Nine years have passed since Chris Nolin won his last championship in the Prince George Ball Hockey League Open Division and he has expanded his horizons since he moved to Fort McMurray.
Now he's intent on conquering the world.
As general manager for Team Ireland, a team vying for the World Ball Hockey Federation championship May 23-31, 2015, in Pittsburgh, Nolin has built a club he thinks is capable of knocking off Team Canada, the four-time defending champions at the 12-team A tournament.
"There's isn't much ball hockey in Ireland, so we got the rights to pick a heritage team from Canada and the States," said Nolin. "The players have to have Irish heritage back to your grandparents. It's basically another Team Canada.
"We have some senior hockey players and some ex-Team Canada players and we have a good chance - when the present Team Canada sees our lineup they'll see we have quite the roster."
Five of the Team Ireland players were with Team Canada when they won their fourth world title in June 2013 in Toronto. Held every two years, next year's tournament includes 20 men's teams and 12 women's teams. Beijing, China, will host the tournament in 2017.
Nolin, 42, is the GM but will probably also play for the team in Pittsburgh.
"When you get to that level ball hockey is probably one of the best spectator sports," said Nolin. "You can't glide, and everyone is running so fast and the ball's moving fast. The action is crazy."
Nolin managed and played for the Great Britain team at the 2013 world tournament. He held an administrative role with the Prince George league before he left the city in 2005 to take a job as a utility technician with the Wood-Buffalo regional district. He used to play for the Prince George Spruce Capitals, who won four league titles in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and now plays for the Fort McMurray Snafus.
Ontario and Quebec are the hotbeds for ball hockey in Canada. Ontario alone has close to 500 ball hockey teams. The Montreal Red Lights have won the national title 10 of the last 13 years. The sport attracts large crowds in European countries like the Czech Republic. The Czech team had former NHL goalie Dominik Hasek in goal when it won the world title a few years ago.
"Ball hockey is on the verge of exploding right now," said Nolin.
All 25 Team Ireland players are from Canada, with 11 Newfoundlanders on that list, including former Tri-City Americans/Montreal Canadiens forward Terry Ryan, a native of Mount Pearl, Nfld. Ryan, 37, was picked by the Habs eighth overall in the 1995 entry draft, after four seasons in the WHL with Tri-City and Red Deer.
Goalie Tim Barlow of High Level, Alta., brings the experience of winning two world gold medals with Canada. The team also has one player from Ontario, nine Albertans and one from Prince George - forward Greg Rayburn, who moved to Edmonton with his family when he was a toddler.
Rayburn lives in Edmonton and plays for the Edmonton Whalers. Head coach Jack Tobin and Nolin discovered him a couple months ago at a Team Ireland tryout camp in Edmonton.
"We saw some great players there and Greg really stood out - he's high energy, we found the diamond in the rough we were looking for and we were so happy he joined us," said Tobin.
Tobin has Irish grandparents and is originally from Newfoundland, where he used to play for the Newfie Bullets. He moved to Fort McMurray for work in the '70s and joined Alberta Crude, which won a silver medal at the national ball hockey championship in 1987 - the furthest any Alberta team has advanced at the national level. He's hoping Team Ireland will raise enough sponsorship dollars to get together for a few exhibition games prior to the Pittsburgh tournament.
"We're going into this feeling we have a real good chance to win," said Tobin. "It's amazing how all the players are ecstatic about playing for Ireland, being the first time Ireland has ever been in there.
"You know how Irish people are, they're proud of their heritage and they're huge supporters of their teams if they do anything and that's really pumped up the players."
If they do become world champions and word of the team's success spreads to Ireland, don't be surprised if the players are invited to Dublin for a team parade down Grafton Street.
"That would be the first parade I was in that I wasn't a clown, that would be a nice change," laughed Tobin.
