Team Gold celebrates winning the Vandersteen Cup awarded to the champion of the Neil McNeil Catholic School intramural hockey league. The championship was played last week at East York Arena and saw Team Gold top Team White 3-0. Photo by Matthew Stephens.

By MATTHEW STEPHENS

For the players in Neil McNeil Catholic High School’s intramural hockey league, this year’s championship game to hoist the Vandersteen Cup also celebrated the legacy of Frank Vandersteen, a beloved teacher and coach who passed away late last year.

“Frank may have passed, but this league will never die. Vandersteen is an icon in our school community,” said Peter Ranson, a teacher at Neil McNeil who helped establish several of the school’s sports programs.

Frank Vandersteen worked at the Victoria Park Avenue school as a religion teacher and hockey coach before retiring in 2005. His love for Neil McNeil didn’t end there,however, as he frequently returned to the school as both a supply teacher and a prominent figure in the students’ lives.

“He always came back, he supply taught – and the kids just lit up when they saw him,” said Justin Mihevc, co-founder of the intramural hockey league and faculty member at Neil McNeil.

Grandsons Peter and Aiden Vandersteen, who were also in attendance at the championship game on Thursday, March 5, at East York Arena, praised the league for its inclusionary nature.

“Hockey can be an intensive thing, and this is just a better way to involve as many students as possible, because not everyone is going to be an elite player,” said Peter. “I think it just really opens hockey up to the entire school, and really gets the students to engage with one another.”

Players of the White and Gold teams took to the ice for the title game on the afternoon of March 5, with the Gold squad skating to a 3-0 victory.

Moments before the puck dropped, senior student and Gold team coach Noraiz Samir predicted the shutout victory in a locker room interview with Beach Metro Community News.

“I really expect Team Gold to take it to Team White and come out on top by a lot,” said Samir.

Each of the team’s respective student coaches transitioned into a leadership role after having played in the league since its conception three years ago.

Now in his senior year, White Team coach Ryan Mehra said he’s thankful for the opportunity to look back on the league through a coaching lens.

“It’s a cool experience to give back to the younger generation of hockey players at the school,” said Mehra. “We were part of this league when we were in Grade 10, and so it’s nice to give back to our little brothers, as we call it.”

Team Gold’s Lucas Magar holds the Most Valuable Player award he was presented with by Aiden and Peter Vandersteen at last Thursday’s Vandersteen Cup championship game. Photo by Matthew Stephens.

Team Gold MVP (Most Valuable Player) Lucas Magar said the league has created a stronger sense of camaraderie at the school, and allowed him to establish new relationships with students he may not have met outside the rink.

“The league was fun and it was nice to build friendships with people I hadn’t met at Neil,” said Magar. “It allowed us to be more social, and it helped create the ‘brotherhood’ at Neil. It felt great to win the league, especially for the kids that never played hockey.”

According to Ranson, Neil McNeil has experienced a sharp increase in young athletes in recent years. The high school is currently home to eight hockey teams, including senior and junior contact, non-contact ‘A’ and ‘B’, and four intramural teams.

Ranson said the Vandersteen intramural league has helped to create more opportunities for students who aren’t able to play on the school’s varsity hockey teams.

“We’re very strong in our hockey program. We have a total of eight teams servicing kids at different levels of hockey,” said Ranson. “This league is for kids that are A level and under, and a lot of these kids wouldn’t make some of our competitive teams, so this gives them a sense of belonging and makes them feel like part of our school community.”

He said the school’s intramural leagues create opportunities for an additional 100 students to take part in school sports.

“At Neil, if we just had the competitive teams, a lot of these kids wouldn’t have an opportunity to play. Now, through this, we have an extra 100 kids engaged,” said Ranson.

Each of the school’s colour-coded intramural leagues have four teams consisting of 20 players each.

Over a half-year season, the Vandersteen intramural league played games every Thursday from the beginning of October until early March, for a total of 10 games. At the end of the season, the two best teams faced off in a final championship game for the Vandersteen Cup.

Ranson and Mihevc said they hope to see the league expand further in the years to come, creating more opportunities for young hockey players at other schools across the city.

“It would be an awesome thing,” said Ranson. “We’re looking to see if we can help other schools and do what’s best for kids across the city.”