Matt Duchene

Matt Duchene

Matt Duchene of the Ontario Hockey League’s Brampton Battalion, at age 18, became theyoungest athlete in the sport of hockey to be inducted to the Brampton Sports Hall of Fame whenhe was honoured in May, 2009.

Duchene was raised in Haliburton, Ont., and showed at an early age that he was a special talentas he started playing organized hockey with the Haliburton Huskies when he was four, and oneyear later was competing with players who were two years older.

He developed his unique skills with the Central Ontario Wolves AAA program before being the Battalion’sfirst-round choice, fifth overall, in the 2007 OHL Priority Selection.

Duchene joined the Battalion for the 2007-08 campaign and became only the second player in team historyto score 30 goals as a rookie, and was the leading goal-scorer for gold medal-winning Team Ontario at the2008 World Under-17 Challenge at London, Ont.

After the completion of his first season with the Battalion, he led Canada’s gold medal-winning team in goalsenroute to the 2008 IIHF World Under-18 title in Russia. He followed that performance as captain of Canada’schampionship team at the 2008 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament in the Czech Republic in August, 2008,earning his third international gold medal in less than eight months.

Duchene was one of the Battalion’s offensive stars in a record-breaking 2008-09 campaign andwas named the team’s scholastic player of the year. His outstanding performance earned himrave reviews from National Hockey League scouts and he is projected as one of the most-covetedplayers for the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.

Inducted May 27, 2009