Sapurji: Join Loosepucks on Facebook

It was nice to see that former Toronto St. Michael's Majors forward Steve Farquharson was one of the first people to sign up for the Loosepucks page on Facebook.

I remember covering Farquharson and the Majors back in the dark ages when the team was playing out of the raccoon infested confines of St. Michael's arena. Great atmosphere when it was packed, but a total dump.

My favourite Farquharson memory was when he scored a hat trick in a 10-0 drubbing of the Kitchener Rangers back on Nov. 26, 2000. Coming into the game, the Whitby native had scored two goals in 26 games as a sophomore with the Majors, so his offensive prowess was a little unexpected to say the least.

The only person more surprised than myself and Canadian Press reporter Jeff Mackie, was Steve Farquharson.

Asked about when the last time he had scored a hat trick the rugged right-winger responded: "Oh god, the last time was probably in minor hockey," he told the Toronto Star at the time. "It was a long, long time ago."

NOTE: It's nice to see Jeff Mackie is with us on Facebook too.

That season, Farquharson went on to score a total of seven goals in 58 games -- so I like to think I was witness to a great moment in OHL history.

That wasn't my favourite Majors team to cover, though it did have many of my favourite characters for the next season -- motor-mouthed Darryl Bootland, a non-English speaking Frankie Lukes, his translator Peter Budaj, Andy Chiodo, Tim Brent and Matt Ellis.

My favourite team to cover was probably the 2001-02 edition that added the unintelligible Joe Guenther, Scott Horvath (who gave up his scholly at UMass) and the baby-faced Ryan Rorabeck.

This season, the Majors broke the franchise points record set by that 2001-02 squad, so I asked head coach Dave Cameron whether he felt this team was more talented... except he couldn't remember who was on the old team.

"I'm guessing that team was a little bit older," said Cameron. "We look at our team (now) and we're still relatively young -- and that's not an excuse or anything like that -- but Matty Ellis would have probably been on that (2001-02) team and a lot of those guys moved on... are we more talented (now)? Not necessarily, but we're probably a bit deeper."

Our Facebook page and Twitter (@loosepucks) will be updated frequently during the playoffs, so don't miss out on the latest OHL info.

Click here to join LPs on FB.

As always - questions, comments, compliments, complaints, threats etc: [email protected] or on Twitter @loosepucks