Linden helps pack Ladner Arena for DSS hockey game
Fans turning out Wednesday night (Jan.25) at Ladner Arena for the seventh annual Delta Secondary school grads versus staff game and got an extra ice hockey treat.
Former Vancouver Canucks fan favourite and captain Trevor Linden was at centre ice to drop the puck prior to the game.
Todd Allan, a social studies and criminology teacher at DSS who helps organize the games said roughly 1,110 fans attended to watch the side made up of staff and parents down this years grad class 11-3.
But the showcase was Linden's appearance.
"He's a class act and stayed around a long time to watch the game and sign autographs," said Allan who has been at DSS for 17 years and was part of the group organizing the very first game.
"It started out as an informal thing with the (2006) grad class—a students against the teachers thing—and has grown from there," he said.
In intervening years the event has blossomed to the point where the grads even specially design their jerseys for the on-ice tilt.
Ticket and raffle ticket sales from the game are put towards lowering the cost of the grads' dinner dance. Allan said Wednesday's game raised around $7,600.
The win by the staff and parents broke a 3-3 deadlock.
Allan said the winners got some help from a pair of former standout hockey players—former BCHL star and Delta Icehawks coach Shane Kuss and Ken Priestlay, a former Pittsburgh Penguin and two-time Stanley Cup winner.
Both have children attending the school.
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