It is never easy to talk about bad things. We all go though it in our lives. At the time, it is not always easy to remember the good times instead of focusing on the terrible things that are going on at the time. A dear friend of a lot of us, Wayne Barrett, passed away this morning and I thought it would be a good time to talk about some of the good things and good times we had with Wayne. I don’t have the space to put ALL the good stuff in, but will try to condense it a bit.
Wayne was a founding member of the Bonny River Ratz. He was a big part of the culture of the Bonny River Hockey scene. He was one of the roughest and toughest ones who got together with mostly Bonny River boys on Sunday nights to drive somebody into the next planet and smile all the time you’re doing it. Don’t get mad, get even was the motto.
We took this rag tag team of friends and formed the Ratz and took our show on the road to the annual tournament in Rothesay and Quispamsis. We called it (aptly) the BIG SHOW. Right to the last conversation I had with Wayne last week, he was still talking about the BIG SHOW. I wrote a tune to play for him and had to do an encore before leaving.
The talk around in 2006 was to start our industrial league and when asked, Wayne, said, “Let’s get ‘er going!” Wayne was an integral part of the Ratz with his never say die and never back down attitude. One time at the BIG SHOW, a guy said to Wayne, “I hope you’ve got a dental plan.” Wayne, without any hesitation told him he complete Blue Cross and wasn’t too worried about it anyway. That is the Wayne rolled. He told it like it was and if you couldn’t handle what he was laying down, too bad.
Wayne was the epitome of what we wanted the Ratz to be – a hard exterior that would go to the wall for friends and teammates with a soft interior that would never hurt your feelings on purpose.
We all knew Wayne was in the battle of his life and were aware of it at all times. It is at a time like this that we become aware of our own defenselessness against the much stronger and larger foes in life that we face. Wayne never gave an inch to his enemy in life, sports or when brought face to face with cancer. We will all miss him dearly and hope that the peace he now has will be a relief to the suffering he has been dealing with for a long time.
God bless Wayne and his family. We will never forget you.
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