Rather than being disappointed by losing the 1992 Ontario Amateur Softball Association (OASA) championship, the Huronia Refrigeration Icemen used that as incentive the following year.
Playing out of the Simcoe Rural Fastball League, the team had to emerge victorious from its zone playdowns, a format that pitted them against the best from Simcoe, Grey and Huron counties. In 1992, they made it to the championship tournament in Grafton but lost the final game to finish as finalists in the “C” Division.
A successful 1993 season saw them again win their zone to advance for the second straight year to the 16-team championship tournament being held that year in Tavistock.
The Icemen got hot at just the right time, going undefeated in the round-robin before meeting Tavistock in the final. They had beaten Tavistock 4-1 earlier in the double-knockout tournament but the host team had battled back to make it to the championship game.
Steve Courtemanche and Jeff Bell scored early for the Icemen, who won 2-0, and Kurt Glover was named the game’s most valuable player. Overall, Glover pitched two of three shutout wins in the five games the Icemen played, comprising14 shutout innings.
Bell was named the tournament MVP after going an incredible 13-for-18 at the plate, resulting in an unbelievable .722 batting average.
The picture on the front page of the Tavistock Gazette from Sept. 1, 1993, shows Bell and Glover with their awards, plus a happy and justifiably proud Icemen team displaying the OASA’s Scheiderman Memorial Trophy, emblematic of this team’s determination never to settle for second best.
