Along with a watch bearing the Battalion logo showcased on a shelf above his desk, Jason Corbett has a cherished photograph in his office at One Kids Place.

In his capacity as a member of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund (small-city activists wear many hats), Corbett accompanied Abbott onto the ice on Oct. 11, 2013, for the opening ceremonies in the first OHL game in North Bay since the Centennials left more than a decade earlier.

“I got to centre ice, just looking around, and the excitement in a packed house was just incredible,” said the self-described air force brat.

For the first little while, so giddy were North Bay hockey fans, it didn’t much matter who these young players were in Battalion jerseys (with the old Centennial logo on a shoulder patch), or even whether they won or lost.

Quickly enough, however, fans got to know the players and their personalities and, after a bumpy start, found they had a winning club on their hands.

“It’s by far exceeded expectations,” Corbett says. “The boys have performed on the ice. The Memorial Gardens has provided a venue that’s just unbelievably great for the hockey that we have in town now.”

Anywhere you go, in bars or restaurants or shops, “the North Bay Battalion are not far from anybody’s lips,” he says. “Whether they’re hockey fans or not, I think people appreciate the value of having an OHL team here and just the community spirit that it actually brings.”

At the Christmas parade this winter in North Bay, the Battalion sponsored a float along with One Kids Place and the locals were tickled to see the players walking along beside it. Throughout the season, players have attended community events and school fundraisers.

Corbett recalls telling his daughter Avery that some Battalion players would be attending a family skate his organization was hosting. “Is Barclay going to be there?!” she demanded. That, naturally, would be Battalion captain Barclay Goodrow. And Avery, not a hockey fan until this year, is 9 and knowledgeable.

“For the kids, the North Bay Battalion players are heroes,” Corbett says.

Probably the greatest moment in the North Bay Battalion’s first year was when the Saginaw Spirit came to town Jan. 23 and Abbott came up with the idea of holding a “Throwback Night” and having the Battalion wear Centennial uniforms.

John McLellan provided the marketing department with an old black and gold Centennial jersey from the 1994 team that he’d had framed so the Battalion owner could ensure the jerseys he ordered for the game were exact replicas of the originals. Before a full house, the Battalion wore Centennial colours as they trounced Saginaw 5-1.

“It was awesome,” said Brent Bywater, who was in a box to watch the game with other Centennials alumni. “As soon as the guys came out on the ice, the hair on the back of my neck sort of stood up seeing those old jerseys.”

It was a time also for the town to put any hard feelings about the Centennials’ departure behind it. “A lot of people blamed the (former) owner,” said Derek Shogren, president of the chamber of commerce in North Bay, about 350 kilometres north of Toronto. “He took some abuse. Now he has a box at the Battalion games.”

Shogren says “it’s hard to put a price tag on that feel-good feeling” in North Bay this winter. “People are talking about it Friday morning after Thursday night games, and Mondays after Sunday games. That gets the city together.”

As to economic benefits, “we’ve talked in the neighbourhood of about $5 million in spin-off effects,” he says. “That’s everything from staff, their salaries, the purchase of houses, paying taxes, some of the maintenance work. It’s fairly substantial.”

“This is a business venture that employs people and adds some value to the community. It’s been great economically.”

The integration of team and town is pervasive. Brad Gavan says Canadore College has branded itself with “the Troops,” as the club is known locally. He shows off T-shirts and jackets with both the Battalion and college logo. Canadore students also created the team’s mobile app. They run the scoreboard TV screen. Gavan says about 50 students or grads have found work at Memorial Gardens.

Abbott is a fixture in his box at the Gardens. Into his 16th season as Battalion owner, he’s missed just five games — home or away — over that time. Four absences occurred when his son, now working for the club, was playing hockey or football and fatherhood took precedence. Once, and Abbott being Abbott he notes that it was on Thanksgiving Day 2002, he missed a game because he was at Rideau Hall for a luncheon with the Queen.

“I’m delighted we were able to bring the OHL back to North Bay,” he says. “I think the league footprint looks a whole lot better with northern teams in it. Certainly, it’s a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic population in terms of hockey, which I’m not sure can be said in Brampton and a lot of other places in the GTA.”

The players really appreciate that “people here recognize them when they walk down the street or into a store, and talk to them about how the team is doing,” he says. “They were anonymous in Brampton.”

Veteran Battalion coach Stan Butler says the team is in the newspaper daily, covered closely on TV and radio. “Up here, you are the Toronto Maple Leafs.”

Butler had been out and about that day to buy socks. “Just going to the mall, people say, ‘Good luck tonight,’ ‘the team’s doing well,’ stuff like that.” At the game that evening the local Scollard Hall high school band had rocked the house.

His players, once they got settled, came to love North Bay, Butler says. “It’s a really nice city. There are two lakes. There’s a ski hill. There’s a lot to offer. The players really like it here. They’ve all become winter-outdoorsy. They’ve learned how to snowmobile, they’ve learned how to ice fish. They’ve experienced things they could never experience in Toronto.”

The Battalion realize “that the Centennials were a big part of the community and we respect that,” Butler says. “But at the same time we want to kind of create our own legacy and have the younger generation of fans, who weren’t around when the Centennials were around, we want them to become hard-core Battalion fans.

“We respect the past, but we definitely want to create the future.”