Minor hockey Made Major Impact on 67’s Hometown Heroes

OTTAWA, ON – With hockey at the professional level with the Ottawa Senators and Ottawa Charge and running all the way down to the junior level with your Ottawa 67’s, there’s no doubt that the nation’s capital lives and breathes the sport.

While the pro teams give aspiring fans the ambition to shoot for the stars, the Ottawa 67’s provides young fans with closer access to larger-than-life role models and a goal that feels much more within reach.

In the case of the Barber Poles’ four hometown players–Spencer Bowes, Shaan Kingwell, Jaeden Nelson, and Thomas Vandenberg–cheering on the 67’s was the catalyst for them to first fall in love with the sport from afar.

“When I was younger, my family and I would come out to watch the 67’s as it wasn’t too far,” said Carleton Place-native Spencer Bowes. “It meant a lot to me.”

“I remember coming to 67’s games as a kid and thinking these guys were huge and how fast the game was,” said Kingwell, who honed his skills with the Ottawa Jr. 67’s.

“Being around Ottawa, coming to games and dreaming of putting on the jersey, it sounds clichée, but it’s something everyone in the room from here had visions of and living out the dream is truly a blessing,” said Kanata-born Jaeden Nelson.

“When I was 11 or 12, I remember Will Cranley was playing in net against Sarnia and thinking he was the best goalie ever,” he said. “Now I can look back at being the kid all the way up in the stands, and now I look up in the stands, and there’s maybe a kid up there watching me, in the same situation I once was.”

However, minor hockey was where they learned to love the sport up close and get to where they are now on the other side of the glass.

Minor hockey instilled discipline and work ethic for Spencer Bowes, which helped him quickly rise the ranks of minor hockey, from the days of the Carleton Place Kings, and now up the pecking order on the 67’s in his rookie season.

“The credit is the hard work,” said Bowes.

“Usually at that age, your coaches are your parents, they drive you there and home and push you to work on something if you are doing nothing,” he said. “My dad was my coach for a while; he’d always be on me if I did something bad.”

All these years later, he still thinks about what his dad would say every time he gets a stick infraction.

For goaltender Jaeden Nelson, who worked his way through the Kanata Blazers and Ottawa Myers Automotive squads, minor hockey is where he forged his competitive edge. “Winning championships was fun,” he said with a smile. “It’s always fun to win.”

“I was fortunate enough to be able to do a lot of that in tournaments and tournaments,” he said. “As you get older and leagues get harder and more competitive, it gets harder to win at the next level, so all the winning was some of the best parts and greatest memories to look back on.”

Apart from his parents, who reminded him to work hard and have fun, Nelson credits Chris Larocque, the father of his minor hockey goalie partner Charlie, for helping him take the next step. “Chris did a lot for me,” he said. “A lot of my minor hockey success and experience wouldn’t be what it was without him, his help and support.”

Alongside the hard work, discipline, and competition, minor hockey also proved to be an outlet for fun.

“Hockey is a way to make friendships that last forever,” said Kingwell.

“As a kid, you are always worried about scoring, trying to get points,” he said. “I think if you just go out there and try to have fun, everything will figure itself out.”

“You learn fun, there, you make a lot of friends and get to go out to tournaments,” said Bowes. “Now looking back, you’ll play four games in two days – I have no idea how you’re able to do that when you are younger,” he laughed. “But even if you make it to the finals or semi-finals, you’ll go out and do something fun as a team afterwards.”

“In minor hockey, as things start to transition into being more serious, it’s so important to have so much fun,” said Nelson.

“It’s fun now that we’re older, with the other local guys I’ve played against in minor hockey, to poke fun at whatever happened back then: who was better, and whose team was better,” said Nelson.

The team will celebrate these organizations and leagues as the Barber Poles host the Sudbury Wolves on February 1st, 2026, at 3 p.m., for their Minor Hockey Game, sponsored by Pro Hockey Life. Fans can buy tickets to the game here.

 

Jacob Titus

Writer, Ottawa 67’s