Babcock retains hockey title

Babcock Blues Team Captain Mark Russell (right) accepts the VISSC (Victoria Class In-Service Support Contract) Hockey Challenge Trophy. The Blues retained their title with a 5-4 shootout win over the RCN Submariners at Wurtele Arena on Apr. 22. PHotos by Peter Mallett, Lookout

Peter Mallett, Staff Writer ~

The men and women who maintain Pacific Fleet submarines have another year to gloat over those who sail in them.

In a 5-4 shootout hockey game, Babcock Canada Inc. once again bested a team of Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) Submariners in their annual hockey challenge at Wurtele Arena on April 22.

The submariner team, made up of personnel from HMC Submarines Chicoutimi and Victoria, didn’t give up the win easily. With just 19 seconds left in the third period, they sent the VISSC (Victoria Class In-Service Support Contract) Challenge hockey game into overtime after scoring the equalizing goal. But then Robert Cookson of the Babcock Blues converted his game-deciding penalty shot to help his team edge out their navy rivals 3-2 in the fifth round of the tiebreaking overtime.

“They really got us this time. It will just build up the rivalry for next year,” chuckled Victoria’s MS Douglas Mack in a good-natured reaction to the defeat.

The Blues, made up of employees from Babcock Canada, Seaspan Victoria Shipyards and BC Ferries, tapped their sticks on the ice and cheered as they were presented with the VISSC trophy.

Bragging rights and nail-biting finishes aside, MS Mack reacted to the loss like most of his teammates, who were brimming with smiles despite the disappointment at the conclusion of the game. He explained the reason for the tournament is more about building “friendships and camaraderie” with the people who build and keep the RCN’s subs running than the final score of the game.

The Blues team captain, LCdr Mark Russell (Ret’d) may have had the biggest smile of any of the players.

 “It really was a very exciting game that could have gone either way and we pulled it out in the shootout,” said Russell, Principal Naval Architect at Babcock, who was Naval Architect Officer at Fleet Maintenance Facility Cape Breton prior to his retirement in 2009. “Tonight was just a great way to help raise team spirits on and off the ice through some solid esprit de corps.”

The submariners’ team manager Lt(N) Karl Chan, Combat Systems Engineering Officer of HMCS Chicoutimi, said players on both teams were missing the presence of regular participant and practical joker Dave Norton. Norton, a retired C2 stoker submariner, was instrumental in helping shape LCdr Darrel Keys’s (Ret’d) dream of the annual competition. Unfortunately, Norton was unable to attend this year’s event.

“He is the original prankster and point man between the RCN and Babcock and we missed his presence,” said Lt(N) Chan.
For the first two years of the event, Norton, who describes himself as a “washed up hockey player”, took on the responsibility of organizing the annual event while adding some good-natured Shenanigans and pranks to the mix between the two teams.