Green and Gold to the Core – Nora Valentino is the Tommies’ Superfan

Nora Valentino was a B-average student while pursuing her Bachelor of Arts at St. Thomas University in the mid-1980s.  

She’s been an A+ supporter of the Tommies ever since.  

She’s STU’s Superfan, with a wardrobe that includes, by her own estimate, three sweatshirts, a couple of t-shirts, two hockey sweaters, a hat — even a game-worn number 20 sweater from defenceman Keith Wynn from the former men’s hockey team. She’s well-stocked in souvenirs too – key chains, water bottles, and pens mostly, a knap sack or two, and game programs. Her STU T-Ring, of course. Even her car is a shade of green, although not the dark, emerald shade of Tommie green.  

A hockey fan since she was a child, she grew up in Minto as a fan of the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens and her older brother Bill, who played goal up to the high school level. She switched her NHL allegiance to the Edmonton Oilers when Wayne Gretzky came along. It was around the same time she graduated from Rothesay-Netherwood School and was accepted to university at both STU and UPEI.  

She opted for the green and gold and has been wearing the colours proudly since 1983.  

“At first it was just men’s hockey,” she remembered. She made her way to the Lady Beaverbrook Rink regularly to watch coach Larry Wood’s Tommies.  

They didn’t have much success, she recalled, but they did have Minto hockey product Scott MacKenzie on defence and Kirk Firlotte, who now lives in Minto, in goal.  

Rugged defenceman Phil Huckins, now a member of the Fredericton Police Force, was her favourite player from that era.  

“He wore number 4, my favourite number,” Valentino said.  

Her favourite Tommies of all-time, both male and female, are hockey players: Mackenzie, with honourable mention to Kyle McAllister on the men’s side; a tossup between Kelty Apperson and Kayla Blackmore-Simonds on the women’s side.    

The highlight of her career as a STU spectator, she said, was the men’s hockey team’s march to the Atlantic University Sport championship in 2000-01. The Tommies won the title over the St. Francis Xavier X-Men with a 2-1 overtime victory over the X-Men in Antigonish, N.S. with league MVP Jason Sands scoring the goal to give the Tommies their first title in 40 years.  

She makes it to as many women’s hockey games as her schedule allows, and it’s still her favourite of all the sports, but Valentino makes good use of her season’s pass to watch the Tommies soccer, volleyball, and basketball teams as well.  

“Now, I go to everything,” she said.  

“Even before I graduated, I took in a basketball game, a volleyball game…but when I first started it was just mainly hockey. I just like all sports, I guess. And I like to support my school.”  

She’s a solid supporter of other local sports teams too.  

She holds season passes for the Fredericton St. Louis Bar and Grill Royals baseball team, the Caps U18 hockey team and the Fredericton Red Wings Maritime Hockey League team, which shares the Grant-Harvey Centre with the Tommies.  

 But her heart is loyal to the green and gold.