Hi, this is Fred Wallace with ” Off the Wire “, brought to you by Hal Wright Chevrolet-Cadillac-GMC-Buick on the Sunset Strip in Owen Sound.
There was a quick announcement last week; the Florida Panthers of the NHL had re-signed former Owen Sound Attack captain Garrett Wilson.
The story goes that in the miserable year of 2007-08, a 41 loss season for the Attack, a deal was in the works with Windsor.
The prospect on the table from the Spitfires was actually playing for the Tecumseh Chiefs, and every time Owen Sound General Manager Dale DeGray & Assistant Ian MacLellan went to see Tecumseh play, they came away more impressed by Wilson rather than the prospect being offered, and eventually Owen Sound persisted and got the guy they wanted.
Garrett Wilson would score more than 100 times in 3 years in Owen Sound, some of them clutch markers that won games or turned games around.
But the biggest play in Garrett Wilson’s Owen Sound days came in Game 3 of the 2011 Ontario Hockey League Championship Series against Mississauga.
Trailing the series 2 games to none, Owen Sound blew a 5-3 third period lead at the Hershey Centre and headed to overtime against the Majors who needed just one more goal to grab a 3-0 stranglehold on the series.
In the opening minute of overtime, Wilson was on the forecheck, but the Majors moved the puck out of their zone, then lost possession in the neutral zone to Attack defender Matt Petgrave.
As Petgrave started towards the Majors blueline, Wilson was still in the offensive zone and had to hightail it to get back out in order not to put the rush offside.
As Garrett Wilson scampered, he concluded the effort with a Superman slide into the neutral zone just as Matt Petgrave crossed the line.
[CLIP]
There were a million little plays on the road to Owen Sound’s Robertson Cup victory in 2011, and one wonders if there would have been a title for Owen Sound that year had Garrett Wilson not hustled to get back on-side.
I’m Fred Wallace