Mike Angelidis scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game for the Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday night.
Seeing the goal, hearing his reaction evoked so many great memories of Mike Angelidis.
During 4 years with the Attack he never once shortchanged the team in effort or attitude and those attributes led him to a 53 goal campaign in his overage season highlighted by the playoff series clinching goal in overtime at Kitchener in the 2006 playoffs. Great memories.
Hockey aside, among my favorite Attack & Angelidis moments came during the Eastern road swing in the winter of 2006.
The Attack had played poorly in a rare Saturday afternoon game at Belleville and on the bus on the way back to their headquarters in Kingston, the coaching staff asked me if I was going to the movies that night and, since I said I was, would I supervise the team since the coaches wanted a night of peace and didn’t want to be around the team for a few hours.
I totally panicked.
I had visions of late players, lost goalies, bad behaviour, noise in the theatre; every kind of horror story ever connected with teenage athletes and an unqualified guardian ran through my head.
As it turns out, my worries were needless.
The players, to a man were great, but there was zero question as to who the leader of the group was; Mike Angelidis.
Angie took the head count, navigated for the driver, looked after admissions, rounded up the crew, marched them back onto the bus and delivered 23 teenagers back to the hotel long before curfew.
I was impressed and 6 years later, seeing Mike Angelidis score his first NHL goal, I was genuinely happy for a very genuine person.
I’m Fred Wallace