The Memorial Cup: A History

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From Gregg Drinnan....1996

1996 MEMORIAL CUP
Brandon Wheat Kings, Guelph Storm, Peterborough Petes and Granby Predateurs
at Peterborough (Memorial Centre)


They had arguably the greatest tradition of any major junior hockey team in the Canadian Hockey League.
But the Peterborough Petes had never played host to the Memorial Cup tournament.
Their record-setting seventh tournament appearance would change all that. The Petes, a non-profit private company since 1967, would play host to the 1996 tournament in the 3,866-seat Memorial Centre, a square-cornered facility which first opened its doors in 1946.
Bench seating for 756 was added for the tournament. Throw in 240 standing room spots, and capacity was shown as 4,854.
"With all due respect to other past events -- which I admittedly wasn't involved in organizing -- I think this will probably be the biggest thing to ever hit Peterborough,” Bob Neville, chairman of the host committee, told The Canadian Press.
It's fair to say the city of 70,000 people was alive with hockey fever.
Prior to the tournament, Petes head coach Dave MacQueen visited a local school.
"I drive up to the school and the principal and the teachers were all out in the parking lot with 500 kids chanting ‘Go Petes, Go!' It's just a tremendous rush right now in this city,” MacQueen stated.
And therein lay the biggest battle for the teams involved in this event.
"If we can keep our players away from all the bands and concerts and other things going on, we'll be OK,” offered E.J. McGuire, the head coach of the Guelph Storm, the OHL's other entry. "They may be able to come back as 40-year-olds and enjoy the Memorial Cup. But not now.”
It would be hard to avoid the hype. After all, Memorial Cup week actually got under way on the morning of May 11 with a parade that featured some 30 floats and 100 vintage automobiles, along with all of the competing players.
The 1996 tournament would feature three of the CHL's four highest-rated teams -- the OHL's Guelph Storm was No. 2 in the last rankings, followed by the QMJHL-champion Granby Predateurs and the WHL-champion Brandon Wheat Kings. And it was the Wheat Kings, the only one of the four teams who was in the tournament for a second straight season, who had knocked off the No. 1 team, the Spokane Chiefs.
In fact, at one time or another, Guelph, Granby and Brandon were all ranked No. 1. The Petes came in ranked 10th.
"We're no more favoured than anybody else,” offered Brandon head coach Bob Lowes. "I hear Guelph has a good team, I hear Granby has a good team and I hear that Peterborough has a good team. How do you compare?”
How indeed?
Only the Petes, who had won the OHL title, weren't in the top four.
The Petes found out in midseason that they would be the host team for the 1996 tournament. The decision to award the tournament to Peterborough and its older facility drew considerable criticism, especially from the Ottawa area.
The folks of Peterborough chose to greet it all with good humor.
The Ottawa Sun was especially vitriolic, referring to Peterborough as a burg with only one bar worth visiting and few other attractions.
During Memorial Cup week, Zeke's, the bar to which The Sun referred, had a sign in its front window: "The Ottawa Sun says we're the only good bar in town.”
"We were truly and genuinely surprised,” Neville told Mike Sawatzky of The Brandon Sun. "We were hurt (but) we also recognized it was coming from one place.
"We knew Ottawa had the best arena (a refurbished Civic Centre) and the most money to offer.
"I think the attraction of Peterborough is we offer more than hockey games. (The Memorial Cup) has grown to be an event for fans. You want to make it a festival for the week where people can really enjoy themselves.”
All of the criticism didn't slow down the Petes in their quest for the crown.
At the time that Peterborough was named host city, the Petes came under fire. There were some folks out there who didn't think the club was competitive enough.
"Our guys got tremendous motivation off of some of the press that we weren't a good enough team to host the Cup, let alone a good enough city,” MacQueen stated. "We've got tremendous pride in that. We wanted to get in through the front door.”
They put together a 35-22-9 regular season to finish second in the East Division, four points behind the Ottawa 67's.
This Peterborough team started slowly and only got better as the season progressed.
Right-winger Cameron Mann led the Petes with 102 points, including 42 goals. Centre Rob Giffin totalled 88 points, with 34 of them goals, and centre Mike Williams had 20 goals and 77 points.
Mann went on a real tear in the playoffs. He led the league, with 43 points, including 27 goals, in 24 games. He smashed the franchise record of 19 goals set by Mike Ricci in the spring of 1989. Mann was a premier penalty-killer as well -- he had 11 shorthanded goals during the regular season and added seven more on the playoff trail.
Williams helped out with 41 postseason points, second in the league to Mann, including a playoff-high 29 assists.
And left-winger Dave Duerden, who hadn't missed a game in two seasons with the Petes, had 27 points, including 14 goals.
The defence featured captain Adrian Murray, first-team all-star Kevin Bolibruck and Mike Martone, all of whom knew the way around their zone.
And in goal the man was Zac Bierk, who was perhaps better known because of the accomplishments of three members of his family than for his goaltending.
David Bierk, Zac's father, is an internationally acclaimed artist. Sebastian Bach, Zac's brother, is the lead singer for Skid Row, a heavy metal band that was based in New Jersey. And sister Heather is a model.
It shouldn't be surprising then that Zac Bierk was not your conventional goaltender. He was big -- 6-foot-4 and 202 pounds -- and didn't do a whole lot by the book. A lot of hockey people talked about his going down every time he saw the puck; Bierk preferred to call it a butterfly style.
But, hey, it worked. He was 31-16-6 with a 3.17 GAA in the regular season. He followed that up by going 14-7 record with a 3.60 GAA in the playoffs. He had help, too, from former NHL goaltender Marv Edwards, who was one of the Petes' assistant coaches.
Still, the Petes were well off the pace set by Guelph. The Storm had been favoured to win everything the previous season but had lost out to the Detroit Jr. Red Wings in the championship final.
Guelph roared back in 1995-96 to finish on top of the Central Division with the OHL's best record -- 45-16-5.
Head coach Craig Hartsburg had left Guelph for the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks after the 1995-96 season. He was replaced by McGuire, a man with NHL experience who knew lots about the Petes as he had, at one time or another, worked with former Peterborough coaches Mike Keenan, Roger Neilson and Jacques Martin.
McGuire chose to come to Guelph as a head coach in an attempt to turn around a career in which he feared he was being branded as a career assistant coach. He had been an assistant for nine seasons, the last three with the NHL's Ottawa Senators.
"I was in Ottawa for three years, that's why I look 68,” McGuire said. He was actually 43.
Guelph general manager Mike Kelly was quick to credit McGuire with being worth 10 to 15 points in the standings.
No one played defence like the Storm which set an OHL record by allowing only 186 goals in the 66-game regular season.
The defence was keyed by goaltender Dan Cloutier, who joined the Storm after three season with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. He was with the Greyhounds at the 1993 Memorial Cup tournament, which they won, but didn't see any playing time. With the Storm, he went 11-7-0 with a 3.34 GAA.
Chris Hajt was the most highly touted of Guelph's defencemen. His father, Bill, was a stay-at-home type during his NHL career and Chris played the game the same way.
The offence, which totaled 297 goals, relied on balance -- there were 11 players with at least 30 points.
Guelph's top scorer was Herbert Vasiljevs. He had 67 points, including 34 goals, and was tied for 40th in the OHL's scoring derby.
Left-winger Jamie Wright had 66 points, including 30 goals, and centre Jeff Williams scored 15 times and set up another 49.
Williams caught fire in the OHL playoffs, scoring 13 goals and setting up 15 others. His 28 points left him fourth in the postseason scoring race.
Peterborough opened the playoffs -- all series were best-of-seven -- by ousting the Kingston Frontenacs in six games, both losses coming in overtime.
The Petes moved into a quarterfinal series where they took out the Sarnia Sting in six games. Only one game went into overtime -- the Petes won Game 5, 7-6.
Peterborough met Detroit in one semifinal series and eliminated the Jr. Red Wings in five games, winning two of them in overtime.
Meanwhile, the Storm had received a first-round bye and then eliminated the Niagara Falls Thunder in five games. (Shortly thereafter, the Thunder announced it was relocating to Erie, Pa.)
In the other semifinal series, Guelph went five games in ousting the Belleville Bulls.
The Petes and Storm would meet in the OHL's championship final and, oh, what a series this would be.
It went the full seven games and, strangely enough, the visiting team won each of the seven games.
And Game 7 needed overtime before it was decided -- the Petes winning 8-7 in Guelph. In fact, two of the games went to overtime, meaning Peterborough played in seven postseason OT games.
The winning goal was scored by Martone, one of those stay-at-home defencemen. It was his second overtime goal of the series and seventh goal of the postseason.
"We feel great,” he said. "That's the way we wanted to do it -- going in the front door.
"None of this back door stuff for us; we're going in the front door.
Prior to Game 5 on May 2, which the Petes won 5-3 in Guelph, MacQueen's wife, Nancy, gave birth to their third child, son Dylan.
"It might have been the best day of my life,” said MacQueen, who was given the game puck after Game 5 and said he would put it in his son's crib.
"I gave the boys a pretty emotional speech before the game,” MacQueen said. "A lot of people said it would be a miracle if we advanced in the playoffs. That it would be a miracle if we beat Guelph. I told the players I witnessed a miracle with the birth of my son and it would be no miracle to beat Guelph.”
A few days later, on May 13, the Wheat Kings added a new member to their family when Lowes' wife, Shelley, gave birth to Robert Joseph, their third child and first son. They named him after Bob's father, who died in 1990 with his son's coaching career in its infancy. In fact, Bob was coaching the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's Nipawin Hawks and was boarding a bus to the Centennial Cup when he was informed of his father's death.
The night his son was born, Lowes was named the CHL's coach of the year. In an emotional acceptance speech, he dedicated the award to his father.
In Brandon, the Wheat Kings had won their first WHL championship since 1978-79. That team, featuring the high-powered line of Ray Allison, Laurie Boschman and Brian Propp, along with defenceman Brad McCrimmon, lost in the tournament final, dropping a 2-1 overtime decision to the Petes in the Verdun, Que., Auditorium.
This edition of the Wheat Kings led the WHL with 369 goals, but didn't have the firepower of the 1979 champions. Still, the 1995-96 Wheat Kings offered much better balance.
Brandon had the WHL's best regular-season record (52-19-1) and its 105 points were one more than Spokane accumulated.
Left-winger Mike Leclerc, a midseason acquisition from the Prince George Cougars during the 1994-95 season, was Brandon's best offensive player. He totaled 111 points, including 58 goals, good for seventh spot in the scoring race.
Peter Schaefer, another left winger, was right there, too, with 108 points, including 47 goals.
The Wheat Kings got an early-season break when centre Cory Cyrenne, a native of Winnipeg, left Colorado College and headed for Brandon. He would scored 38 goals and set up 59 others in his rookie season.
Brandon also got a big lift when general manager Kelly McCrimmon swung a deal with the Moose Jaw Warriors for goaltender Jody Lehman.
Lehman had asked to be dealt from Moose Jaw but there weren't any early takers. In fact, he was out of the WHL for about a month before the Wheat Kings came calling.
He got into 29 games with Brandon, going 22-5-0 with a 2.49 GAA.
The backup was Brian Elder, who was 23-9-1 with a 3.46 GAA but was plagued by knee woes in the latter half of the season.
Some observers would tell you that the key to the Wheat Kings was on defence, where they surrendered 231 goals, the second-lowest figure in the league.
Defenceman Justin Kurtz, easily the most under-rated player on the team, had 74 points in 53 games while Wade Redden picked up 54 points in 51 games. And the Wheat Kings got amazing play out of two 16-year-olds -- Daniel Tetrault and Burke Henry.
The Wheat Kings opened the postseason by taking a best-of-seven series from the Saskatoon Blades in four games. Brandon followed that up by sweeping the Red Deer Rebels in four games, and then took out the Prince Albert Raiders in six games in the East Division final.
The championship final featured the WHL's two best teams -- Brandon and Spokane -- and the Wheat Kings won it in five games.
Brandon played 19 playoff games and lost just three of them. Right-winger Bobby Brown, who had 88 points in 59 regular-season games, was named the playoff MVP. He had 27 points, including 14 goals, in 19 games.
LeClerc had 25 playoff points and left-winger Chris Dingman, the biggest of the Wheat Kings at 6-foot-4 and 235-pounds, played the best hockey of his career and wound up with 23 points, including 11 goals. Schafer also had 23 points, while Cyrenne finished with 20.
And Lehman was easily the best goaltender in the playoffs. He played all 19 games and finished with a 2.59 GAA, shutting out the Chiefs 3-0 in Spokane in the title-clinching game.
This Wheat Kings team would be prepared -- you could count on that.
In the WHL, teams take individual 12-minute pregame warmups during which they use the entire ice surface. In the Memorial Cup, which would be played under OHL rules, teams warmed up together, each using half the ice surface, for 20 minutes.
So, before leaving for Peterborough, the Wheat Kings practised their pregame routine to get used to using only half the ice.
"It's the way we have to get ready for a game,” assistant coach Mark Johnston said. "We have to prepare as effectively as we can.”
Meanwhile, in Granby, a couple of faces familiar to the Memorial Cup scene were pushing the Predateurs to their first QMJHL title.
Jean-Claude Morrissette was one of six brothers who owned the QMJHL's Laval Titan, who played host to the 1994 tournament. And it was during that tournament when Morrissette, the Titan's general manager, found himself on the hotseat after referee Luc Lachapelle was assaulted in a parking lot after the Titan had lost 5-4 to the Kamloops Blazers.
At the time, the Titan were fined $10,000 and Morrissette was, among other things, suspended from all Canadian Hockey League activity, including the Memorial Cup, for three years, or through the completion of the 1997 event. The QMJHL then suspended Morrissette through the 1994-95 season, but he was reinstated halfway through that season.
He and five of the brothers sold the Titan to another brother, Leo-Guy, and Jean-Claude laid low for a bit.
Prior to the 1995-96 season, Morrissette purchased the Granby franchise, brought in younger brother Georges as general manager and hired Michel Therrien to coach the Predateurs. Therrien was no stranger to the Memorial Cup, having been an assistant with Laval in 1990 and head coach in 1993 and '94.
There was good news on the eve of the 1996 tournament when CHL president Ed Chynoweth announced that the Memorial Cup's discipline committee had lifted Morrissette's suspension.
"(The QMJHL) really felt we'd be doing them a favour if we could take a serious look at it,” Chynoweth said. "If we were soft, we were soft. We took into consideration that he's been pretty clean and now we're giving him an opportunity to see whether it's going to continue.”
Morrissette was pleased.
"I did something wrong and I paid very dearly for it,” he told The Brandon Sun. "As far as my reputation and everything goes, I suffered greatly. But I felt I was treated justly.”
Therrien, for one, felt this would give his club a boost.
"We are family and Jean-Claude Morrissette is part of our family,” Therrien said. "We're more than happy to have J.C. back.”
The Predateurs enjoyed quite a season.
Along the way, they added seven players who would play an important role. In fact, a case could be made that the following seven players formed the guts of this team.
1. They added Jimmy Drolet, a veteran defenceman, from the St. Hyacinthe Laser.
2. They also dealt with the Laser for right-winger Georges Laraque, a tough guy with some offensive touch.
3-4-5. Left-winger Daniel Goneau, right-winger Jean-Francois Brunelle and defenceman Francis Bouillon were acquired in midseason from Laval.
6-7. In mid-January, they picked up defenceman Jason Doig and centre Benoit Gratton from Laval.
"We got five kids from Laval and I knew what I was getting,” Therrien said.
The Predateurs finished the regular season at 56-12-2, their 114 points leaving them eight points ahead of the Hull Olympiques in the Lebel Division.
They scored 389 goals, so came into Peterborough with the reputation as a highly offensive team.
Their roster included four 100-point men, led by 5-foot-6 centre Martin Chouinard, whose 134 points included 52 goals.
Right-winger Xavier Delisle, a second-team all-star, totalled 120 points, including 45 goals.
Gratton was described by some as the "heart and soul” of the Predateurs. He wasn't bad on offence, either, as his 118 points, including 85 assists, would prove.
Goneau, a first-team all-star, had 105 points, including 51 goals, and also had Memorial Cup experience. He was with Laval in 1993 and 1994, totaling five goals and six assists in 10 games.
But the Predateurs, a big and physical team, could play defence, too, witness their 191 goals-against over 72 regular-season games.
They were solid in goal, with first-team all-star Frederic Deschenes and Frederic Henry, both of whom had already been drafted by NHL teams.
Deschenes, now in his third season with Granby, was taken by the Detroit Red Wings in the fifth round of the 1994 draft. He was 34-7-0 with a 2.63 regular-season GAA and then went 9-2 with a 2.72 GAA in the playoffs.
Henry, 19-5-2 with a 2.71 GAA in the regular season, went to the New Jersey Devils in 1995's eighth round.
This team depended a whole lot on Doig, a defenceman they called The General. In three QMJHL seasons, he had played for St. Jean, Laval and now Granby. He was big -- 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds -- and talented, and had spent 15 games with the NHL's Winnipeg Jets. In 29 games with Granby, he had 43 points.