Scott Radley: The Bulldogs lose in the most painful way possible to end an era
They're now the Brantford Bulldogs.
Oh sure, they still have to clean out the dressing room at FirstOntario Centre, take down the banners and load up the moving trucks. But for all real purposes, an era in this city's hockey history ended on Monday night when the black and gold lost 5-4 to the Barrie Colts on a winning goal with an excruciating 9.9 seconds remaining.
It's just a tough way to lose," says Bulldog forward and local boy, Florian Xhekaj.
Series over. Season over. Time in Hamilton over. For now, anyway.
For a city that's seen plenty of unbelievable moments from this franchise, the final episode produced more dramatic twists than a Mexican telenovela. This appropriately incredible curtain-closer had fans gnawing their fingers past the nails and down to the second knuckle.
Up 3-0 midway through the second and looking like they were on their way to a Game 7, the bottom suddenly fell out.
First Brandt Clarke - who else? - scored on the power play and then proceeded to taunt the fans who'd been booing him every time he touched the puck. Minutes later, the Colts cut the lead to 3-2. And then tied it before the period was over on a fluky deflection off the stick of Hamilton's Lawson Sherk.
The final period was filled with chances at both ends. Barrie went ahead. Hamilton tied it three minutes later. Then came the gut punch of a winner. An ending more sudden than the final scene of The Sopranos. And maybe the most-painful way imaginable to lose.
It was just a heart-dropping moment for us," says Patrick Thomas, who like Xhekaj is a local who got to play for his hometown team.
And now it's over. For a while.
Come September, there won't be a team called the Bulldogs playing out of this building for the first time since 1996. If you're 26, you've not been alive for a time without a team here wearing a dog on its chest. It's going to be strange.
Between the AHL version of the team and now the OHL version, the franchise won 1,079 games, six division titles, five conference titles, two regular-season league titles and three championships. It put innumerable players and coaches into the NHL. One play-by-play announcer, too. A few years from now, it'll put one of its grads (Carey Price) into the Hall of Fame.
It played in what was then the longest game in AHL history and hosted two outdoor games. It set the record for largest playoff crowds in both leagues. And its charitable foundation fed breakfast every day to tens of thousands of local schoolchildren while pumping millions into local causes.
Its temporary departure has been foretold for months but it's still a big deal.
It hit me right after the game," Xhekaj says.
Assuming it returns as planned in three years when the arena renovations are done, there will be plenty of questions about what the group will look like and how the market will take to the sequel. Will they have won a championship in Brantford (don't bet against this young group)? Will the squad that comes back be competitive? Will the coaching staff and management still be the same?
Those are questions for another day. On April 10, 2023 - 9,685 days after a team called the Hamilton Bulldogs played its first game against the Albany River Rats - the guys now wearing the colours skated off the ice for the final time for a good long while.
Over to you, Brantford. Treat them well.
They've been good Dogs.
Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com