Over its storied history, many future stars and hall of famers have skated with the St. Michael’s Buzzers. Mike McCarron was not one of them.

McCarron likes to jokingly say that his claim to fame is being the worst goalie in St. Mike’s history. But his relationship with the Buzzers did not end after his last game between the pipes. The Etobicoke native later rescued the team from financial ruin, and as majority owner for nearly 15 years, he led a movement to revitalize the entire Ontario Junior Hockey League.

Like many kids growing up in central Etobicoke in the 1960s, McCarron was a rink rat. He played minor hockey with the Royal York Rangers. “It was all local kids,” he recalls. “For me, it was a sense of community.”

“Ace”—a childhood nickname that stuck—remembers seeing other kids wearing their Rangers jackets in the pews of All Saints Catholic Church, and playing against some of his Rangers teammates in the Catholic Youth Organization hockey league. “It was almost like small-town hockey,” he said of the tightknit CYO. “It became very competitive for bragging rights.”

While at St. Michael’s College School, he played metro junior B with the Buzzers. “I was proud to be part of the St. Mike’s hockey legacy. It’s a staggering history,” said McCarron, who felt a thrill to put on the jersey worn by such hockey greats as Red Kelly, Tim Horton, Dick Duff and the Mahovlich brothers.

After graduating from the University of Toronto with a bachelor’s in political science and economics, McCarron began a lifelong career in trucking and transportation. He hadn’t planned on getting back into hockey until Fr. Daniel Zorzi, the Basilian priest in charge of St. Michael’s College School, asked McCarron to share a meal that would change his life.

The Basilians were looking to sell the financially beleaguered Buzzers, and Fr. Zorzi convinced McCarron to help. “I met a guy for dinner and came home owning a hockey team,” McCarron said with a laugh, adding that he was honoured to take over the business side of a franchise that was close to his heart. “I just fell in love with the team, and I felt it was worth hanging onto,” he said. “It became a hobby and a passion.”

McCarron took over in January 2001, and with the support of his business partners from the trucking industry—who loved opportunities to meet famous Buzzers alumni at fundraising dinners and be in the presence of the Stanley Cup – he kept the team afloat. Not long after his arrival, the Buzzers were crowned OJHL champs, winning the Buckland Cup in 2005 and successfully defending their title the following year.

The Buzzers never became a financial windfall, but McCarron wasn’t in it for the money. He says his favourite part of owning the team was seeing his players develop on and off the ice. “Before the championships, it’s the amount of kids we sent to the next level. That’s more important,” he said. “Nothing used to excite me more than having a parent call and say, ‘My kid just signed a deal.’”

One of those kids in particular stuck out for McCarron—his son Patrick. “There’s no question the highlight for me was my third-last year. My son was the captain and they won the championship,” he said of the 2013 season. Twenty-two players from that team went on to play in the NCAA, CIS or OHL, with five ending up in an NHL training camp. Patrick, a defenceman, played for Cornell and recently skated at the Detroit Red Wings prospect camp.

McCarron is also proud of the structural changes he introduced at St. Mike’s that later became adapted throughout the junior hockey community. The Buzzers were known for never making deals with incoming players—no one was paid to play, and no roster spots were up for sale. McCarron says such practices, which were common in junior A at the time, had a negative effect in the dressing room. “(Side deals) absolutely kill the kids. It doesn’t take long for them to figure out who doesn’t belong there.”

The Buzzers stipulated that players had to pay to be on the team. That policy ran counter to Ontario Hockey Association rules, but McCarron believed it would increase the players’ level of commitment. He expected blowback from the league, but says he never heard a word of objection. Today, pay-to-play models are common throughout junior hockey.

The hardworking owner also tackled the problem of the OJHL’s diluted on-ice product. There were 37 teams in the league when McCarron arrived, and just 22 when he left. Through a blind auction process that saw the board of governors buy out teams and then contract them, the talent on the remaining teams increased, while junior B, C and midget hockey became more competitive as former junior A players moved to the lower levels.

McCarron’s bold moves, driven by his desire to make the league credible and fair, paid off. “A lot of the things we were doing were getting noticed by Hockey Canada,” he said. “The league is fully sustainable now.”

His work with the Buzzers led to other opportunities in hockey. In January 2015, McCarron co-ordinated the awards ceremony that saw Team Canada receive their gold medals after winning the world juniors. McCarron called it “the thrill of a lifetime” and a “great honour” to carry the medals onto the ice. Before the ceremony, McCarron himself ironed the championship banner that would hang from the rafters at the Air Canada Centre.

He coached hockey at Humber Valley, leading the undefeated 1994 AA Sharks squad— with Patrick McCarron on the blue line—to All Ontario, North American Silver Stick, GTHL and Carnation Cup championships. “Coach Ace” credits an unusual approach for the team’s success—his Sharks didn’t track stats or name a captain, and coaches rotated the lines equally rather than skating their best players more often.

“It was a really interesting dynamic. We taught them hockey without consequences,” McCarron said, explaining that theirs was the only team that didn’t choose most valuable players after games. “The guys knew we didn’t (name MVPs), because the MVP’s the team.”

McCarron says playing team sports as a child helped him later in life, a pattern he has seen repeated in the lives of kids he’s coached. “You’ve got to work hard, be committed to something, make sacrifices, work and think like a team—all the things that make you a success in business are the same as sports,” he said.

With help from Hockey Hall of Famer and Buzzers alumnus Jim Gregory, McCarron arranged for a CBC Hockey Day in Canada special to be filmed on location in January 2009 to commemorate 100 years of hockey at St. Michael’s College School. “I told them we could get Dave Keon to come up, and we delivered,” McCarron said. “It was a great day—a great celebration of hockey. A lot of work, but a lot of fun.”

Everyone who has donned the uniform—from a legend like Keon to Etobicoke Sports Hall of Famer Mike Walton and highly touted Maple Leafs prospect Connor Brown—shares the same enduring pride in the Buzzers, and is eager to give back. “Everyone’s so good about St. Mike’s,” McCarron said. “The bond is very strong.”

McCarron sold his controlling interest in the Buzzers in August 2015. He was away from the club a fair bit that season, watching his son’s Cornell games and launching a new transportation consulting firm. Having raised their three children—Danielle, Alicia and Patrick—McCarron and his wife Tammy live on the Kingsway and remain active in the Etobicoke community.

Looking back at his life in hockey, McCarron said he had a blast. “It’s been a lot of fun. Met a lot of great people. It was a hell of a ride.”