Chris Stedile
Castlegar News
The BC Hockey Hall of Fame has announced their 2015 B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame Inductees. Among those selected were Markus Naslund, Rob Niedermayer and Castlegar’s Bruno Tassone with the 1979 Team BC Canada Winter Games gold medal team.
The inductees were announced in late January and the ceremonies will be held July 24.
Tassone says he will definitely be attending the ceremonies.
“It’s quite an honour to, number one, be able to win a national championship and to have that recognition of being able to do that. Being put into the Hall of Fame is quite an honour.”
Team BC won gold at the 1979 Canada Winter Games which were held in Brandon, Manitoba.
BC annihilated the competition, going 4-0 in the round robin. After defeating Prince Edward Island 13-2, Tassone’s team continued on to stomp Nova Scotia 8-0 in the gold medal game.
Altogether, the team finished with 31 goals for and only 10 against. It might be safe to say that Tassone being in at defence had something to do with their wild success.
“On that team I played defence, but up until Juniors I was in at center.”
Tassone said he did prefer to play defence.
“You can see more of the game back there and it’s more of a physical game.”
The Castlegarian started playing hockey at a young age — seven years old he said.
Tassone’s brother was the one to get him into Canada’s favourite game. He said his family was always big into hockey and when he watched his brother skating around with his team he couldn’t help but feel the passion too.
Years later, after much practice and honing his skills Tassone joined Team BC and helped bring home the gold medal.
“When I played in the games I was oh, say, 18 - 19.”
With his recent election to City Council, Tassone has taken a year off from coaching — something he has done since he was around 20 years of age. For the long time coach this is temporary.
“Maybe next year I’ll start playing again, “ he said, “might even start coaching again.”