Creemore hockey alumnus excels in 30+ year hockey career

Local hockey legend Steve Walker was named coach of the year of the elite German Ice Hockey League after leading the Schwenninger Wild Wings to the playoffs in his first year as a head coach in this league. Previously in the German League, he was an assistant coach for six seasons with the Munich and Adler Mannheim hockey clubs. He spent one year as head coach in the Austrian League. Stayner Junior C Siskins is where he got his start as a coach.

Walker had an illustrious professional hockey career in North America before becoming a star player for the Berlin Polar Bears where his number 27 hangs from the rafters.

Walker is an alumni of the Creemore Minor Hockey system and has lived the dream of making a 30-plus-year career in professional hockey.

Chris Emerton played with Walker throughout minor hockey and later won a Junior B championship with the Barrie Colts. Eventually Emerton won a national championship with the University of Guelph hockey team, the Gryphons. Emerton’s uncle Don Westbrooke made a career playing professional hockey and is the only Canadian to score three goals on Vladislav Tretiak, who is considered one of the world’s greatest goalies of all time. Emerton’s son Cole Emerton, a defenceman, is ranked high in this year’s OHL draft.

Forward Troy Patton is another young hockey player with local roots ranked high in the same draft. His dad Greg ‘Goob’ Patton, a sportsman who was raised in New Lowell, played Junior A hockey for Collingwood, Lindsay and Aurora. He also spent some time in the OHL with Peterborough and Barrie. Goob was also a star New Lowell Knights pitcher.