HELENA — In the return of a tradition originally shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Helena Capital boys basketball team got their chance to climb aboard a Helena Fire Department truck and parade around Helena, celebrating their State AA title.
Though the tradition was originally halted because of the pandemic, Bruins' head coach Guy Almquist said the tradition almost stayed out of the spotlight.
"You grow up and you see those great teams in the past have that opportunity to get on the fire truck. And when it goes away, it's, it's tough. And when you when you do something special like we did this year, and you have some people in your corner that really pushed to maybe get this restarted, from the school district, the athletic director, to the city of Helena, it's nice to have people working to do something special for the kids," said Almquist.
The Helena Capital boys boarded the fire truck at the high school and cruised around town with lights and sirens abound, an experience that senior Jacob Curry won't forget.
"We had this goal since the beginning of the year and just to work hard to get all the way there, like with our semifinal game we got Skyview .. and then just to end up here now, it's just amazing," said Curry.
The Helena Capital Bruins had a near-perfect season en route to a 62-48 finale over the Bozeman Hawks in the AA title game, for the Bruins' first title since 2014 and the program's third overall.
Now that the Bruins' title run is officially over, Helena Capital senior Brayden Koch noted this was a special way to wrap up his tenure at Helena Capital.
"Back in 2014, seeing that championship team go on, it was just like, kind of one of my goals later on in life. So to accomplish that and have it be with a friend group that I've known for a long time. It just means a lot to me."
