Carter Gates Scores Some Taco Bell
SUBMITTED STORY
Carter Gates is a farm kid from Ridgetown who loves hockey and plays for the Kimberley’s Hearing South Kent PeeWee Local League Team #1. Last year he heard a couple of his teammates talking in the dressing room about Taco Bell and how it was their favorite restaurant. Carter chimed into the conversation by saying it was his favorite too. The funny thing is that his dad said that Carter has not actually ever had Taco Bell.
With that, shortly thereafter Carter was able to con his Dad into hooking him up with a meal at Taco Bell every time he scored a goal. Carter wasn’t really the “goal scoring” type of player so has dad thought it would be a safe bet and might only have to make a couple of trips to Taco Bell.
After his first couple of goals/meals the team figured out the deal and started yelling “Taco Bell!” whenever he scored. In fact more than just Carter was getting treated to Taco Bell when he scored. I think his teammates were deliberately setting him up for goals just for the “celebrations”. It only took a couple more goals before the parents in the stands caught wind of it and joined in.
This season, we have a coach that sets up the music and sound drops for the home games and added the old Taco Bell Chihuaua catch phrase followed by the Taco Bell gong for every one of Carter’s goals to go along with the increasingly loud Taco Bell Cries. One parent even got him taco socks to wear with his skates. All of this led up to a moment in this February’s Families First Tournament in Windsor where Carter was selected as a shooter in a sudden death shootout in a semi-final game (He was selected because his performance through the tournament lead to multiple trips to Taco Bell that weekend). As Carter skated to center ice the entire arena was chanting TA-CO BELL! TA-CO BELL! We are talking; coaches, players, parents and families from both teams (the other team had no idea why they were chanting Taco Bell.. but they just did) It was insanely loud and it had to be the craziest thing and one of the most moving moments I ever saw in hockey.
Carter’s “Legendary” Trainer Mike was so moved by the moment that he mentioned it to Taco Bell afterwards in an email. The people at Taco Bell were so moved by the story that they instantly decided to get behind such an amazing fan of Taco Bell by hooking Carter up with his very own customized Taco Bell jersey, they also hooked his teammates up with some Taco Bell swag and they have offered to support him in his future hockey endeavors. Needless to say, Taco Bell IS his favorite restaurant!
