Monday, December 3, 2007

post 8

  • Wayne stayed with the Nationals, playing 3 age groups above his years. Although he hadn't started until the season was almost 2 months old, he scored 27 goals and got 33 assists for 60 points and was named the league's rookie-of-the-year.
  • Wayne didn't look good or well, so they took him to their own doctor in Brantford. He couldn't find anything , either. Meanwhile Wayne was staying at home doing nothing but sleep - and no matter how much he slept, he was still tired. He'd got home from school at 3:30 and go to bed. He'd get up at 5:30 long enough to have something to eat, then go back to bed. By 11 p.m. he'd be up because he was hungry, but then he'd fall back into bed and sleep until it was time to go to school. It went on like that, day after day.
  • In the meantime, he was finishing his grade 10 at West Humber Collegiate, playing for the school basketball team and running cross-country. It was Christmas before he felt totally right, at which point he was so far down in the scoring race you'd have had to tunnel to find him. In the end he did have a pretty good season. The Senecas won the league title and Wayne finished fourth in scoring with 36 goals and 36 assists for 72 points, plus 75 points in 23 playoff games.
  • One of the first things Wayne found out when he joined the Greyhounds was that the club had an initiation rite for rookies. They had to "streak" naked through the park, But the rookies werent worried. It had to be a joke.
  • Here was this kid who'd just scored 3 goals and had 3 assists in a 6-1 win over the Oshawa Generals in his first game of junior "A", and he was still too young to shave.
  • In pre-season Wayne had 31 points (9 goals and 22 assists) including 6 in his first game as a junior "A". He was 16 playing against 18 and 19 year olds.
  • It ended up with Smith on top with 69 goals and 123 assists for 192 points, Wayne second at 70-112-182, and Ciccarelli third at 72-70-142.

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