Childhood friends bring senior hockey back to county

December 22, 2025

Bret Walker and Dixon Gillis have known each other since they were kids, but never thought they’d be co-owners of a hockey team, until organized senior men’s hockey returned to Inverness County for the first time in decades.

Walker, from Port Hood, and Gillis, from Inverness, are co-owners of the Cape Breton West Blackstone Knights, which began play in the new Nova Scotia Senior Hockey League (NSSHL) in October. The league is the brainchild of Gerard MacDonald, who is also president of the Nova Scotia Junior Hockey League.

The new league will play a 20-game regular season, with the Knights’ 10 home games being played at the Al MacInnis Sports Centre in Port Hood, before playoffs begin in February.

“Honestly, we had no idea the league was starting up, until we saw they had made a post on Facebook that they were looking for teams,” Walker recalled.

“We jumped right on it,” he added. “We were just
kicking tires with the original application because we didn’t know anything about it. Everybody was in the same boat.”

The Knights are playing in the league’s Cape Breton division, along with the County Islanders and Glace Bay Miners. The Northumberland division features the Pictou County Shoreline Pipers, the East Hants Senior Penguins, the Antigonish Senior Bulldogs and the Truro Senior “A” Mosaik Bearcats.

With the backing of Hockey Nova Scotia, the NSSHL is open to players 20 years and older. MacDonald launched the league mainly to provide an option for former junior players to continue their hockey careers.

Walker said MacDonald brings a lot of experience from his involvement with the Nova Scotia Junior Hockey League and that he’s the right person to spearhead the new league.

“I think he’s got everyone’s interests at heart,” Walker said. “He’s a pretty good guy to be leading the charge for this.” Stepping up to become the major sponsor for the Knights is Blackstone Construction and its owner, Dwayne Beaton, and Walker said he couldn’t be happier with that partnership.

“It’s huge,” Walker said, noting that they’ll have several minor sponsors as well. “You have to have a major sponsor. Blackstone has been pretty good to give back. They sponsor everything they possibly can.”

For their inaugural season, the Knights have turned to a familiar face in Inverness County hockey circles in head coach Kyle Gillies of Port Hood Gillies was an assistant coach with the Cape Breton West Islanders for 11 years, later becoming its head coach for a couple of seasons. He was on the bench when the Islanders claimed the 2017 Telus Cup, becoming the first Atlantic Canadian team to win the national Under-18 championship.

Before the Knights even held their first practice this past fall, Gillies was already very familiar with most of his players. Interviewed hours before their first exhibition game in October, he said 13 of the 20 players on that night’s roster were former members of the Islanders.

Gillies said icing a team full of local players is the only way to foster interest in the fledgling league. “It’s everything,” he said. “No one wants to come to Port Hood and see a bunch of imports, and I think that’s what’s going to make the team successful. There’s a lot of buzz in Port Hood.”

Gillies, who has spent the past two seasons as head coach of the Dalbrae Academy Dragons, said the league provides an excellent option for players who may otherwise have to say goodbye to their competitive hockey career.

“It’s such an abrupt stop,” Gillies said of 20-year-old players who age out of junior hockey. “The lucky ones might get to play some pro or even university. It’s a big world, but it’s a small hockey world.”

He said the Knights have seen players come from various levels of hockey, including junior, major junior, university and even the pro ranks.

“It’s a very interesting mix,” noting that he’s happy with the team’s depth.

“There are some hard-nosed, tough grinders all the way through the lineup and people who can put the puck in the net,” Gillies said. “We’re very balanced. And we have two goaltenders who have junior and AUS (Atlantic University Sports) experience.”

“I don’t like naming a first, second and third line,” he added. “It kind of takes care of itself, and anyone can step up. I like rolling four lines, so you’re not going to see the same six players out on the ice the whole game. Everybody’s going to play.”

He said the NSSHL will have a league management team, including a director of discipline, noting that that this role will be key to the league’s success, given the fact it will allow fighting.

“That’s a big relief on my end,” Gillies said. “I know that it will be done right, and I know it will be organized. With the physicality in the league, I think you really need a body overlooking that. I think the last thing anybody wants is for it to go overboard in any way like that.”

“It just brings legitimacy to the whole thing,” he added. “It’s not some sort of backyard outlaw league. There’s a lot of really good players, and I think everyone wants it to be a very classy affair.” Gillies is also happy that money has been taken out of the equation when it comes to player compensation.

“There’s no real financial compensation for the players,” he explained. “Every player, at least in our organization, was aware of that coming in. It was up to them if they wanted to be here, and the response was great.”