by John Humphrey
The Lakeshore Canadiens have put the exclamation point on one of their most memorable seasons ever by winning their second Schmalz Cup in the last three seasons.
The Canadiens defeated the Clarington Eagles 5-4 on May 17 in Clarington to clinch the series in five games and claim the Provincial Junior Hockey Championship, their sixth in franchise history.
The 2023-2024 edition of the Canadiens was one of the the best ever from Lakeshore (and before that Belle River) according to longtime team general manager Mark Seguin, who just completed his 20th season with the organization.
The team finished with a stellar 37-5-0-0 record to finish in first place atop the PJHL’s West Stobbs Division standings during the regular season.
“We drew up a game plan for the regular season and we executed that plan fully,” claimed Seguin. “We started our training camp a little later than usual to give the guys some rest since we played so long the season before and we did not have much of an off-season as a result.”
The Canadiens’ 2022-23 season ended last May when the team failed to advance to the championship game of the Schmalz Cup Tournament. The PJHL implemented the tournament as one of the few adjustments to league play due to a series of Covid protocols.
This season, however, there was no stopping the Canadiens from Lakeshore, right from the opening face-off of the 2023-2024 regular season campaign.
“We had a very strong team, and we really had no weaknesses,” said Seguin, matter-of-factly. “It was also a group of players who had been together for a long time, and I think that some of them were still upset over how the previous season ended and they felt liked that had let something slip away.”
The veteran-laden 2023-2024 team included a core group of seven players that included Eric Bisson, Josh Cyrenne, Ethan Galvan, Trevor LaRue, Bryce Scarlett, Aeden Sullivan in addition to team captain Marco Sladoje who were part of the Canadiens squad that not only came up short in the Schmalz Cup Tournament last May but had captured the Cup in 2022.
“At the end of the day, this was the most determined group that I have ever been around in a long time,” said Seguin.
The entire communities of Lakehore and Essex County and the Canadiens’ organization were hit by sudden tragedy when right-winger Sylvain Lessard died in a vehicle crash on County Road 42. The 21-year-old Windsor native was on his way to his home in Forest Glade following a team practice at the Atlas Tube Centre on October 24.
Seguin was informed of the tragic news and receiving a phone call from Sylvain’s father, Marco, at 2 AM.
“I was shocked and stunned,” he sadly recalled just a few days after Sylvain’s passing. “I started shaking a bit too.”
After somewhat regaining his composure, Seguin took an hour before coming up with a game plan to break the news to everyone in the Canadiens organization.
“There’s protocols to follow and the first people I contacted were our ownership group and they were devastated,” Seguin said. “I had to let our coaching staff know too.
“We were supposed to play a road game in Dresden that night and of course it was cancelled.” Seguin continued. “I also wanted to let our players know as soon as possible because in this day and age I didn’t want to them to find out what had happened through social media.”
The Canadiens’ play-off march to the 2024 Schmalz Cup championship started with post-season series wins over the Walpole Island Wild and the Wheatley Omstead Sharks before the annual inevitable showdown with the arch-rival Essex 73s. Lakeshore won that series in a monumental seven game tussle.
“The crowds in both towns were as big as I have ever seen during a series,” Seguin recalled. “We had to turn hundreds of fans away from games in our rink and that has never happened before.
Tragedy unfortunately struck the Canadiens family again when Ronald Seguin Sr. passed away at age 92 on March 22. Ron Sr. was the father of Mark Seguin and the cherished husband of Bernadette for close to 70 years when he passed just two days before the start of the Essex series.
“It was a very difficult time for our family,” Seguin claimed. “We will always be thankful for the outpouring of support we received from our players and their parents, our team management and ownership and our fans.”
After eliminating the 73s, the Canadiens took care of the Thamesford Trojans and the New Hamburg Fire birds to advance to the Schmalz Cup Finals against the Eastern Conference champion Eagles.
“We lost the first game of the series against Clarington 1-0 in their rink, but I thought we deserved a better fate,” offered Seguin. “We won the next four one-goal games to take the series.
“The games were close, but I think we were the better team throughout the series.”
As of press time, the only confirmed off-season activities for the Canadiens are the mini-camp to be held at the Atlas Tube Centre and the team’s participation in the Lakeshore Sunsplash parade in July.
Anyone expecting the Canadiens will be taking a step or two back next season should guess again as the team will be back looking for more championship hardware in 2024-2025.
“My phone has been ringing off the hook from players who want to play for us next season and beyond,” Seguin claimed. “We will have a dozen or so other guys back from this year’s team next season, so that is a solid core to build around.
“We won’t be rebuilding,” he continued. “We will be reloading and taking another run at things next season.”
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