Tom Gaskell was part of the 1964-65 Bras d’Or Lakers hockey club that is enshrined in the Northside Sports Hall of Fame. I talked with the former defenceman from Little Bras d’Or just prior to Christmas, and he was kind enough to share some of his memories of the team. The custom for many of the Bras d’Or Lakers was to leave Cape Breton and go to work on the “lake boats”(thus the name of the team) after the hockey season had ended in the spring. The vessels carried products such as coal, grain, steel and produce, and they sailed North America’s five Great Lakes: Lakes Ontario, Superior, Erie, Huron and Michigan. “If we were still playing hockey, the guys would wait for a late call-up in April or May, June or July,” recalled Gaskell.
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“The fans followed us around, too. We could always depend on having them there.
The first-year Lakers were a good team that had fun, Gaskell recalled. On the other hand, the ‘64-65 club was superior in talent and also way more serious. The championship squad was led by player/coach Aubrey Gouthro, who, according to Gaskell, was in the same class as a couple of the premier local players of the time, Fred Courtney and Vince Ryan of Glace Bay. “Our big guns were Aubrey Gouthro, Joey Druggan, Cyril Serroul and Danny LeBlanc who came to Bras d’Or from the Brooks Combines of the Sydney Suburban League, and boy, could he play. We also had good scoring from fellows like George Collier and Ron Gillis. In goal, Lenny Walker was pretty steady. Get him a couple of goals and he’d keep us in there.” Bras d’Or won the Northside league title defeating New Waterford. Gaskell remembers the Lakers winning two games and tying two (there was no overtime) in the best-of-five playoff, good enough to win the series. Next, they played the New Victoria Eagles for the Cape Breton crown. The Eagles had captured the Sydney Suburban League championship by disposing of the Brooks
“The fans followed us around, too. We could always depend on having them there.
The first-year Lakers were a good team that had fun, Gaskell recalled. On the other hand, the ‘64-65 club was superior in talent and also way more serious. The championship squad was led by player/coach Aubrey Gouthro, who, according to Gaskell, was in the same class as a couple of the premier local players of the time, Fred Courtney and Vince Ryan of Glace Bay. “Our big guns were Aubrey Gouthro, Joey Druggan, Cyril Serroul and Danny LeBlanc who came to Bras d’Or from the Brooks Combines of the Sydney Suburban League, and boy, could he play. We also had good scoring from fellows like George Collier and Ron Gillis. In goal, Lenny Walker was pretty steady. Get him a couple of goals and he’d keep us in there.” Bras d’Or won the Northside league title defeating New Waterford. Gaskell remembers the Lakers winning two games and tying two (there was no overtime) in the best-of-five playoff, good enough to win the series. Next, they played the New Victoria Eagles for the Cape Breton crown. The Eagles had captured the Sydney Suburban League championship by disposing of the Brooks