Tigers’ Haden gets a boost from personal cheering section

By Ryan McCracken on January 5, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

Whenever Gary Haden suits up to take on the Calgary Hitmen at the Scotiabank Saddledome, he knows he’ll have his own cheering section in the building.

But when he stepped out onto the ice prior to Wednesday’s 4-3 overtime loss in Calgary, he was greeted by nearly 100 friends, family members and former teachers cheering his name.

“I think it was around 85-plus. I guess if you buy tickets in bulk it’s like 10 bucks so my grandma just bought 100 and gave them to whoever,” said Haden. “I had teachers from Airdrie, I had friends, I had family, I had tons of people there. After the game it took a while to say hi to everyone.”

While he didn’t score, Haden still brought his personal cheering section to their feet with a highlight reel set-up on Max Gerlach’s second-period power play marker. Approaching the end of the man advantage, Haden cut around Hitmen defenceman Luke Prokop upon entering the offensive zone and fed a tape-to-tape pass to a streaking Gerlach for the go-ahead marker.

While his Tigers ultimately didn’t get the result they were looking for — giving up their first lead of the game in overtime and falling to 21-15-3-0 on the year — Haden says nights like Wednesday always come with an added sentimental and psychological boost, and with any luck he can carry that into this weekend’s two-game home stand at the Canalta Centre.

“It’s always special for those hometown games. You can’t really describe it. You get out there for warm-up and see everyone there and it’s kind of just like ‘Wow, this is pretty special,'” said Haden, who has nine goals and 18 assists through his first 37 games of the season. “I grew up coming to those games so it’s awesome, it’s always good to play there.”

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