Bruins fans celebrate victory
with homemade Stanley Cup
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS — Presque Isle High School juniors, from left: Isaac LaJoie, Aaron Whitaker and Jacob Towle celebrated the Boston Bruins’ Stanley Cup Championship win last Wednesday night over the Vancouver Canucks by having an impromptu pep rally the following day after school.
The celebration featured a sign encouraging motorists to “Honk if you love the Bruins” and a replica of the Stanley Cup trophy that was made by Towle’s father, Paul.
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — Reveling in the Boston Bruins’ 4-0 championship win last Wednesday night over the Vancouver Canucks to bring the Stanley Cup back to Beantown, three Presque Isle High School juniors found a fun and memorable way to celebrate the hockey team’s victory — they displayed their own replica “trophy” and encouraged motorists to “Honk if you love the Bruins.”
Isaac LaJoie, Aaron Whitaker and Jacob Towle, all diehard Bruins fans, gathered near the student parking lot at the corner of Blake and Barton streets across from PIHS for an impromptu pep rally Thursday after school.
“We had parties for every game of the playoffs at my house; I think it was 25 games in all,” said Towle. “We had probably 12-15 people at each one. We kind of trashed the place, but after we cleaned it up. I implemented the ‘take out what you take in’ rule, so it wasn’t too bad. We have a room out back where you can’t really hear anything if you’re downstairs. I call it a ‘bro lounge’ or a ‘man cave.’ It has a sweet setup and sweet speakers; it’s a lot of fun.
“With a minute left in the third period Wednesday night, my Dad [Paul Towle] came in hoisting the trophy,” he said. “He told me afterward that when we were up 4-0 he decided to make it because it seemed like the right thing to do.”
The makeshift trophy consists of a Gatorade cooler jug on the bottom, two buckets above that duct taped together, and then the cover to the Gatorade jug on top. The entire trophy is wrapped in aluminum foil.
“It got destroyed pretty quickly when he brought it in,” said Towle. “I had to stay up last night making it again to bring it to school today.
“The trophy is too big to fit in my locker so I carried it with me from class to class,” he said. “Some people didn’t know what it was, and we have some Canuck fans in the school who weren’t too pleased about it, but mostly it was Bruins fans that would come over and hoist it up and they’d kiss it and do the whole Stanley Cup celebration ritual. Everybody had fun with it.”
The “Honk if you love the Bruins” sign was somewhat of an afterthought.
“My friend was here earlier and he had wood in the back of his truck and I came up with the idea of having some kind of sign,” Towle said. “We wanted to know if people actually were paying attention and knew that it was supposed to be the Stanley Cup, so we made the sign and we’ve gotten quite a lot of honks.”
The teens headed to the parking lot right after school got out at 2:40 p.m. and stayed for about an hour.
“We’ll stay till we get a couple more honks,” said Towle, who estimated that 40 motorists had acknowledged the Bruins’ win with a honk. “People are saying, ‘Go Bruins’ and they’re cheering and giving us thumb’s up and waving. It’s a great way to celebrate the win, and when it starts dying down we’ll leave.”
Towle called the Bruins’ Stanley Cup Championship win “surreal.”
“I started following them hardcore three or four years ago,” he said. “During the regular season I probably watched every other game. I’m not a hockey player; just a follower.”
Towle, who attended a Bruins game last year, has high hopes for next season.
“Hopefully we’ll keep the cup,” he said.
This year’s Stanley Cup championship series went all seven games. It was the Bruins’ first Game 7 road win in their 87-year history and their first title in 39 years.
