Blades To Honour Tiffin On Dave Baldwin Alumni Night

While the Blenheim Blades and the Blades Alumni have been holding an alumni night featuring two alumni games and a Blades game since 2005, this Saturday’s event will be a bit different.

While there will still be alumni games at 4 and 5 p.m, and a Blades Great Lakes Junior ‘C’ Hockey League game at 6:15 against the Amherstburg Admirals, the event will have a new name – the Dave Baldwin Memorial Alumni Night.

The name change is in honour of the late Dave Baldwin, who passed away in the spring. Baldwin was the man who had a dream of bringing junior hockey to Blenheim, and saw that dream come true in 1965 as the original Baldwin coached team (Junior D at the time) made it to the Ontario Hockey Association Junior ‘D finals before losing out to Bobcaygeon. The team was named the Golden Blades at that time.

The Blades have been in existence ever since and Baldwin and his team members were the first Blades inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2005.

The following year Baldwin himself was the lone inductee.

This year it will be former two-time head coach, general manager Shawn Tiffin who joins Baldwin and the others in the Hall.

Tiffin, a Chatham native and a current assistant coach with the Chatham Maroons, coached the Blades in the early 1980s, returned to that same position in 1998 until 2001 and then became general manager from 2005 to 2007. He is also the person who started the highly successful annual Blades golf tourney.

Besides coaching in Blenheim, Tiffin has been a head coach and assistant coach with the Junior ‘C’ Wallaceburg Lakers, an assistant coach with the Junior ‘C’ Essex 73s, and an assistant coach with the Junior ‘B’ Petrolia Jets and LaSalle Vipers, as well as the Maroons.