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The older part of the South Shore community of Greenfield Park is a peaceful little burg, now swallowed up by the burbopolis of Longueuil, its proud English roots reflected in the street names: Victoria, Churchill, Regent, Empire.

When I first moved to Greenfield Park in 1991, it was still a blue-collar town, known for hard drinking and two-fisted brawlers. A couple of local residents (Wally Weir and Garry Galley) had found significant employment in the NHL, but it was more a football town than a hockey town.

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Today, it’s the kind of place where every last one of the 16,989 souls tallied in the 2011 census is an intimate personal friend of Torrey Mitchell, the Park’s latest contribution to the NHL. The day after Mitchell was acquired at the NHL trade deadline by Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin, the town they call GPK was giddy with delight.

Everyone had an opinion on the Mitchell trade. Now that he was back home, one fan told me, Mitchell was going to show what he could do. No, worried another whose son had played hockey with Mitchell, there would be too much pressure with everyone in Greenfield Park on his back, wanting everything from selfies with their hero to playoff tickets.