There’s a lot of debate and many opinions about what home-ice advantage means, and about how much it means.
Is it mainly about being able to enjoy a regular routine, that “sleeping in your own bed” thing you often hear players talk about? Is it about the chess game of line-matching and the last-change edge that goes to the home-side coach?
And what about the backing of fans? Does it influence the outcome of games that much?
Qualifying the first two factors is a matter of subjection. In most cases, so is the latter, but Tuesday night at Mile One Centre in St. John’s, 6,300-plus fans resoundingly offered a definite opinion on the matter.
Because they made a difference as the Newfoundland Growlers claimed the 2018-19 ECHL championship and Kelly Cup.
It began as the Growlers skated onto the Mile One ice for the start of Game 6 of the league final against the Toledo Walleye, fuelled by the extra adrenalin that came with the knowledge a win would result in a championship for tNewfoundland in the franchise’s first year of being.
But the Newfoundland players rocketed out of the dressing room further boosted by the turbo effect of a towel-waving, cow bell-clapping, ugly stick-pounding, vuvuzela-blowing, top-of-their-voices cheering, just-plain applauding, hearts-a-pounding crowd.
And minutes later, those fans were nationalized when the anthem portion of the pre-game rituals was topped off by Chris Andrews singing the “Ode to Newfoundland.”
Or at least singing most of it. Because at one point during the Ode, Andrews held his microphone out to the crowd, who transformed into a choir, investing pride into their sung words, offering a reminder/lesson to the visitors that they may have been in a province of Canada, but one that not very long ago was an independent country, and that there were probably a few in the Mile One gathering who had been born in the Dominion of Newfoundland.
The fans’ loud input continued mostly throughout the game. It helped that they had much to cheer about. For two periods, the Growlers were as good as they had been at any point in the season, building up a 4-1 lead. But the Walleye showed they weren’t ready to lay down, at least until they reached their hotel room beds.
“Any time a team comes back like (Toledo) did, especially when there is so much on the line, to have what’s called the seventh man, the entire crowd, give you that sort of backing at that point in that game, there’s no way you don’t feel it."
Growlers forward Giorgio Estephan
Toledo scored twice in the third period, the second tally coming with less than four minutes remaining. It made it 4-3 Newfoundland, an “Oh, me nerves!” lead to be sure, and in the immediate moments after that goal was scored, there was real tenseness in the building. But like some parents picking up children who had just stumbled, the crowd rallied almost immediately and offered a mantra that was less a prayer, more a promise that they would see their team though to the end.
“Let’s go, Growlers!” they roared in unison again and again, a sound that seemed to blast much of the nervousness away.
And the team was indeed steadied by that support.
“One hundred per cent … that was the case,” said Newfoundland forward Giorgio Estephan, who scored two of the Growlers’ four goals on Tuesday.
“Any time a team comes back like (Toledo) did, especially when there is so much on the line, to have what’s called the seventh man, the entire crowd, give you that sort of backing at that point in that game, there’s no way you don’t feel it.
“To have them behind us like that, it helped us lock it down. It was something special. I’ll never forget it.”
The reinforcement of the fans didn’t just make its way to ice level. It also found its way to the upper reaches of Mile One, to where Glenn Stanford, who has been part of the professional hockey dynamic in St. John’s ever since the 1991 arrival of the American Hockey League, was ensconced.
“When (the Walleye) make it 4-3, the air kind of goes out of your chest,” said Stanford, the Growlers’ chief operating officer.
“But give credit to the fans, because for the last four or five minutes, they willed our guys to win. We had challenged them this week to be loud tonight and to carry us through and that’s what they did. They were absolutely unbelievable.
“That was as loud as I’ve seen this building for a hockey game, actually if you include Memorial Stadium, too, and it was fantastic to experience that. “Those fans have waited nearly 30 years for this sort of championship, the same as me.
“Now we have it, and the great thing is that the fans just didn’t just watch this win happen. They were a real part of why it happened.”
Twitter: @telybrendan
