Rylan Masterson, defenceman and Meteors captain, to have jersey retired

The Fort Erie Meteors will retire the No. 28 worn by Rylan Masterson, the defenceman who captained the club to its first league championship in 45 years, at a ceremony Saturday night.

The ceremony begins at 7 p.m. at the Fort Erie Leisureplex, before the Meteors host the St. Catharines Falcons. The club will raise Masterson’s number to the rafters, and no future Meteor will wear it.

Masterson, a Niagara Falls native, captained the Meteors for three seasons. In April 2024, Masterson’s Meteors beat the Caledonia Corvairs in Game 7 on Caledonia’s ice to win the Golden Horseshoe Conference championship. Fort Erie had not won a league title since 1979.

“As much as everyone tells our family how great of a job we’re doing, it doesn’t get done without Rylan Masterson,” said Fort Erie Meteors general manager and head coach Nik Passero in an interview with 519 Sports Online.

Passero said the ceremony gives Fort Erie fans a chance to thank Masterson after a painful finish to last season.

“I think they deserve a chance to say thank you, and how the season ended last year wasn’t the way we wanted,” he said. “So I think we owe it to the fans to give them a voice and thank Rylan for everything he did for us.”

The St. Catharines Falcons, Saturday’s opponent, knocked the Meteors out of the playoffs on April 7 in the deciding seventh game of their series. Ally Mostafaie scored 6:14 into overtime to give the Falcons a 3-2 win in St. Catharines. It was Fort Erie’s fourth overtime loss of the series.

Masterson won back-to-back Dave Dunham Awards as the Eastern Conference’s most valuable defenceman. The team said he also mentored younger players, and several of them moved on to higher levels of hockey.

Masterson said in a team news release on September 25, the day the Meteors announced the ceremony, that he played five years in the league and wore the captain’s C for three of them.

“To have my jersey retired is something I never really thought would happen, so it means a lot,” he said.

Fort Erie Radio will broadcast all Fort Erie Jr. B Meteors home games this regular season.

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