Nearly 10 months after this site launched and eight months after we started publishing the weekly news from the LFA, I begin a final article (or nearly) and honestly I am relieved. Not because I didn’t enjoy letting you know what was going on in the league and my opinions on it, but the overall workload brought on by the LFA is large enough all week that suddenly being freed up to do something else with my Sundays (the day is spent editing articles and photos, accounting, statistics, etc.) will feel like getting parole! I’m looking forward to life on the outside.

SOME HAD PREDICTED THE OUTCOME WHILE OTHERS STILL DOUBTED.  IT IS WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE VICTORY YESTERDAY THAT THE EXPRESS AND TOMAHAWKS HAVE BOTH GUARANTEED   THEMSELVES A PLACE IN THE FIRST GRAND FINAL OF THE LFA.  EVENT TO BE HELD ON APRIL 26 AT 5PM,IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MONTREAL CANADIENS CHILDREN FOUNDATION, WHICH WILL REAP  ALL THE PROFITS FROM TICKET SALES AND THE CANTEEN. 

Apart from the logo, the creation of the uniforms, the website, the choice of player-coaches, and everything else, it seemed important to me to create a cup for our beer league, a descriptor that doesn’t mean much to me, incidentally, but is current language in the hockey world. When I unofficially announced to the boys on a winter’s Tuesday night that I would start a new league in town, Eric Drapeau immediately volunteered to produce the cup, which still doesn’t have a final name as I write these words. Months went by, summer set in, and one evening during an NHL playoff game, Eric came over with Laurent Quesnel, a longtime devoted collaborator to brainstorm about the cup. We each had ideas in mind and the conversation brought out other possibilities, and at the end of the evening after a couple cold ones, and a lot of yakity yak, we had a plan.

The playoffs and a new phase of our season started last weekend, where every team will try be at their best and carve out a place for the final April 26.

While we await a new scoreboard, you may have noticed flags with the team colours under the clock which allow fans to know which team is ‘home’ and which team is ‘visitors.’ This homemade solution is one more step to creating an optimal hockey experience.

After seven months of weekly matchups, of rivalry, fraternity and healthy competition, we have finally arrived at the playoffs. I would love to go on at length about what that really means, but time is slipping away and manpower is short, so instead, a brief look ahead toward the statt of the "real "season! With four teams (expanding to six next year) the Ligue Fédéral des As opted for a round robin format which will allow for all kinds of scenarios because each team, except one, start from the same point. The Tomahawks, having won the Tremblay Trophy, which will be awarded during its unveiling Wednesday night, gets one point for being the champions of the regular season.

A lot of research, samples and ideas were explored to achieve the final logo of the Ligue Fédérale des As. Time was short between confirmation of the extra ice time that allowed us to transform the Hockey Brotherhood into this new entity on the Montreal sports scene. There were barely two months, from ice time to announcement. In that time, we found a name I had left dormant for years, and to create the image that would represent us, all while building a website explaining the project, and writing all the texts in English, French and Montreal-speak. My time was more than filled promoting the LFA as a new face of adult hockey in Quebec.

Since the beginning of the project to pass from the Bro pick-up games to the LFA, I thought hockey was a splendid platform to make a difference in our society. To organize hockey is good but to organize hockey while helping the community is better! The league is much more time consuming than I had anticipated , so I have not been able to organize all the different events and programs that I wanted to implement. That said, we will finish the season with a final unparalleled in a beer league.

It’s disheartening to have to use such a headline to talk about yesterday’s turn of events instead of announcing some good news about the Ligue Fédérale des As.

The morning is over, and four hours have already been spent sorting out the various altercations that took place yesterday. And the day is young.