(Theme week) A cult of personality: A brief look into the lore behind the Ash Sparks cult

[DarkSpyro 948]

There has been many strange and sometimes bizarre moments in our community that have seemingly spawned out of nowhere. Most of the time these moments spawn after multiple events that went barely noticed would lead into something that etches itself into the history of our community. 

I myself have experienced such a phenomenon with my last goalie, Ash Sparks, when something truly unexpected happened nearing his final seasons. I want to take everyone back to the beginning and give you all some lore behind how Ash Sparks became 1 of the most loved and hated goaltender we have seen in recent history.

 

Let’s start with S87 in the VHLM that I commonly look back on as the “season of memes”. Sparks would be drafted to the Halifax 21st behind the 6 other “Heavenly 7” goaltenders but he managed to outperform them all. The “Heavenly 7” refers to the 7 goaltenders that were all near the tpe cap for the VHLM draft, making it 1 of the most goalie heavy drafts we have seen in recent history. This meant that 7 VHLM teams would have maxed out goalies this season which was pretty crazy back then.

 

Despite being drafted behind almost every other goalie and to a weaker team by comparison, Sparks played remarkably well in the regular season. The results was many funny moments and memes being thrown around in the game threads. It was a fun time in the M but ultimately his team fell in the 1st round of the playoffs, so not much else to note here.

 

After moving up to the E and sharing the crease with Joel Castle who would become a Toronto Legion legend, this season is where the 2 became good friends and rivals for the remainder of their careers. Nothing really here to mention as far as the lore goes, but that’s about to change as we move into the VHL.

 

Something to note is that Ash Sparks would be drafted the highest among the “Heavenly 7” goalies in the VHL draft at 6th overall. With the pressure now on after being the underdog his whole career, it’s time to explore the VHL part of his career and where the lore finally begins.

After 2 rough seasons in Seattle as a backup and only playing a total of 18 games, he would be shipped out and be considered a bust. This was almost the end of the Sparks era before it even really started, which means none of this would have happened at all if not for Bana and Kaleeb urging him to stay and give it a chance.

 

So in this timeline, we got to witness Sparks go off in S89 as the most dominant goalie with an insanely good season to the point he was in the conversation to win multiple awards.. except sadly he wasn’t. It’s arguable that Sparks should have won multiple awards this season but instead, he didn’t get any votes for what he was nominated for. Personally that’s not the first time I experienced this and it didn’t bother me that much, but I was really not expecting it to be a precursor to what was to come for the rest of his career.
 

Sparks would be disrespected countless times in VSN articles and get shafted from many many many more awards to the point where a lot of people in the community started to take note of the apparent bias that was going on. It even got to the point that Sparks was to win a statistical based award in his final season (meaning they could not vote for the winner) and they changed the requirements to win it just before the awards ceremony. A goalie who played half the regular season and 20 fewer games than Sparks, would steal the award and the bias was clearer than ever before now. Lots of wonderful members started to take up arms and come to Sparks’ defence, but all it did was create a rift for a small period of time. Even if no justice would be served, the love of so many who would be accused of being in an “Ash Sparks cult” kept a long time member here in the community.

 

I do believe that Ash Sparks is not HoF material despite having an extraordinary career and being that greatest goalie the Nighthawks franchise has ever seen. With that being said a few of the awards that he should’ve captured along the way would‘ve most likely changed that, and Sparks could have very possibly found his way into the HoF if he managed to ever win a Continental Cup. That’s not the case either though so ultimately I don’t think more hardware would’ve changed much but statistically he was undeniably a force to be feared, a highlight reel machine, and a game breaker that would straight up steal games for his team. Ash Sparks was honoured by his Malmo Nighthawks with the retirement of his #39 almost immediately after he retired in S94. He set the all-time wins and shutout records for goalies in Nighthawks history, and left a legacy for future goalies to chase after. 

 

(853 words)