The Kingston Whig-Standard
March 27, 1998
By Patrick Kennedy

For Bryan Allen, the talented, towering, highly touted rearguard of the Oshawa Generals, his most memorable moment at the Memorial Centre happened nine springs earlier. Like last night's tension-packed affair, it too was a seventh and deciding game of an Ontario Hockey League playoff series.

Allen, the Glenburnie native who was all of eight years old at the time, recalled one pertinent fact from that evening. "The visiting team won that night, too,'' the likeable said 90 minutes before last night's opening face-off.

Not this time, though. With the Kingston Frontenacs' riveting 3-1 victory over the Generals last night, the locals captured their first Game 7 victory in the club's 25-year history, leaving the ousted Oshawans one final, disheartening bus ride home.

Yet even in defeat, Allen's star continued to rise. Listen to St. Louis Blues scout Dick Cherry's appraisal of the six-foot-five rearguard who credits his size to "that Glenburnie well water.''

"This kid's a good one, a superior rearguard,'' noted Grapes' kid brother. "What I'm impressed by is how he's come back from so much adversity. I mean he had mononucleosis at the start of the year, then the knee injury and his first game back [from the knee injury] was, I'd say, his best game of the season. That tells you something right there. He lifted the whole team and got them back in the series.''

Might his Blues pluck Allen in the upcoming National Hockey League draft, Cherry's asked.

"We won't even get a chance at him,'' he moaned. "He's rated in the top five now, maybe top 10 counting the Europeans. He'll be long gone by the time our turn comes'' - approximately 18th.

Allen was barely walking when he first strapped on the blades. His grandfather, Earl Dahms, used to take the two-year-old to Wally Elmer Youth Centre for Earl's weekly seniors skate.

Later on, for those 6 a.m. peewee practices, Bryan would routinely be the first in the five-member Allen household to rise, eager to get to the rink.

"He's always been crazy about hockey,'' said his mother Sharon. "Even when he was very little, it seemed he couldn't get enough of it.''

Good thing, because indications are he'll be earning his keep in the puck game for years to come.

"I've talked to quite a few NHL teams,'' Allen said, naming Toronto, Chicago, San Jose, Anaheim and some others. "Right now they're basically interested in what kind of person I am.

"If anything does happen, I can thank my parents, who've been very instrumental in helping me along.''

His father, Nigel, a Belfast-born salt salesman for Sifto, said his only son - Bryan has two older sisters - has given the family no cause for concern.

"We were a little nervous about sending him to Oshawa last year. He was 16 and we wondered if he might get in with the wrong crowd,'' his dad remarked. "But a couple of the veteran players took him under their wing and this year Bryan's tried to do the same thing with the rookies on the team. We know he's a very responsible kid.''

And cool as a cucumber. During last night's continue-or-croak pressure-cooker, Allen logged more than 30 minutes of ice time and demonstrated poise beyond his years.

The same, however, could not be said of everyone inside the York Street shinny shack. Seventh-game jitters blanketed a standing-room-only assemblage, which included 83-year-old Mabel Burnside, the Frontenacs' oldest regular fan, and Bob Holmes, the team's first-ever season-ticket holder.

In the end the only ones who departed disappointed were the Oshawa players and the Allen family members parked in the front row of Section 6, and for them this night will be remembered as simply another stepping stone on their son's road to the big leagues.



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