A technicality is a technicality, and for now, we’ll take it!
The Milton Menace were mentioned on the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast on Saturday, October 16th because the Toronto Maple Leafs signed University of Toronto goaltender Alex Bishop to an amateur player try-out contract to have Bishop serve as the Leafs backup goalie in an emergency scenario.
This came as Leafs goaltender Petr Mrazek suffered an injury in Thursday night’s game against the Ottawa Senators, and Leafs defenceman Justin Holl fell ill before Saturday’s game. The Leafs were unable to call up goaltender Michael Hutchinson due to the team being too close to the NHL salary cap and having to use their only spare player on the Leafs roster (Timothy Liljegren) as a replacement for Holl.
So, here’s where the Milton Menace come in. During the 1st period, play-by-play announcer Chris Cuthbert was discussing the hockey journey of Alex Bishop. He began listing off team names, and gave a throwaway mention of Milton’s OJHL team. The thing is, depending on how you look at it, Bishop both did and didn’t play for the Milton Menace.
Bishop played two games for the Newmarket Hurricanes in the 2013-2014 OJHL season. He then played for the Hamilton Red Wings the next year before moving on to a lengthy stint in the QMJHL with the Saint John Sea Dogs.
In 2019, the Newmarket Hurricanes were purchased and moved to Milton and were renamed the Menace. This came after Milton’s former OJHL team were moved to Brantford to become the 99ers.
Hockey has a weird history of being transitional with its organizations. The issue is, how leagues tend to view these transactions is not by community, but rather by organization. While Milton residents may have a pride of once attending Milton Icehawks games, the same team that a young John Tavares spent time with, the organization has no connection with the now Milton Menace.
Think of a car. You have in your possession the best car that could have possibly ever existed. Unfortunately, maybe you need to sell it to afford something else, so you stop by your local dealership and sell the car. A year or two later, when your funds are better, you decide “I’d really like to have that car back.” You head on down to the same dealership. The salesperson says that he sold your car to another customer, but you can have this other car. It’s the same make, model, and everything – only a different colour. It’s not the same car – but it may as well be the same car.
That is the best analogy I can come up with to explain why when you look up Alex Bishop’s hockey history, some updated records have the organization to read as the Milton Menace in the 2013-2014 season, despite only coming into existence in 2019.
So, did Alex Bishop play for the Menace? Technically, no.
Did the Milton Menace get a shoutout on a national broadcast? Yes, and that’s awesome.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Did the <a href=”https://twitter.com/MapleLeafs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@MapleLeafs</a> broadcast team just mention the Milton Menace on air?<br><br>MOM, DAD, we’ve made it! <br><br>*faints* <a href=”https://t.co/lsr0XNPbdh”>pic.twitter.com/lsr0XNPbdh</a></p>— Milton Menace (@MenaceOJHL) <a href=”https://twitter.com/MenaceOJHL/status/1449523158755676160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>October 16, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Now, if only Danny Green knew where Milton was.
Hey, things are changing for us here at MiltonNow.ca! If you have a news tip or story idea, you can now send us a heads up via email at News1013@LocalRadio.ca. If you’d like to get ahold of me personally, shoot me a message at Cameron.Wilkinson@LocalRadio.ca. We’re in the business of content creation, so no idea is a bad idea.
