Lifetime friendship forges something deeper
By Tony Saxon, Guelph Mercury
When Guelph Storm coach and co-owner Scott Walker announced Todd Harvey was joining the team’s coaching staff earlier this year, few were surprised.
He’s bringing in his buddy,” was a familiar comment among those who fill the Sleeman Centre seats.
Yes, he was. And he makes no apologies for it.
“I bought part of the team and I had never brought in anyone who was ‘my guy,’ ” Walker says in agreeing with what was written at the time. “It’s nice to have people you can trust.”
Not that Walker has trust issues with the others around him, but a lifetime friendship forges something deeper.
“I’ve told lots of people this: if I was going down a dark alley in the middle of the night, Todd’s one of the three people I’d want there with me,” Walker says. “Some people might not get that type of character. But to me that says everything: he’s never going to leave you, you trust him with your life and you trust him with anything you have.”
The pair first met 24 years ago when the 14-year-old hot shot Harvey and the undersized long-shot 16-year-old Walker both joined the junior B Cambridge Winter Hawks.
They quickly became thick as thieves; Walker the “big city” boy from the Galt section of Cambridge, Harvey the “farm boy” from nearby Sheffield, just south of Cambridge.
“We did some crazy stuff when we were younger,” Harvey says, although Walker calls it “kids’ stuff, not real trouble.”
Summers would be spent working on local farms, picking and selling corn at the roadside, often sleeping in the back of Walker’s Hyundai Stellar in the cornfield because after a late night out with the boys it was often not worth heading home before the early start on the farm.
When they weren’t at the rink they were in class at Glenview Park Secondary School, riding dirt bikes or horses at the Harvey homestead, hanging out at McDonald’s or taking regular tours through African Lion Safari, where a bunch of their friends worked who let the into the park for free.
They both stress how different they are personality-wise: Harvey the laid back one, Walker the intense one with the trigger temper.
“We’re totally different. He’s wound a lot tighter than I am,” Harvey says. “But it works. There’s a respect factor. I totally respect what he’s accomplished in his life.”
Both Walker and Harvey still live in Cambridge, raising families with their high school sweethearts. Harvey’s oldest son is an up-and-coming baseball star, Walker’s son plays AAA hockey.
They weren’t angels growing up, but both had strict dads at home who wouldn’t stand for any serious trouble.
Walker says his dad didn’t get too upset about struggles in the classroom, but get in trouble for acting up or disrespecting a teacher and there would be hell to pay.
