The Trenton Golden Hawks have had several players move onto CIS, NCAA, European professional, and semi-pro in North America.
There have also been a handful that have made the American Hockey League and even a few games in the NHL.
Madoc’s Dalton Bancroft is part of that list.
The 2021-22 OJHL Most Valuable Player has been making waves since his graduation from junior hockey.
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Bancroft returned to the Quinte region at the end of November 2025, as the Providence Bruins (AHL) visited the Belleville Senators at CAA Arena.
The Trenton Golden Hawks had an opportunity to grab an interview with their former captain, to discuss his journey from the Quinte Red Devils, through the Trenton Golden Hawks, to Cornell, and now onto the Bruins organization.
He told us there was a time during his junior career he even considered calling it a career.
“My last year of high school, we were getting all my letters back from universities and it was a rough year in Trenton that year and I was like well I might just go to school, I don’t know if I’ll just keep playing. It was basically my mom and dad that said listen, there’s no rush, go play. You don’t want to have any regrets when you’re older.”
Did Bancroft ever return to Trenton with a vengeance.
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Bancroft would win the scoring race in his final year with the GHawks, he would be named the OJHL MVP, and would also secure a NCAA D1 scholarship with the Cornell Big Red.
After three years he has now moved onto professional hockey and the Providence Bruins.
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There are also a number of connections in the Bancroft family to Providence.
His father Steve won the Calder Cup in 1998-99 in Providence.
Also, while going through their championship run, Steve’s wife and Dalton’s mother Pam was pregnant.
Pam pregnancy was induced between games and she gave birth to Kyra Bancroft, who is Dalton’s older sister.
Kyra is now a Physiotherapist at Momentous Athletics in Belleville, where Dalton trains in the off-season.
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We asked Banger (as most fans/friends/family know him) about his time in the OJHL and what helped develop him into the player he is today.
“Obviously everyone as a kid wants to play professional hockey. Everyone will tell you they’re going to play in the NHL, but it’s a lot of work in between playing juniors and minor hockey to get to that point. I think realistically in juniors it was more so for me just having fun, a lot of guys I grew up playing with in Quinte here, in minor hockey, and more so just more so having fun. Then the last couple of years I just just put my nose down because I figured I had a chance to go to school and get something out of it and that was my only goal was to get to school. I got to school and my goal was to just get into games and play, coming out of the OJ as a 21-year-old. Made the best of it at school and got here (Providence) and the process repeats.”
