PETE PEARSON
Pistol Pete Pearson was one of the most naturally gifted forwards in spongee history. He dazzled Apocalypse Now’s occasional fan as well as the opposition defenses. Pete scored the fastest 50 goals in history, becoming only the second player to reach this level. Pete scored his 50th goal in just 35 games, eclipsing the mark of 50 goals in 39 games set by Wayne Gretzky, although Wayne’s is not an Apocalypse record.

Pete helped resurrect the fortunes of a struggling franchise. Apocalypse Now had won just 13 of their first 48 games. In Pete’s rookie season they only had one loss. Pete’s feared slap shot led Apocalypse to two championships, while winning a record three consecutive scoring titles (87, 88, 89).

Pete was truly a gentleman on the ice. In his first five seasons he had only one minor penalty. This did not stop opponents from taking cheap shots at Apocalypse. Pete had the misfortune of being on the most wanted list. He had to pay for many of the goals he scored. It was not uncommon to see a teammate removing stitches from Pete’s eyebrow before the next game.

Pete retired with many Apocalypse scoring records, some have since been broken, where others may never be. Some of Pete’s current records include:

• Most Goals in One Year (regular season and playoff combined) (34)
• Most Consecutive Goals, regular season (4) and playoff (3)
• Most Hat tricks, regular season (19) and playoff (4)
• Most Goals by a Rookie (23) and Most Points by a rookie (38)
• Most 15-or-more goal seasons (5) and Most 30-or-more point seasons (4)

Pete dominates the record book for fastest goals and points from the start of a career.

Another record Pete holds is the longest time between games. Apocalypse Now played 102 regular season games before Pete came out of retirement for the 2000-01 season. Pete had a wildly successful return to spongee as he notched a hat trick along with one assist in his first game back. After 7 years in retirement, Pearson came out flying, registering a goal on his first shift. Less than a week earlier, Mario Lemieux also came out of retirement, but Pete’s game diminished Mario’s spectacular return. But Pete was right about not leaving the game. Although in the latter stages of his career, Pete turned in his best goal total ever (24) as he was playing some of the best spongee of his career, despite often playing hurt with an aggravated hamstring.

Three years later, Pete retired from the ice once again. His sage advice in his farewell speech after retiring for good with Apocalypse was this, “Play every spongee game as if it is your last one.”