If you went to an Okotoks Oilers home game last season there is a good chance you ran into Theo Pallas. If not, you certainly heard his work.

Pallas, 17, decided last year to help a team in the AJHL bring the noise with his homemade goal horn. When the Calgary Canucks turned him down, he approached the Okotoks Oilers. 

After testing the horn at Centennial Arena, Pallas awaited approval from the Town of Okotoks. Shortly after, he was front and centre in his corner at the rink blasting the horn for goals and when the team hit the ice. 

He got the horn from a salvage yard in the city. 

"It's a pair of Hadley horns, they're a set. They came from a 1999 Western Star dump truck. I didn't choose it, it was one of the ones that was broken, so I was able to take it home (and fix it)," said Pallas.

"I liked how it could sound good at low air pressure because I was worried that the hockey team didn't want me to put it at max volume, but the Okotoks Oilers did, so I did that."  

Pallas explained that the Oilers would start a pre-game ritual before the games where they would head down to where he is located and blast the horn a few times before their game. One of the players that would be a regular in the tradition was Connor Gourley.

A couple of the Oilers, Jagger Tapper, and Kade Turner, spoke on the energy Pallas and his horn brought to games.

"Yeah, it's loud and it's good. He's pretty excited about that, we see him in that little area before the game and he's pretty pumped up about it. It's cool," Turner said.

"I thought it was a great addition. I really thought we needed a horn and I think he did a great job of bringing that in. Even the extra energy from that goal horn was awesome. I loved it," added Tapper.

The area teen would explain where the passion came from.

"I always liked things that made noise, so I was honestly into trains since I was very young. As long as I can remember I have loved trains, and obviously trains have horns," Pallas said.

He was in awe of the energy it brought when attending his first Flames game.

"I was fascinated with their goal horn."

Pallas' love for goal horns has also led him to do research on them across the NHL and other leagues with his website goalhorns.org.

"Goal Horns HQ is a website that is basically all the information you ever need about goal horns. We have a ton of leagues on there right now, we have NHL, AHL, ECHL and a ton of leagues behind a paywall," he said.

When you visit the website, you can see exactly what horn each team uses, where it's located in the arena as well as the exact song that follows the horn. Pallas explained it was a group effort to bring this information to the public.

"So, contact within teams and some of my research as well. A lot of times I will just look through images of the arenas trying to find where the goal horn is. If I can find it, I can usually cross reference it and find the model that way," Pallas said.

"Sometimes I can recognize (the horn) model just by sound."

An example of how Pallas can hear the difference in sound is how he describes the difference between the Calgary Flames' horn and the New York Rangers' horn.

"New York has a Grover truck horn as their recording and it's a bit higher pitch. It's a bit slower and smoother sound as the Flames horn. I have difficulty describing sound, but I definitely hear the difference," he said.

Theo's mom, Gillian, says she has heard the horns many times, even in their home.

"I mean for a long time we wouldn't let him get the horn, and then when he got the horn, what's the point of having it if you can't blow them? He is pretty persistent so then we usually try to limit it to when nobody else is home. But sometimes we will let him blow them in the basement."

His grandmother would take him to rural locations, hook a compressor to her van, and let him have fun. 

"When he was seven, we had an app where he could identify all of the NHL goal horns. It was super impressive when he was little, and what he can do now is not only identify every horn, but he knows the make and model of every horn," added Gillian.

Theo will be back next year with the horn and teased that it will be moved in the arena from the corner he was in last year. 

"We are super grateful to Okotoks and the Oilers for including him and embracing him, it's been really wonderful," concluded Gillian. 

To hear the horn, click the video below.