Westmount’s Miller brings us fast fun hockey... without the salary cap

The Verdun Aud can be a really noisy place with almost 3,000 of its 5,000-plus capacity (seated and standing) filled, as it was last week when the 11th place Junior de Montreal took on the 12th place Gatineau Olympiques. Their season records are close enough that when the teams meet in the playoffs starting this Friday, March 19, anything can happen.

The Junior de Montreal are, like the Habs, just over .500, and have some pretty exciting players, including one from Slovakia (Adam Janosik), one from Israel (Eliezer Sherbatov), a top prospect in 16-year old defenseman Xavier Ouellet and a terrific goalie, Jean-Francois Berube, who has already been drafted by the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings. On February 23, Nicolas Chouinard scored five goals in a match against the Lewiston MAINEiacs, setting a team record. This is a fun team to watch.

But what distinguishes the Junior from other teams is its owner, Westmount’s Farrel Miller, as big a cheerleader as they come, a hockey buff as a child who played forward at Brandeis University while a student there and still enjoys playing for teams in the CSL Executive League and a youth league in Town of Mount Royal, where he was raised. “I’m okay,” he replies when asked if he’s any good, before he freezes during that nervy moment when one of his players is on a breakaway and about to score. He doesn’t. Miller reacts, passionately not angrily, just as he does when his players subsequently miss several great opportunities and hit two goal posts. “I can’t believe we’re missing these,” he says, calmly.

The 48-year old Miller, married to Lisa Singer and the father of three children, his personal “hat-trick,” is a solid asset to this hockey-mad city and the Junior an exciting team to watch. Miller relocated them here from Newfoundland and Labrador, where they competed as the St. John’s Fog Devils. He and Lisa met during the 12 years he spent in New York City and they then moved to a condo in NDG, ending up in Westmount in 2002. “We really like living in Westmount,” Miller said. “My son plays hockey there and we enjoy living near Devon Park, where a hockey rink with stadium lighting is set up during the winter.”

Is owning a junior hockey team a lucrative proposition? “At this level, you tend to break even, but you can make some good money if you pick up the corporate sponsors,” Miller told me. “We are only in our second year here, so I am confident that they will come on line.”

But a hockey team is only as good as the excitement it generates and I commented that these kids were full of vim and vigour. “Remember that many of our players are 18-year-old kids (who have daily homework to do, at that),” he stressed. Half the players here have a chance of making the NHL, with “about 10 percent actually making it,” Miller added. Still, “the best 17-19 year old players in the world” are found in this league. And it showed.

The home team triumphed 2-1, reflected in Miller’s beaming face as the final buzzer sounded. For information on the Junior de Montreal, go to their website at www.juniordemontreal.com or call Admission at 514-790-1245 to purchase tickets by telephone.