while other point leaders were Nathan MacKinnon (3 assists) and Konrad Abeltshauser (2 assists) with Jonathan Drouin adding two assists of his own to his game winning goal. See the game summary here.

Halifax would go on to lose to the Rimouski Oceanic in the semifinals 4 games to 2 games. Both wins against Rimouski came on the road.

Throwback Thursday

ONE MONTH AGO
A month ago today, the hockey community said goodbye to another young player. Jordan Boyd passed away on August 12th. He was taking part in drills during an Acadie-Bathurst Titan preseason practice.

When the Titan took on the Saint John Sea Dogs in a preseason game on August 17th, the Titan held a moment of silence. The official cause has yet to be determined or at least released to the public. A scholarship has been set up in Boyd's name for Hockey Nova Scotia players. There will be an auction to raise funds for this scholarship on September 27. 

CHAMPS
Since the QMJHL regular season is starting tonight, I thought we should throw it back to May 26th. Who remembers this?

DREAM SEASON
The Mooseheads were a record-tying 58-6-3-1 during the regular season, had an almost prefect 16-1-0-0 record during the playoffs and in the Memorial Cup were 3 and 1 on the way to a championship in Saskatoon too.

NHL DRAFT
June 30th, 2013.

With the first overall selection, the Colorado Avalanche select from the Halifax Mooseheads of the QMJHL, Nathan MacKinnon. - Patrick Roy

That was the start for MacKinnon's dream of making it to the National Hockey League. As fans we were hoping he would be back but on September 10th, that hope was smashed when Roy announced during Media Day that he is staying in the NHL for the whole season.