On Quinn and Cory, and a thought on my "favourite team"

First of all folks, I'll let you in on a secret.

I care about both teams equally. I work equally as hard for both teams and when they faced each other in the second round of the post-season, it was a really anxious time because I knew it would be the end for one of them. Better than the first round or one not making the playoffs, I suppose, but I was grumpy from start to finish.

The one thing that was kind of nice about it was that the guys on both seemed to care which team I was 'cheering for', which in a way (and really only in hindsight) is a bit of an ego boost, but at the time the question drove me nuts.

So there's that.

But anyways, with that out of the way I can start on the 'meat' of my thoughts (though my decision to start talking about one of the teams over the other has zero significance, and I will attempt to alternate teams throughout).

My first thought about how the Toronto Patriots came together as a family, won two championships and claimed the honour of being the first ever team from Toronto itself to reach the RBC Cup is not about the team's statistical leaders. My thoughts aren't on the remarkable talent of the likes of Mike Prapavessis or Kevin Shier or even the tremendous goaltending of Evan Buitenhuis (though literally everybody on the team found a way to contribute in a very significant way on the way to British Columbia).

No, my first thoughts go to Cory Lauer and Quinn Syrydiuk.

When Pats head coach Jason Fortier takes aim at anybody for his team, from staff to players, the first thing he wants is passion. Cory and Quinn were made of passion of this year.

The former has the rare distinction of being an OJHL player from the Nashville suburb of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee (that's a bit of a joke since I really doubt there has been an OJ player from there...) and was well known by Fortier as it was he that brought the big defenceman north after seeing him play a tournament for his Indiana Ice U18 club in the summer of 2011. At the time, Fortier was the head coach and GM of the Vaughan Vipers and a raw, young Lauer had to battle for ice time - but the potential was there. After a season in Pickering, where Cory went following the Vipers' demise, Lauer was acquired from the Panthers early this year and boy did it pay off.

As a 20-year-old, Cory was all about winning. He wasn't worried about points, he wasn't worried about getting power play time, and he wasn't worried about being an all star. What he was worried about was doing everything he could to bring everyone into the family, about doing his best every shift and playing with passion. The entire Toronto defence corps was sensational, to be honest, even through loads of injuries and absences, and they all deserve mention.

But Lauer, who couldn't get into lineup in Pickering to start the season, stands out in that despite not wearing a letter, despite playing for his fourth team in three years, chose to buy in and be a leader and deserves a ton of credit for Toronto's championship success.

Quinn's path was a bit different. A pretty good scorer for the Toronto Jr. Canadiens midgets two years ago (and an exceptional scorer for the Toronto Red Wings bantams in 2010-11), he (coincidentally) was an affiliated player for the Pickering Panthers in 2012-13. That being said, he truly had no idea if he would/could make an OJHL roster this past campaign. By the end of the season and in the playoffs, the coaching staff could not take him out of the lineup.

On the ice he played like a pit-bull, using his speed to be a dog on raw meat on the forecheck and ended up centring the so-called fourth line.

How did he really earn his spot though? He was the first at the rink, he worked and focussed and bought-in to his role and like Cory, treated everyone in the organization with respect and like family, despite the fact (unlike Cory) that he is a 1996 birth year. Let him be another lesson to all those kids who don't have offers lining up left and right - if you play with passion and chose to be an asset on and off the ice, you will find a way.

Neither of them won awards at the end of the year from the league (though Cory did get a well-deserved scholarship to SUNY Cortland), but everyone in the club from top to bottom knows the impact these two had.

So I salute them.