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Thread: The Memorial Cup: A History

  1. #61
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    From Gregg Drinnan... 1975

    1975 MEMORIAL CUP
    New Westminster Bruins, Toronto Marlboros and Sherbrooke Castors
    at Kitchener (Memorial Auditorium)


    They were the big, bad Bruins and they were beginning an unprecedented string of successes in the world of Western Canadian junior hockey.
    After finishing first in the East Division in 1970-71 and flaming out in the first round of the playoffs, the Estevan Bruins packed their bags and moved to New Westminster, a suburb of Vancouver.
    They became the New Westminster Bruins. They would turn their home -- Queen's Park Arena -- into the most intimidating facility junior hockey had known.
    The Bruins were coached by Ernie (Punch) McLean, who had tutored under Scotty Munro and who would go on to become a legend in his own right.
    The Bruins made the first of four straight Memorial Cup appearances in the spring of 1975.
    "We like tough, aggressive hockey and that's what we're going to have to play if we want that national title,” said McLean, whose club featured brilliant young defencemen Barry Beck and rookie Brad Maxwell, with Gord Laxton in goal. The leaders up front were team captain Barry Smith, Rick Shinske, Brian Shmyr, Mark Lofthouse, Mike Sleep and Kelly Secord.
    The muscle was provided by the likes of defenceman Harold Phillipoff and Clayton Pachal, who could play defence or left wing.
    This was a Bruins team built on experience (nine players were in their final season of eligibility) and inexperience (there were nine rookies). But more than that, it was built on muscle and defence.
    The league's sixth-best offence didn't put a scorer into the top 10. Shinske topped the club with 80 points; the Edmonton Oil Kings were the only other team not to have at least one player with 100 points. Lofthouse led the Bruins with 36 goals; they had 13 players in double figures.
    The magic, however, was on defence where they surrendered only 260 goals, the third-best figure that season.
    The Bruins wound up third in the West Division over the 70-game regular season. Their 85 points (37-22-11) left them 14 points in arrears of the pennant-winning Victoria Cougars.
    Admittedly, the Bruins had struggled through a lot of the regular season.
    "If there was a turning point for us,” McLean said, "it came early in February when we got a break in the schedule and 10 days off.
    "I told the guys to go hide, to get lost, just go and do whatever they wanted to. When they came back from that break our team just started to go.”
    New Westminster knew it was onto something in the first round when it eliminated the second-place Medicine Hat Tigers in five games.
    The Bruins then took out Victoria in six games in the West Division final.
    And, in the WCHL final, the Bruins got past the Saskatoon Blades in seven games, winning that seventh game 7-2.
    The Bruins became the first team from B.C. to play for the Memorial Cup since the Trail Smoke Eaters in 1944.
    "I don't know if anybody believed me or not when I told them we could win it all,” McLean said. "But you can believe this, I meant it.
    "Our farm system had started to develop after we'd been in this area for four years. We had the makings of a good hockey team and when we got Richard Shinske from Calgary in a trade, it gave us the extra strength at centre that we needed.”
    The 1975 Memorial Cup tournament was again a single round-robin, but organizers had added a semifinal game. Now, after the round-robin portion ended, the top team went on to the final, with the other two teams meeting in a semifinal game. The tournament would be held in the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium.
    It would also feature George Armstrong's Toronto Marlboros and the Sherbrooke Castors of coach Ghislain Delage.
    The Marlies had coasted through the Ontario Hockey Association's regular season, but ran into all kinds of grief in the playoffs and ended up playing 23 games in 35 days.
    They opened against the Kingston Canadians and needed eight games to win that eight-point quarterfinal series. The same thing happened against the Sudbury Wolves, with Toronto winning the eighth game in overtime.
    The Marlies won the first two games of the final against Dale McCourt and the Hamilton Fincups, but this series ended up going seven games, Toronto winning the finale 8-3 before 8,261 fans at Maple Leaf Gardens.
    The best of the Marlies was centre Bruce Boudreau, who totalled 68 goals and 97 assists (165 points) in the regular season, and Mark Napier.
    The lineup also boasted solid goaltending from Gary Carr, with the likes of Mike Kitchen and Mike McEwen on defence, and John Anderson, Mike Kaszycki, Lynn Jorgenson and Ron Wilson helping up front.
    However, the Marlies would play the entire tournament without John Tonelli, one of their premier performers. He had been fourth in the regular-season scoring race, with 49 goals and 89 assists.
    But once he turned 18, Tonelli sat out all of Toronto's playoff games because he didn't want to risk jeopardizing his chances of playing pro with the World Hockey Association's Houston Aeros the following season.
    While the Marlies struggled, Sherbrooke rolled through the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League regular season, winning 51 games, and then coasted through the playoffs, losing just one game en route to the championship.
    The Castors ousted the Hull Festivals and Chicoutimi Sagueneens, winning best-of-seven affairs in straight games.
    Sherbrooke met Mike Bossy and the Laval National in the championship series, and lost the fourth game 11-10 before wrapping it up with an 8-0 victory in the fifth game.
    The Castors had eight players reach the 30-goal plateau, with the best of them being three 19-year-olds -- left-winger Claude Larose, right-winger Michel Brisebois and centre Marc Tessier, their captain. Larose, with 69 goals and 76 assists in 1974-75, had 205 goals over three seasons. The Castors also had the QMJHL's top goaltender in Nick Sanza, who was backed up by Richard Sirois.
    The two eastern teams met in the Memorial Cup opener on May 3 before 3,162 fans, well below the capacity of more than 5,000.
    Attendance -- or lack of same -- was already drawing queries, as some people pointed out that the 1974 tournament in Calgary had sold out every game with tickets $1 cheaper than at Kitchener.
    Toronto won that first game 5-4 on Jorgenson's goal at 12:33 of the first overtime period.
    The Castors actually led 3-0 early in the second period -- on two goals from Robert Simpson and one from Brisebois -- before running into penalty problems.
    John Smrke struck for two power-play goals, before Napier tied the game at 12:15 with three seconds left in yet another Sherbrooke penalty.
    Napier put the Marlies out front 11 minutes into the third period, only to have Larose tie it at 19:31.
    Delage blamed the defeat on "foolish” penalties.
    "I don't want to put the blame on the referee -- he has a job to do,” he said, referring to Murray Harding of Winnipeg.
    Sanza lived up to his billing, turning aside 46 shots. Carr stopped 33 shots.
    "We've been there before,” Armstrong said of being down 3-0. "We're more used to the pressure and it was perhaps a little disadvantage to Sherbrooke.”
    The Castors repeated the performance in their second game on May 5.
    This time, they took a 3-0 lead into the second period against New Westminster and watched as the Bruins scored five straight goals en route to a 7-5 victory.
    Berry, Smith, Shinske, Secord, Shmyr, Steve Clippingdale and Pachal scored for the Bruins in front of 3,156 fans. Simpson and Larose, with two each, and Richard Mulhern scored for Sherbrooke.
    The game took more than three hours to play and included 14 fighting majors.
    According to Dennis Passa of The Canadian Press: "McLean said Sherbrooke was out to intimidate the Bruins, but didn't succeed when New Westminster started skating in the second period.”
    Offered McLean: "We weren't skating in the first period. We were watching them go by us, and I think when the guys realized they really had to go to work, they did.”
    By now, the McLean legend was starting to build.
    One report from Kitchener told of two drills McLean allegedly used to toughen up his Bruins.
    In one, a player began behind one net with a puck. While he skated towards centre ice McLean sent players at random to hit the puck carrier. Miss the puck carrier and you were the next puck carrier in what McLean called "target practice.”
    In the other drill, McLean supposedly had two players set up back-to-back behind one net; they would then go full speed and collide -- hey, no braking allowed -- behind the other net. If a player bailed out, he had to skate laps.
    The Bruins clinched a spot in the final when they scored four third-period goals and went on to beat the Marlies 6-2 before 4,536 fans on May 7.
    The Bruins set it up with a great display of forechecking as they outskated and outhit Toronto.
    "That's the way we always play,” McLean said.
    The Bruins led 2-0 in the first period on goals from Shmyr and Pachal.
    Napier scored the second period's only goal and Jorgenson tied the score at 1:54 of the third period.
    The Bruins dominated after that. Clippingdale broke the tie at 5:08 and Sleep, Berry and Shinske added insurance goals.
    The Bruins took seven of 12 minors in the tournament's first fight-free game.
    "Toronto is supposed to have the best power play in the east,” McLean said. "But we've got a fine bunch of penalty killers ourselves.”
    Laxton was superb again, this time stopping 27 shots.
    That left the Marlboros and Castors to play a one-game showdown on May 9, with the victor moving into the Memorial Cup final against the Bruins.
    And that semifinal game belonged to Boudreau.
    A 68-goal man in the regular season, Boudreau strutted his stuff in front of 3,498 fans. He struck for five power-play goals -- Napier set up three of them -- as Toronto hammered Sherbrooke 10-4.
    "I guess this will make me sleep a lot better tonight,” said Boudreau, who went into the game without a goal in the tournament.
    He admitted he may have been "pressing” but added that "I think we skated for 60 minutes out there and that was the big thing.”
    Boudreau had 12 goals in 23 playoff games prior to the tournament. He felt he should have done better but some of the blame for his slump could have been placed on a freak injury he suffered just prior to the playoffs.
    During a practice, Boudreau fell on one of Armstrong's skates and needed 16 stitches to close a cut to his face. He would suffer from double vision for about a month but said he could see perfectly the night he scored five on the Castors.
    The Marlies struck for five third-period goals, three from Boudreau, as they knocked Sanza out of the game. Robert Sauve, who had been picked up from Laval, came on in relief and finished up.
    McEwen, with two, Anderson, Smrke and Jorgenson had Toronto's other goals.
    Larose, with two, Brisebois and Fernand Leblanc scored for Sherbrooke.
    "The momentum that George Armstrong has put into this team is unbelievable,” offered Sherbrooke general manager George Guilbault. "They play very discipoined hockey and are a talented hockey team.
    "We had to play catch-up hockey all night and as you've seen, you're definitely not able to do that in a Memorial Cup tournament.”
    And the Marlies won it all two days later when they erased a 2-0 deficit late in the first period and went on to a 7-3 victory over the Bruins before 4,382 fans.
    "They always start out a bit slow,” Armstrong said of his Marlies. The players tossed him into the shower in their dressing room, and when they got back to their hotel they threw him into the swimming pool.
    Toronto tied the game with two goals 33 seconds apart before taking a 5-3 lead into the third period.
    Anderson and Kaszycki scored two goals each for Toronto, with Jorgenson, Napier and Boudreau adding one each.
    Phillipoff, Secord and Lofthouse replied for the Bruins.
    "Marlies got a few lucky bounces at the wrong time for us and that's all you need in junior hockey in a one-shot deal,” McLean said.
    According to one report, Anderson's goals were both of the "fluke” variety.
    The first, late in the opening period, tied the game 2-2. Anderson rifled a shot high off one of Laxton's shoulders. The puck bounced high in the air, landed and bounced into the goal.
    The second, early in the middle period, was actually a centring pass. It hit Laxton on the back of one pad and ended up in the net.
    It was the Marlies' second title in three years and the seventh in their history. This one may have been a little more special because they had six times faced playoff elimination.
    Three trophies were awarded for the first time at the conclusion of the 1975 tournament.
    Smith, the Bruins' captain, was awarded the Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy as the tournament's most valuable player.
    The George Parsons Trophy, for sportsmanship, went to Smrke.
    Carr went home with the Hap Emms Memorial Trophy as the event's outstanding goaltender.

    NEXT: 1976 (Hamilton Fincups, New Westminster Bruins and Quebec Remparts)

  2. #62
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1976

    1976 MEMORIAL CUP
    New Westminster Bruins, Hamilton Fincups and Quebec Remparts
    at Montreal (Forum)


    Ernie McLean and his New Westminster Bruins were back for a second of what would be four consecutive trips to the Memorial Cup tournament.
    This year the tournament would be played in the Montreal Forum. And, again, it would be a three-team round-robin, the fifth year in a row this format had been used.
    This time the opposition was provided by Bert Templeton's Hamilton Fincups (Dale McCourt was their captain) and the Quebec Remparts, coached by Ron Racette.
    Hamilton counted on goaltender Mark Locken and the likes of McCourt, Ric Seiling and Joe Contini.
    The Fincups advanced by ousting the Sudbury Wolves in five games from the eight-point Ontario final. Prior to that, they had coasted past the Kitchener Rangers and Toronto Marlboros.
    By the time Templeton and his players opened the Memorial Cup tournament they hadn't played a game in 11 days.
    The Remparts had been the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's third-best regular-season team. Their 86 points won the East Division, but left them behind the Sherbrooke Castors (111) and Cornwall Royals (87), who topped the West Division.
    Quebec opened the playoffs by eliminating the Sorel Eperviers in five games, and then swept the Royals in four straight to win a semifinal series. In the final, the Remparts took out the Castors in six games, although they scored just 25 goals in the process.
    This was a Quebec team that, believe it or not, won and lost on defence -- it allowed only 21 goals in the league final.
    The Remparts, without a scorer in the top 10, scored only 336 regular-season goals (fifth in the 10-team league) and yet took out Sherbrooke, which had totalled 514 goals. The Remparts, however, allowed just 288, the third-best total, the key being goaltender Maurice Barrette.
    The Remparts' defensive brigade was led by Jean Gagnon, voted the QMJHL's top defenceman, and Mario Marois.
    The Bruins, meanwhile, took their reputation with them when they traveled east.
    These were the big, bad and burly Bruins. Their roster featured eight players with more than 145 penalty minutes, including defenceman Barry Beck, at 325.
    But unlike the team that had reached the final a year ago, this team could score. It had four players with more than 100 points -- Fred Berry (146), Rick Shinske (143), Steve Clippingdale (117) and Mark Lofthouse (116). Defencemen Brad Maxwell and Beck each came in with 99 points.
    This was, indeed, a team that could play it just about any way you wanted.
    The Bruins opened postseason play by sweeping the Brandon Wheat Kings from a best-of-nine series, and then won a best-of-seven semifinal from the Victoria Cougars in five, winning four and tying one.
    That set up a best-of-seven championship final with the Saskatoon Blades. It went seven games, too, the Bruins winning four and tying one.
    Due to the final going the distance, the Bruins won the WCHL championship just three nights before the Memorial Cup tournament opened.
    And they arrived knowing that goaltender Blaine Peterson wouldn't be able to play after breaking his collarbone in the warmup prior to Game 1 against Saskatoon. To replace him, McLean picked up Brandon goaltender Glen Hanlon. The Bruins other goaltender was Carey Walker, whose brother Larry would go on to some fame of his own in baseball's major leagues.
    Quebec and Hamilton opened the tournament before 7,400 fans on May 9, the Remparts winning 4-3 behind Barrette's 45-save performance.
    The Remparts actually held a 3-0 lead going into the third period but they were hanging on at the end.
    Centre Remi Levesque opened the scoring in a penalty-filled first period, and Gagnon and right-winger Eddy Godin struck for goals 27 seconds apart in the closing moments of the second period.
    Steve Hazlett and Seiling got the Fincups to within one at 3-2 with five minutes to play, only to have Yvan Hamelin score what proved to be the winner at 17:14. Hazlett added a second goal at 19:56.
    Hamilton, which fired 21 third-period shots at Barrette, outshot Quebec 48-25.
    The next night, in front of another crowd of 7,400, the Bruins dumped the Remparts 4-2.
    The Bruins jumped out to a 4-1 first-period lead and then manhandled Quebec for the last two periods of what became a fight-filled contest.
    Beck, Harold Phillipoff, Clayton Pachal (with the Bruins two men short) and Shinske scored for New Westminster. Denis Turcotte and Jean Chouinard replied for the Remparts.
    "We really didn't know what to expect from them,” Beck said. "The team we played from here (Sherbrooke) last year skated, so we knew we had to throw the body on them.
    "Our game plan was to be aggressive -- throw the body. We had to cut down this year in the playoffs a little bit because we kept getting penalties -- we got some dumb penalties tonight, too.”
    Referee Blair Graham of Oakville, Ont., handed out a dozen fighting majors and 17 minor penalties.
    Walker was to have started in goal but took a shot off a shoulder in the pregame warmup and gave way to Hanlon, who went on to stop 23 shots. Barrette, in what would be his final appearance in the tournament, turned aside 38.
    "We had a bad start,” Racette stated. "We've got a young hockey club and we kept coming on stronger and stronger. At times we were trying to play hockey standing still. You can't do that. If we play 60 minutes of hockey, I think we can beat them.”
    Beck said the Bruins were surprised with the way the Remparts played.
    "They didn't really forecheck us,” he said. "They let us come out of our own end. Usually, we're used to two men coming in at us.”
    And Shinske pointed out something this team was growing tired of saying: "We're not just a physical team. We can play hockey, too. We have some guys who can put the puck in the net.”
    The Remparts lost Barrette the next day, an off-day in the tournament, when he was hospitalized and underwent an immediate appendectomy.
    That left Racette to choose between backup Grant McNicholl, who saw little action behind Barrette; Yves Guillemette, who was added from Shawinigan but hadn't played since the Dynamos were eliminated, almost a month previous; and, Gino Yanire of the Hull Festivals.
    The Fincups, preparing to meet the Bruins, now knew what to expect. They said they would show up anyway.
    "Hitting isn't going to stop us,” Templeton said. "We use a lot of contact drills in our practices so we can take the rough going.
    "You can be small but physically strong. We have some small players who are exceptionally strong.”
    The difference on May 12 was special teams.
    The Fincups struck for seven power-play goals as they beat the Bruins 8-4 in front of 3,550 fans.
    "Everybody says our power play isn't worth a damn,” Templeton said after his club had earned a berth in the tournament final.
    With each of the three teams at 1-1, the Fincups went through on the best goals-for and goals-against ratio -- plus-three. The Bruins were minus-two; the Remparts minus-one.
    Contini scored three goals and set up three others, and Seiling chipped in with two goals and four assists. Hazlett, with two, and Cal Herd had Hamilton's other goals.
    Stan Smyl, with two, Shinske and Maxwell scored for the Bruins.
    Templeton said the key to his power play was that "we were just finishing off our plays.”
    "Listen,” he said, "we're not a big team. Our style isn't brutality, and we made sure not to play their style of hockey.”
    Hamilton scored five power-play goals and led 6-1 after a first period that featured 70 minutes in penalties, including 12 fighting majors.
    Yes, referee Marcel Vaillancourt of Sherbrooke had his hands full.
    And, yes, when it was over McLean was calling the head official "incompetent.”
    At 6:17 of the opening period, Hamilton lost Ed Smith, Archie King, Ted Long and Mike Fedorko with majors. The Bruins to take majors were Don Hobbins, Smyl and Maxwell, with Pachal taking a double major. About a minute later, Beck was hit with another major, leaving the Bruins two men short.
    The Fincups scored five times on Walker before he was replaced by Hanlon, who was beaten on the first shot he saw. Hamilton led 6-1 on the scoreboard and held a 17-1 edge in shots on goal.
    "We decided it would be foolish to take bad penalties and it paid off -- we had six power-play goals, didn't we?” Contini said. "Part of the game is aggressiveness, but sometimes you have to pay the price, and tonight they paid that price.”
    The Bruins by now were awash in a sea of bad ink, and they were determined to do something about it.
    "We're not goons and we don't go around looking for fights,” Beck said as they prepared to meet Quebec in the semifinal game. "We've come here to win the Memorial Cup and we're going to win it.
    "We outscored (Hamilton) in the second and third so we know we can handle them. But we can't take those stupid penalties.”
    The Bruins settled down in the semifinal on May 14. They didn't incur so much as one major penalty as they whomped the Remparts 10-3 before 8,262 spectators.
    "They can play tough, they can play rough and they can play disciplined hockey,” McLean stated of his charges who took six of eight minors handed out by Graham.
    Lofthouse scored four times, Phillipoff and Smyl added two each, and Pachal and Clippingdale had one apiece. Shinske drew four assists.
    Val James, Michel Frechette and Jean Savard scored for Quebec, which used Yanire in goal.
    Lofthouse opened the scoring just 14 seconds into the game, but the Remparts went up 2-1 as James and Frechette beat Hanlon before the game was four minutes old.
    That prompted McLean to change goaltenders, only to have Walker beaten on the first shot he saw.
    "I took Hanlon out because I wanted to talk to him,” McLean explained. "He was very nervous and I wanted to calm him down -- then the puck bounced on Walker for another goal.”
    McLean reinserted Hanlon, and the redhead from Brandon didn't allow another goal.
    "After the second period the guys really settled down and in the third they really played their game,” McLean said. "They moved the puck and they dumped it in the hole, and they weren't doing that before.”
    Still, the Remparts were even with the Bruins at 3-3 when they lost Gagnon, their undisputed leader, to a bruised thigh at 10:25 of the second period.
    The Bruins got goals from Phillipoff (10:39) and Pachal (11:11) inside of a minute later to take control.
    "We could have done better,” Racette said, "but we came from last place in November to the Memorial Cup, so I have to say I'm proud of them.
    "When Gagnon was hurt we missed him and that was the turning point in the game -- they got those two quick goals and that was it.”
    Prior to the final, Templeton offered up his coaching philosophy:
    "If you want a simple description of the game, you get the puck out of your end as fast as you can, you get it into their end as fast as you can, and you get on it as fast as you can.”
    The Fincups did just that in the final on May 16. They grabbed a 3-1 first-period lead and went on to a 5-2 victory in front of 4,450 fans.
    "That club that we played was a super hockey club,” Templeton said. "But I think the other day we made them change their style and today they were afraid to get rough.”
    McCourt, selected the tournament's most valuable player, agreed.
    "Intimidation is a pretty big word,” he said. "We aren't afraid of anybody, no matter how tough they are. When it came down to the final, they couldn't play tough or they would have hurt themselves.”
    Mike Keating, Hazlett, King, Contini and Joe Kowal scored for Hamilton, which scored twice with the man advantage. Allen Fleck and Smyl counted for New Westminster.
    Hanlon went the distance in goal for the Bruins, who were outshot 37-22.
    "They beat us to the puck,” Hanlon said, "that's all there is to it. I don't think they have any more talent.”
    The tournament all-star team featured Barrette, Gagnon, Beck, McCourt, Phillipoff and Seiling. Barrette was named the best goaltender, with Shinske being selected the most sportsmanlike player.
    McCourt won a television set as the MVP and said the prize would certainly alter his family's lifestyle.
    "We've got electricity but we've only got one plug,” he joked of the family home near Sudbury. "Now we'll have to unplug the radio to plug in the TV.”

    NEXT: 1977 (New Westminster Bruins, Ottawa 67's and Sherbrooke Beavers)

  3. #63
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1977

    1977 MEMORIAL CUP
    New Westminster Bruins, Ottawa 67's and Sherbrooke Beavers
    at Vancouver (Pacific Coliseum)


    Ernie (Punch) McLean's New Westminster Bruins made it three trips in a row to the Memorial Cup tournament and this one opened with the New Westminster bench boss talking of retirement.
    "I love working with the kids,” McLean, then 45 years of age, said. "But sometimes it seems like the challenge of coaching juniors is gone for me.”
    McLean, it seemed, was tired of being accused of coaching rough-house hockey. And he seemed to be constantly in opposition to the powers that be. At this tournament, for example, he was critical of the round-robin format (this year's event was the first to go to a double round-robin), calling it "a one-game wonder.”
    But was he serious, or was he only tilting at windmills?
    No matter, because playing at home the Bruins owned this event, as they had owned the WCHL's West Division in the regular season.
    There weren't any secrets as to how the Bruins won -- they did it with defence. They allowed only 216 goals, the lowest goals-against for any team since the 1972-73 Saskatoon Blades had allowed 184. After 1976-77, no team allowed fewer than 216 goals until the 1994-95 Kamloops Blazers held opponents to 202 goals.
    The keys on the blue line were Barry Beck, Brad Maxwell, Brian Young and Miles Zaharko.
    "This defence is the best group of four guys I've ever seen in junior hockey in Western Canada,” McLean said. "It's hard to imagine another club, anywhere in Canada, getting this type of talent together at the same time.”
    New Westminster finished the regular season with 105 points (47-14-11), best in the West and second only to the East Division-champion Brandon Wheat Kings (54-10-8).
    It took the Bruins only 14 games to win their third straight WHL championship. They eliminated the Victoria Cougars in four straight and then ousted the Portland Winter Hawks in five games.
    In the final, they silenced the highest-scoring line in junior hockey -- Brandon's combination of Bill Derlago, Ray Allison and Brian Propp -- and sent the Wheat Kings packing in five games.
    While right-winger Mark Lofthouse was the only one of the Bruins to crack the regular-season top 10 -- his 112 points was good for a tie for seventh -- Maxwell led them in playoff scoring, with 22 points, eight behind Derlago and four in arrears of Propp.
    The Bruins had three players -- defencemen Maxwell, who by now was playing with a heavily wrapped right wrist, and Beck and Lofthouse -- who were on their third-straight Memorial Cup team. Beck had been named the league's most valuable player and top defenceman for his regular-season play.
    New Westminster also got big-time play down the stretch from goaltender Blaine Peterson. He had been unable to play in the 1976 tournament after breaking his collarbone in the warmup before Game 1 of the league final against the Saskatoon Blades. This time, he carried a 2.61 postseason GAA into the Memorial Cup.
    The Sherbrooke Castors, of coach Ghislain Delage, had won the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League championship for the second time in three seasons.
    The Castors had won the Robert Lebel Division, their 40-23-9 record the third-best in the league, behind the Quebec Remparts (41-21-10) and the Chicoutimi Sagueneens (42-24-6). But five of the league's 10 teams were within six points of each other, from 86 to 92.
    Come the playoffs, the Castors need the full seven games to get rid of the pesky Laval National, a team that had finished 26 points behind them in the regular season. But Sherbrooke could take some solace from having outscored Laval 33-17 in the seven games.
    Sherbrooke then took out the Cornwall Royals in a nine-point semifinal, winning three games and tying three. And, in the best-of-seven final, the Castors buried the Remparts in five games to earn their second trip in three seasons to the Memorial Cup.
    Jere Gillis was the best of the Sherbrooke forwards in the regular season, with 55 goals and 85 assists. His 140 points left him sixth in the scoring derby.
    In the postseason, however, it was Ron Carter who led the charge. In fact, he topped all QMJHL playoff scorers with 30 points, including 12 goals, in 18 games.
    The Castors also counted on the likes of Rick Vaive and goaltender Richard Sevigny.
    Delage let the world know in advance that his team was headed for Vancouver, not "for a pleasure trip” but "to win the Memorial Cup and nothing else.”
    The Ottawa 67's, of head coach Brian Kilrea, were sparked by three key performers -- defenceman Doug Wilson, their captain; goaltender Jay O'Connor, who was but 17 years of age; and, centre Bobby Smith, who checked in with 16 goals and 17 assists in 19 playoff games after a 65-goal regular season.
    They also featured Tim Higgins, Ed Hospodar, Steve Payne and Stuart Gavin.
    They went 38-23-5 in the regular season to finish atop the Leyden Division. They got past Peterborough and Kingston in the first two rounds of eight-point series, although they trailed 5-3 at one point in the semifinal.
    And in the championship final they took care of the London Knights, a team that had enjoyed a 51-13-2 regular season.
    This was the first Memorial Cup tournament to feature three teams playing a double round-robin format. After everyone had played everyone else twice, the top two teams would move into the one-game final.
    Organizers were quite up front in stating the reason for the shift to a double round-robin affair -- more games meant more money. Period.
    The Bruins opened on May 8 by edging Ottawa 7-6 as Lofthouse scored two goals and set up two others in front of more than 10,000 fans.
    New Westminster also got a huge boost from centre Ray Creasy, who arrived just an hour before the game after being in Winnipeg where his father had died. Creasy set up four goals. He would play again the following day and then return to Winnipeg for his father's funeral, which was to be held on May 10, an off-day for the Bruins.
    Brian Young, Beck, John Ogrodnick, Randy Rudnyk and Rick Greenwood also scored for the Bruins.
    Smith had three Ottawa goals, with Higgins, a right winger, adding a pair and Steve Marengere, another right winger, getting the other.
    The Bruins led 2-0 and 5-3 at the breaks and were ahead by three goals before Higgins and Smith scored late in the third period.
    Peterson, 21, stopped only 18 shots, one more than O'Connor.
    "We played very well offensively,” McLean said, "but not nearly as well defensively as we are capable of playing.
    "It seemed like every time we made a mistake in our end Ottawa got a goal. We'll have to go back to our hitting game against Sherbrooke.”
    Across the way, Kilrea was singing the same tune.
    "We were standing around a lot in our own end and wondering what we should do next instead of doing it,” he said. "You can't play this game when you hesitate like we did today.
    "A lot of our kids owe me a lot better game than they played today and I expect to get it Tuesday.”
    As for Beck, he admitted he hadn't played very well in his zone.
    "Anyone can score goals when you hand them chances like we did today,” Beck stated. "I think we built up their confidence as the game went along because we didn't stick to our hitting game.”
    The next night, with 10,154 fans in the Pacific Coliseum, the Bruins downed the Castors 4-2 as Maxwell broke a 2-2 third-period at 17:54. It was a picture-perfect goal as Maxwell went coast-to-coast to beat Sevigny, who finished with 50 saves -- 23 in the second period and 21 in the third.
    Maxwell admitted his offence was limited by his injured right wrist and that the winning goal had come after some power-play opportunities in which "I failed to put the shot where I wanted because of my wrist . . . I should have been shooting lower.”
    Still, he gave Sherbrooke credit.
    "Sherbrooke is a much better skating team and they won't be intimidated,” he said. "Our hard work in the second period paid off.”
    The Bruins took a 2-1 lead into the third period on goals by Creasy and left-winger Dave Orleski. Gillis tied the score with his second power-play goal of the game at 7:45 of the third period.
    The Bruins forechecked hard and it paid off with numerous chances, but they couldn't beat Sevigny. At one point, he kicked out seven shots on a Bruins' power play, three of them from Maxwell.
    The winning rush began behind the Bruins' net. Maxwell fed left-winger Randy Betty at the Castors' blue line and headed for the net. He got there in time for the return pass and one-timed it past Sevigny.
    Centre Doug Derkson added the insurance goal 13 seconds later.
    Carey Walker went the distance in goal for the Bruins. He made 23 saves.
    Delage was of the impression that his club was hurt by a warm building and by the Bruins' depth. He chose to go with three forward lines, while the Bruins used four.
    The key, however, was the Bruins' hitting, which allowed them to take advantage of their superior depth. They also took 63 of the 122 penalty minutes, although the game featured only three scraps.
    New Westminster right-winger Stan Smyl sat out with an ankle injury, and Creasy left right after the game to attend his father's funeral.
    Ottawa followed up with a 6-1 victory over Sherbrooke on May 10 in front of 4,015 spectators. The 67's forechecked ferociously and most of the game was played in the Castors' end.
    Tom McDonell led Ottawa with two goals. Higgins had a goal and three assists, and goaltender Pat Riggin, a 17-year-old pickup from the London Knights, turned aside 18 shots.
    "Riggin really helped us in the second period when we got away from our game for nearly 20 minutes,” Kilrea said. "Thank goodness we came out of it in the third period. The boys realized they can't just play 20 minutes of good hockey and win.”
    It was the line of McDonell between Higgins and left-winger Shane Pearsall, who had two assists, that showed the way for the 67's. The threesome didn't play together until the playoffs, when McDonell was inserted in place of Yvon Joly, who suffered a broken leg.
    Smith and Hospodar also scored for Ottawa, which took control with three goals inside eight minutes of the first period.
    Gillis scored a second-period goal for the Castors -- they had three goals to this point and he had all of them.
    "New Westminster is a good club,” said Kilrea, looking ahead to the next game, "and it will be our biggest test of the tournament. Our forechecking finally improved and I'm looking forward to it doing the job against the Bruins.”
    The '67s made it two in a row on May 11 when Marengere scored his second goal of the game at 2:45 of overtime for a 5-4 victory over the Bruins.
    Ottawa, which got its first goal from defenceman Jim Kirkpatrick, trailed 3-1 late in the third period. The 67's tied it on goals by Marengere, at 17:37 on a pass from Smith, and Kirkpatrick, at 19:20 with Riggin on the bench for the extra attacker. Kirkpatrick's shot from the point deflected off one of Maxwell's skates and past Walker.
    "Kirkpatrick made a hell of a play at the blue line to keep the puck in for the tying goal,” Kilrea said. "He just outmuscled the New Westminster player for the puck and it paid off.”
    On the winning goal, Marengere got through the New Westminster defence and fired the puck through Walker's legs.
    "I picked my spot and it went in,” Marengere said. "I don't think Walker saw it.”
    "I don't think I'm too small to play this game,” added Marengere, a 5-foot-10, 165-pound speedster who had rebounded from a broken ankle suffered earlier in the season and turned into Ottawa's sparkplug at this tournament. "I can take a check and I can dish it out.”
    Lofthouse, Beck and Betty scored for the Bruins.
    "Our guys just weren't strong enough late in the game,” McLean said. "We had enough chances to get the puck out of our own end, but we didn't.”
    The Bruins had four opportunities to clear the zone before Kirkpatrick's tying goal, but weren't able to get the job done.
    Kilrea also had praise for two defencemen -- Wilson and Jeff Geiger.
    "Wilson hasn't been feeling well up to now and he came on strong and played his best game of the series,” Kilrea said. "Geiger is the hardest worker on the team and the best bodychecker in the tournament.”
    New Westminster clinched a spot in the final on May 13, improving its record to 3-1 by beating Sherbrooke 4-2 before 7,473 fans.
    Although there was one game left in the double round-robin affair -- Ottawa, at 2-1, had to play Sherbrooke (0-3) again -- the final was set. It would feature the Bruins and the 67's. Total attendance, with two games remaining, was already at 41,273, and officials were talking of wanting to play the tournament in a big building every year.
    Beck, for one, liked the Bruins' chances against Ottawa.
    "This team is a lot like the one we had two years ago in Kitchener,” said Beck, who keyed the Bruins' attack with a goal and two assists as New Westminster moved into the Memorial Cup final for a third straight season. "In Kitchener, we got there because we were young, worked hard and got great goaltending from Gordie Laxton. Last year, we had a lot of talent and could score goals, but something was missing.
    "Now we've got a bunch of guys who just know how to go out there and work their hardest, hoping the breaks go our way.”
    Lofthouse, Creasy and Orleski also scored for the Bruins, who got a big lift in the third period when Beck administered a fierce beating to Sherbrooke defenceman Allen Demers, who suffered a suspected broken nose.
    There was a disturbance behind the Sherbrooke bench immediately following that scrap, but police moved in quickly and nothing developed.
    Carter and Gillis replied for the Castors.
    Creasy scored what turned out to be the game-winner. The shift began with his being bodychecked into the Sherbrooke bench. He then took another hard hit in one corner, following which he was tripped at centre ice. It was during the delayed penalty call, with Peterson on the bench for an extra attacker, that Creasy scored.
    "I saw only a little bit of the net to shoot at,” Creasy said, "took the shot and it went in.”
    The Bruins got a big game from Peterson, who stopped 40 shots, which was a few too many for McLean's liking.
    "I don't think we played that well,” McLean said, "but just well enough to win -- that's our style.
    "We look for the breaks and we got them when it counted. I expected this type of game from Sherbrooke after our first game with them.
    "We can't score six or seven goals every game . . . we've got to try and keep the score down.”
    Ottawa ran its record to 3-0 before 4,266 fans on May 13, beating the Castors 5-2.
    Smith, Wilson, Warren Holmes, Higgins and McDonell scored for Ottawa, with Daniel Chicoine and Raymond Roy scoring power-play goals for the Castors.
    Sevigny was outstanding again, with 37 stops, while Riggin turned aside 31 shots.
    Kilrea was looking ahead to the final, knowing his guys were in tough.
    "We have to take the corners away from the Bruins,” he explained, "because that's where they work the hardest and come up with a lot of second effort.
    "The Bruins are a good club and they will try to run you out of the rink. But we've got lots of ability and if we can move the puck quickly out of our end, we should be all right.
    "If we let them play their game, we're in trouble. New Westminster is big, strong and doesn't quit.”
    As for McLean, he was downplaying -- or trying to -- the importance of the game.
    "I like to think it's more important to have won the Western Canada championship three years in a row than to have won one sudden-death game in the Memorial Cup,” he said. "I know our kids really want to win this one big . . . guys like Beck, Maxwell and Lofthouse have been here before and come away empty-handed.
    "This is a great experience for our younger kids. They've played so well all week. This will make them even better players in the future.”
    As for Delage, he said the keys to the final would be Beck and Maxwell.
    "You've got to watch those two defencemen,” he stated. "Maxwell likes to use the give-and-go coming out of his end and Beck shoots the puck low and on the net with such velocity from the point.”
    And Maxwell was the hero, scoring the winner on a great individual effort at 14:06 of the third to give the Bruins a 6-5 victory on May 15 before 13,460 fans.
    The Bruins led 5-2 in the third period only to have Ottawa tie it 5-5 before Maxwell again went coast-to-coast to beat Riggin between the legs with a 20-foot wrist shot.
    "I didn't think I could score from that angle cutting off the wing,” Maxwell said, "so I just tried to get it on the net and hope we'd get the rebound.
    "We played so well for two periods that it just didn't seem right that we could let the cup slip away again.”
    In fact, Maxwell admitted to having negative thoughts in the third period.
    "I thought maybe the old jinx was coming back again when they got those three goals in the third,” Maxwell said. "Ottawa has a lot of great hockey players, but we didn't let up.”
    Lofthouse scored twice, giving him six goals in the series. Creasy, Ogrodnick and Zaharko also scored for the winners, who led 2-0 and 5-2 at the breaks.
    Holmes had two third-period goals for Ottawa, with Smith, Wilson and Payne adding singletons.
    "I wasn't worried when they got those three goals,” McLean said, knowing that no one believed him. "This team has come from behind all hear -- heck, we weren't even supposed to be here.”
    As for his personal feelings, McLean said:
    "I feel just great, super. This is an unbelievable experience for not only myself, but for a great bunch of kids who didn't quit when everyone expected them to.”
    And then he started talking, again, about leaving.
    "If I get the right pro coaching offer then I think I'll take it,” McLean said. "Life is a series of challenges and I'm looking for a new one.
    "I remember when Sam Pollock was coaching the Junior Canadiens in Montreal. Now he's the best general manager in the National Hockey League. I like to think that I've got the knowledge and background to be in the NHL, too.”
    Beck was selected the tournament's most valuable player, with Smith winning the award for sportsmanship and Riggin being named the outstanding goaltender.
    The all-star team featured Riggin, Beck, Maxwell, Smith, Gillis and Lofthouse.

    NEXT: 1978 (New Westminster Bruins, Peterborough Petes and Trois-Rivieres Draveurs)

  4. #64
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1978

    1978 MEMORIAL CUP
    New Westminster Bruins, Peterborough Petes and Trois-Rivieres Draveurs
    at Sault Ste. Marie (Memorial Gardens) and Sudbury (Arena)


    Come the spring of 1978 and -- lo and behold -- Ernie (Punch) McLean and the New Westminster Bruins were making a fourth consecutive appearance in the Memorial Cup tournament.
    This Memorial Cup, which was co-hosted by the OHL cities of Sault Ste. Marie, home of the Greyhounds, and Sudbury, home of the Wolves, would also signify something else.
    History would show that this Memorial Cup, perhaps more than any other, was the introduction of a new breed of coach.
    The fiery Michel Bergeron -- Le Petit Tigre -- was head coach of the QMJHL's Trois-Rivieres Draveurs. This was his first opportunity to perform on the national stage.
    And the boyish Gary Green was head coach of the OHL's Peterborough Petes. This, too, was his introduction to the nation's hockey fans.
    Talk about a marked contrast -- Bergeron and Green up against McLean, a grizzled 20-year veteran of the bench wars in the west, a man who got into junior hockey by serving as bus driver and trainer in 1962, six years before buying the Bruins, who were then in Estevan.
    Come 1979, Bergeron and Green would have their teams back at the Memorial Cup. McLean would be there, too, but only as a fan.
    In 1978, McLean was gunning for a second straight national championship.
    A year earlier, he had talked of leaving junior hockey for a professional coaching job. He talked of needing a change, a challenge. When that didn't happen, well, his options were rather limited.
    And let's be honest -- the Bruins without McLean, well, that would have been like bacon without eggs.
    This Bruins team was basically a team of grinders led by perhaps the most consummate grinder of them all -- right-winger Stan Smyl, who would play in his fourth straight Memorial Cup. They got big goals from John Ogrodnick -- 59 of them in the regular season -- and solid goaltending from Richard Martens and Carey Walker.
    Still, they didn't have a scorer in the top 30 -- Ogrodnick had 88 points, Scott McLeod added 80 with Terry Kirkham at 77 and Smyl at 76.
    There were only six players with more than 100 penalty minutes (the Brandon Wheat Kings, who would end the Bruins reign in another year, had 12), but that included defenceman Boris Fistric and his 414 minutes.
    The Bruins had what was a rather mediocre regular season, going 33-28-11 and finishing third in the WHL's four-team West Division. Actually, they were tied with Victoria, but the Cougars were awarded second place on the basis of one more victory.
    This would be the first season of round-robin play in the WHL playoffs. And the Bruins and Cougars were able to rid themselves of the first-place Portland Winter Hawks. They played a double home-and-home series -- the Bruins went 7-1, Victoria was 4-4 and Portland wound up 1-7 and on the outside looking in.
    The Bruins were rolling now and quickly took out the Cougars in five games to advance to yet another round-robin affair.
    This time, the Billings Bighorns and Bruins each went 3-1 to oust the Flin Flon Bombers, who went 0-4.
    New Westminster then swept the Bighorns in the championship final, winning four straight and wrapping it up with 6-3 and 3-1 victories right in Billings.
    Bergeron's Draveurs, at 47-18-7, were one of two QMJHL teams to crack the 100-point barrier, the other being the Cornwall Royals, with 100 points. The key to the Draveurs was defence -- they allowed 252 goals, the second-lowest total that season.
    Offensively, they were led by Denis Pomerleau, acquired from the Hull Olympiques during the season. He wound up sixth in the scoring derby, with 148 points, including 75 goals.
    In the playoffs, however, Richard David would provide the offensive spark with 33 points, including 17 goals, in 13 games.
    Trois-Rivieres opened postseason play by taking out Quebec in four straight, outscoring the Remparts 21-12 in the process. The Sherbrooke Castors were next, going down in five games.
    And in the championship final the Draveurs swept the Montreal Junior, outscoring them 21-11. The Junior had eliminated Cornwall in five games in the other semifinal series.
    The Petes were a typical Peterborough team -- defence came first and the offence seemed to look after itself.
    That style had been handed down in the organization, from one coach to another, from Sam Pollock to Scott Bowman and eventually to Roger Nielson and now to the 25-year-old Green.
    The likes of Bill Gardner, Tim Trimper, Keith Crowder, Steve Larmer and Keith Acton, his league's fourth-leading scorer, could score. But they preferred to check you to a standstill. And, with some outstanding play from rookie goaltender Ken Ellacott, it worked. After all, they were in the Memorial Cup tournament.
    They got there by winning two hard-fought eight-point series. They first eliminated the Ottawa 67's 9-7 and then, in the championship final, ousted the Hamilton Fincups 8-6, winning the seventh game 5-0.
    The Draveurs, led by Normand Lefebvre's two goals, opened the double round-robin tournament with a 5-2 victory over the Petes in the Soo before 3,441 fans on May 6.
    Ghislain Gaudreau, Gaston Douville and Jean-Francois Sauve also scored for the Draveurs.
    Defenceman Greg Theberge and Mark Kirton replied for Peterborough.
    The Petes then whipped the Bruins 7-2 in Sudbury the next night in front of 5,006 fans, as Mike Meeker and Gardner had two goals each and Trimper had a goal and three assists.
    Crowder and Larmer also scored for the Petes, who lost Acton with a separated shoulder.
    Larry Melnyk and Doug Derkson replied for the Bruins.
    "Our guys weren't full of desire (against the Draveurs),” Green said, ""but they were up today.
    "I had quite a lot of confidence coming into this game. The mental attitude was much better today. The thing I was most concerned about was the physical drain.”
    The Petes, who had won the Ontario title just four nights earlier, were playing their second game in two nights and knew they needed to get the jump on the Bruins.
    "Naturally, we wanted to capitalize,” said Green, whose club jumped out to a 4-0 first-period lead and totaled four power-play goals in the game. "We never expected to get that kind of a lead.
    "We jumped on them early. In the third period we hung back and picked up our wingers. We were trying to keep our strength so we sacrificed something in the forechecking, which really takes it out of you.
    "We're capable of playing a physical game. We're not as big as they are, but I was proud of my guys today. They had a tough series to get here, and I have to give them a lot of credit. They have lots of desire, too.”
    New Westminster bounced back to beat the Draveurs 6-4 in the Soo on May 8 as Smyl struck for three goals and set up two others before 3,575 fans. The outcome left each team with a 1-1 record.
    "Tonight,” Smyl said, "I think everybody calmed down. Yesterday, everybody tried to do something extra, to do everybody's else's job. Today, we did our own.”
    Brian Young, Ogrodnick and Ken Berry also scored for the Bruins. Lefebvre, with two, David and Carey Haworth replied for Trois-Rivieres, which was outshot 39-31.
    Martens, who had been given the hook after giving up six goals to Peterborough, was solid in goal for New Westminster.
    "I thought he played well,” McLean said. "He came up with big saves. But so did the kid at the other end.”
    That was Jacques Cloutier, who also played well. In fact, he may have only given up five goals. Referee Jim Lever awarded a goal to Smyl at 5:29 of the second period although the goal judge never signaled a goal.
    "No, it didn't go in,” said McLean of the score that gave his team a 4-2 lead. "But it's on the scoreboard and we're taking it.”
    Smyl, however, said it was a legitimate goal. "It hit inside the goal post and came right back out,” he stated.
    Still, the Draveurs battled and tied the game 4-4 when Haworth scored at 1:43 of the third period. It remained for Berry to count the winner at 7:24 and for Smyl to supply the insurance at 8:46.
    Peterborough returned to Sudbury on May 9 and beat the Draveurs 4-0 behind Ellacott's 28-save effort in front of 5,094 fans, this tournament's largest crowd to date.
    "It was a win we had to have,” Ellacott said.
    Kirton, Bob Attwell, John Olds and Gardner scored for the Petes.
    "The defence played really well in front of me,” Ellacott said. "They had a few good chances, but we cleared the puck pretty well.”
    Ellacott added that the pressure of being in the Memorial Cup wasn't bothering the Petes.
    "Every playoff series we've been in this year, we've lost the first game and we've had to come back,” he explained. "We always seem to do it. I think we kind of like to get down, where people count us out and then we come back at them.”
    This was an especially costly loss for the Draveurs who lost defenceman Normand Rochefort and Lefebvre, the starry right winger who was the tournament's leading scorer, to injuries.
    Green was looking ahead to the next night's game, in which a victory over the Bruins would put the Petes into the final.
    "I'm not too concerned with us getting physically outhit,” Green said. "They're not a goony hockey club, but they are big and they finish off their checks well.”
    It was a thriller on May 10 in Sault Ste. Marie. With 3,641 fans looking on, the Petes pulled one out of the fire to clinch a spot in the final.
    The Petes beat the Bruins 4-3 as Trimper tied the game at 19:57 of the third period and Crowder won it 20 seconds into overtime.
    The winner came when Jeff Brubaker tossed a pass from the left-wing boards to the front of the net. Crowder found it in a scramble and stuffed it past Martens.
    Kirton and Stuart Smith also scored for Peterborough, with John Paul Kelly, Randy Irving and Bill Hobbins scoring for the Bruins.
    By now, with the final three days away, Acton was listed as probable.
    The Bruins earned another shot at the Petes, and an opportunity to win their second consecutive Memorial Cup, by beating the Draveurs 6-3 on May 11 in front 5,114 fans in Sudbury.
    "It's always exciting, expecially this year when we're not even supposed to be here,” McLean said. "Nobody gave us a hope in hell.”
    Kelly and Scott MacLeod had two goals each for the Bruins, who took a 1-0 lead into the second period and promptly scored four goals in 52 seconds beginning at 5:49. Berry and Derkson also scored for the Bruins.
    The Draveurs got goals from Gaudreau, Robert Mongrain and David.
    "They still weren't out of the hockey game,” McLean said. "They're an explosive hockey club. I was worried all through the third period until we got the sixth goal.”
    Before the final, the teams enjoyed a day off.
    McLean spent at least part of the day entertaining the media and campaigning for the head-coaching job with the NHL's Vancouver Canucks.
    "There's been talk about the Canucks,” McLean said, "and after I get back home I'm going to meet with (Vancouver general manager) Jake Milford and discuss with him what he wants in a coach.
    "I love junior hockey, but I think once you're a coach it's simply a question of adapting to the level you're coaching at.”
    As he had a year ago, he also talked of challenges.
    "I have no more challenge left in junior hockey unless it's to go five times to the Memorial Cup,” he said. "I've done everything in junior hockey . . . and I love it.”
    Looking ahead to the final, McLean saw it unfolding this way: "I think we're going to play a hard-checking hockey game for two periods and then it will settle down.”
    Green saw it this way: "I look for a really tight, close-checking, good, hard-hitting hockey game, and I think that's what we're going to find.”
    The Petes went into the final with a 3-1 record; the Bruins were 2-2, both losses coming against Peterborough, 7-2 and 4-3 in overtime.
    In the final, played before 5,898 fans in Sudbury on May 13, the Bruins won their second straight Memorial Cup, dumping the Petes 7-4 behind three goals and an assist from MacLeod.
    Smyl put the wraps on his junior career with a goal and four assists and Ogrodnick had two goals. Fistric scored New Westminster's other goal.
    Theberge, with two, Kirton and Gardner found the range for the Petes.
    "A lot of the guys were nervous coming into this game,” MacLeod said. "There are a lot of 18- and 17-year-olds on this club, and all the guys were saying they couldn't get to sleep for an hour last night and then were dreaming about winning.”
    The Bruins came out hitting in this one and physically battered the Petes.
    "It was an aggressive hockey game,” McLean said. "I'd hate to be in a seven-game series. We wouldn't have too many players left on either side.”
    Ellacott, named the tournament's outstanding goaltender, stopped 21 shots, compared to Martens' 35 saves.
    "That kid's got to be tired,” Green said of Ellacott. "Kenny carried a lot of weight for this club over the last few months and I knew going into the game that he was tired.”
    It was MacLeod's third goal that spurred the Bruins to victory. They had led 3-1 after one period but were ahead only 4-3 early in the third period. MacLeod's third goal came at 5:38 of the third period and upped their lead to 5-3. The Petes protested, claiming Berry was in the crease, and MacLeod agreed.
    "He just did a great job,” MacLeod said of Berry. "He shot the puck and rammed into the goalie. He took the goalie right out of the play and the puck was just sitting there and there was no way I could miss.
    "I thought they might call it no goal, because he was standing right in the crease and that was what they were arguing about.”
    Referee Tom Brown didn't see it that way and the goal stood.
    Smyl was selected the tournament's most valuable player, with the sportsmanship award going to Kirton.
    The all-star team featured Ellacott, the Bruins' Brian Young and Paul MacKinnon of the Petes on defence, and forwards Kirton, Smyl and Lefebvre.
    It was an especially gritty performance by MacKinnon, the Petes captain who was playing on two sore knees. Randy Johnston, another Petes defenceman, played despite a cracked foot and a partially separated shoulder.
    The Bruins were the fourth team to win back-to-back Memorial Cups.
    The others? The Oshawa Generals (1939 and 1940), Toronto Marlboros (1955 and 1956) and Montreal Junior Canadiens (1969 and 1970).
    "We're going to have a great team next year,” McLean said, ""and if things go right we could make it three in a row.”
    History shows that things didn't go right.

    NEXT: 1979 (Brandon Wheat Kings, Peterborough Petes and Trois-Rivieres Draveurs)

  5. #65
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1979

    1979 MEMORIAL CUP
    Brandon Wheat Kings, Peterborough Petes and Trois-Rivieres Draveurs
    at Sherbrooke (Le Palais de Sports), Trois-Rivieres (Colisee) and Verdun (Auditorium)


    Gary Green was back with his Peterborough Petes. Michel Bergeron was back with his Trois-Rivieres Draveurs. The New Westminster Bruins were missing after four straight appearances, the last two of them ending in Memorial Cup championships.
    Ernie (Punch) McLean, the Bruins' head coach, was there, but only as a spectator.
    "We won the Memorial Cup in each of the past two seasons,” McLean said. "And if I'd known then what I know now, we would have won it the first time, too.”
    McLean was referring to the numerous distractions placed in front of players at a Memorial Cup. At this tournament he would serve as an unofficial consultant to the WHL representative -- the Brandon Wheat Kings of head coach Dunc McCallum, a former Wheat Kings player and NHL defenceman.
    The Wheat Kings were coming off their third straight superb WHL regular season.
    In 1976-77, paced by the line of Bill Derlago, Brian Propp and Ray Allison, Brandon had the league's best record -- 54-10-8 -- but lost the championship final to the Bruins in five games.
    In 1977-78, again with Derlago, Propp and Allison providing the spark, Brandon finished 46-12-14, the best record in the league. This time the Wheat Kings never got past the first round, losing out in a round-robin with the Regina Pats and Flin Flon Bombers.
    Then came 1978-79, a season from which legends are built.
    The Wheat Kings lost only five games as they went 58-5-9. Derlago had graduated, but Laurie Boschman fitted in nicely between Propp and Allison.
    In fact, they finished one-two-three in the points derby. Propp led the WHL in goals (94), assists (100) and points (194). Allison was next with 153 points, including 93 assists, and Boschman had 149 points, including 66 goals. How dominant was this line? The WHL's next-highest point-getter was 24 points in arrears of Boschman.
    Propp would add 15 goals and 23 assists in 22 playoff games, again the best in the league. Allison was second, with 37 points, and Boschman was fourth, at 34 points.
    Those three got great support from the likes of Dave Stewart, Steve Patrick, Don Gillen, Brad Kempthorne, Brant Kiessig, Darren Gusdal, Kelly McCrimmon, Dave Chartier and Dave McDonald. McCrimmon, the team's best penalty-killing forward, would miss the Memorial Cup with a broken left arm suffered during a regular-season game in March. He would return to the Memorial Cup as part-owner and general manager of the Wheat Kings in 1995 and '96.
    In the regular season, the Wheat Kings totalled 491 goals, the best in the league by 59 goals.
    Defensively, led by Brad McCrimmon (Kelly's older brother), Wes Coulson, Tim Lockridge, Kelly Elcombe and Mike Perovich, and with Rick Knickle and Scott Olson in goal, Brandon surrendered only 230 goals, 35 fewer than anyone else.
    Perovich, however, went down with a broken arm in February and it was an injury that, in hindsight, would severely hurt this team.
    The Wheat Kings opened the playoffs in a first-round round-robin series. They went 7-1 and advanced with the Saskatoon Blades (3-5), while the Edmonton Oil Kings (2-6) went home.
    Brandon then swept Saskatoon from a best-of-seven East Division final and went into a round-robin that also included the Lethbridge Broncos and Portland Winter Hawks.
    Brandon and Portland each went 3-1 to eliminate Lethbridge (0-4).
    And, in the championship final, the Wheat Kings got past the Winter Hawks in six games.
    The Draveurs, meanwhile, went 58-8-6 and were easily the best of the QMJHL's teams. They scored 527 goals (the Sherbrooke Castors, at 406, were the only other team over 400) and allowed 233, the best in the league by 58.
    Their offensive leader was centre Jean-Francois Sauve, who won the league scoring championship with 176 points, including 111 assists. Robert Mongrain helped out with 142 points, including 66 goals.
    Sauve was the most prolific scorer in the postseason, too, with 38 points, including 19 goals.
    And the defence corps featured Pierre Lacroix, the best offensive blueliner in junior hockey that season. He had 37 goals and an even 100 assists.
    The Draveurs, getting superb goaltending from Jacques Cloutier, coasted through the playoffs with a 12-1-0 record, scoring 76 goals and allowing just 36.
    First, they took out the Shawinigan Cataractes in four games. Next to fall were the Montreal Junior, in five. And, in the final, the Draveurs swept the Castors.
    The Petes were, well, the Petes. They would throw a checking blanket over you and then score just enough to beat you, preferably by a goal, or two with an empty-netter.
    They had 11 players back from the team that had lost to New Westminster in the 1978 final.
    Among the forwards returning were Bob Attwell, Tim Trimper, Keith Crowder and Bill Gardner.
    On defence, they were led by Larry Murphy and Dave Fenyves. And in goal the key was Ken Ellacott.
    They didn't exactly coast through the postseason en route to the Memorial Cup.
    First, they struggled with the Kingston Frontenacs, at one time trailing 6-4 in the eight-point series. Then, they took care of the Sudbury Wolves, 8-2. And, in the final, they were down 6-4 before getting past the Niagara Falls Flyers.
    The Draveurs opened the tournament at home on May 6, their first game in 10 days. They responded by beating the Petes 4-3 before about 3,000 fans.
    The Draveurs hadn't played in 10 days, but they were able to get the jump on early goals by Gaston Douville and Sauve.
    Michel Normand and Bernard Gallant also scored for Trois-Rivieres.
    Peterborough got two goals from Terry Bovair and one from Crowder.
    "The first two periods, we were in trouble,” Bergeron said, "because we couldn't make a good pass and we couldn't skate the way we're capable of skating. In the third period, I was happy to see my boys skate the way they can.”
    The Petes actually came back to tie the game, but Normand broke the 2-2 tie with a power-play goal after Ellacott had been penalized for slashing.
    Gallant upped the lead to 4-2 before Crowder scored at 18:12 of the third period.
    Cloutier, 18, was superb in stopping 36 shots.
    "He's like that,” Bergeron said. "We played 72 regular-season games and 13 more in the playoffs. He's only 18 years old but he thinks like a man twice his age. He never wants to come out. He just loves to play in the nets.”
    The Draveurs came back the next night, again on home ice, and beat Brandon 4-1 behind three goals from Mongrain before 3,105 fans.
    The evening was highlighted by two pregame incidents, the second of which erupted into a full-scale donnybrook and set the stage for a fight-filled game.
    "If we played these guys 16 times in a season, we'd likely have 15 brawls,” Brad McCrimmon said.
    Across the way, Bergeron, who never stood at the team's bench during the playing of O Canada, said he was "disappointed with the style of hockey.”
    Asked about the brawling, he said: "It reminds me of when, at the zoo, the animals get out of their cage.
    "You'll have to go ask Brandon what happened before the game. I've seen the Memorial Cup for five years and they do that all the time out west. I'm disappointed by this team and I have no respect for them.”
    McCallum saw it this way: "It started when their No. 8 (Mario Tardif) speared one of our guys as he was skating in the warmup. These things will happen, I guess, when emotions are running high.”
    (The next day, the CAHA announced that each team had been fined $1,000.
    (Brandon owner Jack Brockest responded: "This is a CAHA-sponsored event so I assume we'll pay. I don't think we have any choice. But I think the CAHA contributed as much as anyone by having the game in a two-by-four barn.”)
    This wasn't the same Wheat Kings team that had roared through the west and the shots on goal -- Trois-Rivieres outshot Brandon 31-19 -- indicated that.
    "We were standing still a lot,” McCallum said. "The Draveurs are a good skating hockey club and we had too many dead spots. We were standing around and against a club like that you've got to be skating. But we'll play better . . . I'm sure of that.”
    Douville scored the fourth goal for the Draveurs. Boschman scored Brandon's goal with 43 seconds left in the game.
    It was Brandon's 96th game of the season and only its 10th loss.
    One night later, May 8, the scene shifted to Sherbrooke. And the Petes dropped the Wheat Kings 7-6 on Jim Wiemer's second goal of the game, this one at 2:31 of overtime.
    The winning goal came on a knuckler from outside the Brandon blue line on which Knickle couldn't find the handle.
    McCallum had dressed Bart Hunter, a pickup from the Portland Winter Hawks and the son of ‘Wild' Bill Hunter, as Knickle's backup. It was a sign of things to come.
    Chris Halyk, Larry Floyd, Bovair, Attwell and Stuart Smith also scored for Peterborough. Allison, with two, Patrick, Propp, Kempthorne and Stewart replied for Brandon.
    "This,” said Green, "was a good, clean game, and it was exciting for the fans. But that's not my type of game. Our game is not really aggressive -- we usually play better defensively -- but we can play any type of game. We prefer to skate, shoot and check.”
    Brandon, which played without Elcombe (wrist), rallied from a 2-0 first-period deficit to tie the game, but gave it away on goals by Bovair and Attwell in the last minute of the first period.
    Still, the Wheat Kings did have a two-goal lead in the third period.
    "Our backs were against the wall,” said Green. "But it's been the same story all year. We won a lot of games like that this season.
    "Quite frequently, we've been behind by two or three goals going into the third period and we've come back to win it.”
    McCallum felt that of the six periods his team had played in the tournament only one had been worth a darn.
    "We really came on in that period,” he said of a four-goal second period. "We've only played one period the way we're capable of playing.”
    Still, McCallum felt his guys were still in it.
    "We're capable of winning two games,” he said. "If we play our best hockey, we can beat either of these teams.”
    Peterborough upped its record to 2-1 with a 3-2 victory over the Draveurs in front of 3,635 fans on May 9 in Sherbrooke.
    The key was Ellacott, who turned aside 28 shots in his best performance of the tournament.
    "It's really a bad situation,” Ellacott said of the tournament atmosphere. "All the (NHL) scouts and general managers stay in the same hotel as the players and you know they're looking at you all the time.
    "You have to learn to put it out of your mind and just play the game.”
    Green admitted Ellacott hadn't been sharp in the first two games.
    "Kenny was much better tonight,” the coach said. "I felt that he had two bad games and that is not his style. I consider him one of the best goaltenders in Canada.”
    Halyk's power-play goal at 6:08 of the third period broke a 2-2 tie.
    Attwell and Bovair also scored for the Petes, with Sauve and Gallant replying for the Draveurs.
    The Draveurs fell to 2-2 on May 10 as they were whipped 6-1 by Brandon in a game played in the Montreal suburb of Verdun. Attendance was only 2,300.
    The key was two goals from Boschman 15 seconds apart in the first period. Propp, Stewart, Allison and Gusdal also scored for Brandon.
    Douville replied for Trois-Rivieres.
    "Up until tonight's game,” McCallum said, “we had played only one good period out of six. I couldn't figure out why, but I finally decided it was because the kids are tired.
    "I hope our owners and our league can realize just how tiring it really is, coming here just after traveling thousands of miles in our own final against Portland.”
    The Wheat Kings had won the WHL title in Portland, flown to Winnipeg and bussed to Brandon, before bussing back to Winnipeg and flying to Montreal.
    They had a day off on May 9 and McCallum made sure his players got their rest.
    "After the day off, the guys had more spring in their legs,” McCallum stated. "In the first two games, we weren't executing because we weren't skating. And we weren't skating because we were tired.”
    Brandon, which outshot Trois-Rivieres 45-31, led 4-1 after one period and 5-1 after two. The Wheat Kings got 10 points from their big line -- Boschman had two goals and two assists, Allison and Propp had a goal and two helpers each. Allison, Boschman and Propp were tied for the scoring lead, each with six points.
    McCallum also chose to sit Knickle and go with Hunter in goal.
    "Bart played well against us (in the WHL final),” McCallum said, "and he's a fiery guy. I thought the guys needed a spark.”
    Hunter was surprised to be playing.
    "I had a feeling they might ask me to join them,” he said. "But I never really expected to dress.”
    The victory gave Brandon a chance to clinch a berth in the final the following night when it met the Petes.
    And that's exactly what happened.
    Brandon, which had started the tournament by losing its first two games, edged the Petes 3-2 on May 11 in the Verdun Auditorium before 1,680 fans.
    That left the three teams each at 2-2 and put Brandon and Peterborough into the final on goals-for and goals-against ratio. Brandon ended up plus-2, with Peterborough even and Trois-Rivieres minus-2.
    The Wheat Kings, with Hunter stopping 32 of 34 shots, won it on Propp's goal at 9:08 of the third period.
    Allison scored Brandon's other two goals. Halyk and Trimper replied for Peterborough.
    "Bart has been super,” McCallum said. "If it weren't for him, we'd likely be on the outside looking in. When we picked him up, I sort of planned on playing him. He's 19, in his draft year and the way he played against us, he deserved to play.
    "Knickle can't be faulted, though. But there wasn't any fire with him in there. Hunter is very emotional in the dressing room.”
    McCallum also had praise for two other players.
    "Stewart has been super,” he said. "His penalty killing has been great.
    "And (Brad) McCrimmon! Just think how good he would be if he played a regular shift instead of 50 minutes a game. He'll play 45 minutes a game with no problem. His composure is great and he's got super upper-body strength. He never comes to the bench and says he's tired.”
    Green, meanwhile, was telling everyone that his club didn't go into the tank to eliminate the Draveurs.
    "We definitely went out there determined to win,” he said. "Quebec would realize by watching that it was a good solid effort by both teams. We wanted to win . . . we wanted the advantage of being the home team in the final.”
    It was about here that the scene shifted to the boardroom.
    The final of the 1979 Memorial Cup was to have been played in the Montreal Forum on the afternoon of May 13. But that wouldn't happen as the Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers had gone ahead and scheduled the opener of the Stanley Cup final for that afternoon of May 13 in the Forum.
    "Junior hockey is again being told what to do, when to do it and how to do it,” WHL president Ed Chynoweth said. "But, then, we are used to it.”
    As late as May 11, the juniors believed they were going to play in the Forum.
    "We would have liked to have heard about it earlier,” said the CAHA's Roland Mercier. "We only found out about it this (May 11) morning. We studied a few alternatives and talked with sponsors, the Forum people and the (CTV) people and decided on Verdun . . .
    "It really upsets us. We're sorry the pros, meaning the Montreal Canadiens, didn't think about junior hockey.”
    The Canadiens actually had wanted to play a night game on May 11. But TV time couldn't be cleared because of a political debate.
    No matter.
    The Petes won it all on May 13, beating Brandon 2-1 in overtime in one of the greatest championship games this tournament has seen.
    Trimper and Propp exchanged first-period goals and that was it until Attwell scored at 2:38 of overtime. To this day, members of the Brandon entourage will tell you an icing call should have preceded the winning goal.
    But it didn't happen.
    "We knew what to expect this season,” Green said. "It was something totally new to us last year and I think the experience paid off for us late in the game.”
    The Petes, who outshot Brandon 36-20, pressed the Wheat Kings through the third period and into the overtime. It paid off with the winning goal.
    Peterborough cleared the puck the length of the ice and McCrimmon actually got there first.
    "I skated pretty hard for it and it was over the line,” McCrimmon offered. "That's all I'll say.”
    "It was pretty close, wasn't it?” McCallum said.
    Anyway, Bovair ended up with possession. He dumped the puck into the high slot from where Murphy unleashed a shot. Hunter made the stop but couldn't control the rebound. Attwell pounced on it to score the winner.
    "I've dreamed of doing something like this plenty of times,” Attwell said. "And the feeling is just the same as in the dreams -- it's unreal.”
    Green had taken his club to the Laurentians for the night prior to the game.
    "When we came to the rink, there were several buses unloading fans from Peterborough,” Green said. "All I did was ask the players to avoid looking at or speaking to parents or friends -- I didn't want any distractions.”
    The Wheat Kings were hurt by overplaying McCrimmon. He and Perovich were the two defencemen who could move the puck for Brandon, but Perovich (broken arm) wasn't dressed. And by the time the final game went into overtime, McCrimmon was whipped.
    "Everyone on this team showed guts, desire, pride and class,” McCrimmon said when it was over. "We might not have won it, but we proved ourselves. We wanted to win it so bad. We came back after losing our first two games -- the guys kept working and working -- and we ended up one goal away.”
    Propp overheard McCrimmon and added: "Brad showed more of those attributes than anyone else on this team. If every player was like Brad . . .”
    Green was quite aware of McCrimmon's condition.
    "I thought, near the end, their defence was finally starting to tire,” Green said. "I felt Brad McCrimmon was finally starting to have a tough time.
    "He's an incredible defenceman, he's got an amazing amount of stamina . . . he played really well.”
    McCallum didn't feel badly about losing to the Petes.
    "They've got a hell of a club,” he said. "It's no disgrace to lose to them twice in overtime. Gary's got his club very well-disciplined. They play a close-checking game better than we do and we didn't play our game, which is offence.
    "In fact, we never did get our offence untracked in the three games with Peterborough.”
    Hunter was selected the tournament's most valuable player and top goaltender and was named to the all-star team. Halyk was named the most sportsmanlike player.
    Also on the all-star team: McCrimmon and Normand Rochefort of Trois-Rivieres on defence, and forwards Boschman, Allison and Trimper. Propp, who wasn't named to the all-star team, was No. 1 with 10 points.
    The Wheat Kings had played 99 games and won 78 of them. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't win the last one.
    And Brandon still was the only city in the world to have had a team play in the Stanley Cup final, the Allan Cup final and the Memorial Cup final and not to have won even one championship.


    NEXT: 1980 (Guelph Platers, Hull Olympiques, Kamloops Blazers and Portland Winter Hawks)

  6. #66
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1980

    1980 MEMORIAL CUP
    Regina Pats, Peterborough Petes and Cornwall Royals
    at Brandon (Keystone Centre) and Regina (Agridome)


    The 1980 Memorial Cup tournament would be split between Brandon and Regina, opening in the Wheat City and closing in the Queen City.
    By the time it ended, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association had egg all over its face, as did major junior hockey, and there were egg shells all over the Regina Agridome.
    In 1978-79, the Wheat Kings had made it to the Memorial Cup's final game, while the Pats were abysmal; in fact, they had the second-worst season in franchise history.
    In 1979-80, the shoe was on the other foot. While the Wheat Kings struggled, the Pats won it all.
    Organizers were fortunate that the Pats won the 1980 title, because this was in the days prior to a host team being allowed into the tournament.
    Anyway, the Peterborough Petes were in the Memorial Cup tournament for a third consecutive season as the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League's representative. The Petes were the first Ontario team to make three straight appearances since Toronto's St. Michael's Majors qualified in 1945, '46 and '47.
    Only this time Gary Green, the Petes' head coach in each of the past two tournaments, wasn't with them.
    Green, by now, was head coach of the NHL's Washington Capitals. At 26 years of age, he had become the youngest head coach in NHL history.
    In Peterborough, the coach was 30-year-old Mike Keenan and then, like today, he was his own man. And he had his own ideas.
    When a team got scored on during a scrimmage in practice, players had to lay down on the ice and roll over.
    "This is all part of Mike's direct approach with the players,” Dick Todd, the Petes' trainer, told The Globe and Mail's Marty York. "Mike isn't going to win any popularity contests with the players because of his strictness but this team has done well, and the players realize that is largely because of Mike.”
    (Todd also served as business manager, scout and assistant coach. He would go on to coach the Petes himself and also would coach Canada to a world junior gold medal in 1991.)
    Keenan joined the Petes from the Oshawa Legionnaires of the Metro Junior B League. Oshawa won back-to-back championships under Keenan.
    The Petes responded to Keenan by winning 47 regular-season games, a franchise record. They brushed aside the Sudbury Wolves in a quarterfinal series and then swept a semifinal from the Ottawa 67's, the team generally seen as the OMJHL's other powerhouse that season.
    In the championship final, the Petes took care of the Windsor Spitfires in four games. And so it was that Peterborough rode an 11-game winning streak into Brandon.
    The Petes counted on solid goaltending from 5-foot-9, 165-pound Rick Laferriere. The defence featured Larry Murphy, Stuart Smith and Dave Fenyves, all of whom had played on the 1979 Memorial Cup-championship team, and Andy Schliebener. Up front, the Petes were again led by Bill Gardner, who was making his third straight appearance in the tournament and who was already under contract to the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks. Gardner had a strong supporting cast, including Andre Hidi, Mark Reeds, Jim Wiemer, Terry Bovair, Larry Floyd, Carmen Cirella (who was coming off a case of chicken pox), Dave Beckon and Brad Ryder.
    As a rule, Keenan used Beckon, Wiemer and Ryder against the other team's top-scoring line.
    The key players, however, were Gardner and Murphy, two players the Petes acquired with draft choices given to them as compensation when defenceman Paul Reinhart refused to report after being drafted by Peterborough.
    Gardner was the Petes' scoring leader, with 43 goals and 63 assists in 59 games, but that was only good for 17th in the league's scoring derby. Murphy was second on the Petes with 89 points, including 68 assists, in 69 games.
    Still, it was on defence where the Petes excelled. They gave up just 41 goals in 14 playoff games, a goals-against average of 2.93. That was simply a continuation of a regular season in which they allowed 238 goals (3.50 GAA), 37 fewer than anyone else.
    The Cornwall Royals represented the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Yes, Cornwall is in Ontario, and every player on the roster was from Ontario. In fact, only Gilles Crepeau could speak French.
    But that didn't keep the Royals from playing in the QMJHL.
    The Royals originally had been in the Central Ontario Junior A League but moved in the late 1960s to the Montreal Metropolitan League in search of stiffer competition.
    A year after the Royals moved, officials in the Montreal league, citing poor attendance, merged with the QMJHL.
    "The Montreal league supported us,” Paul Emard, the club's president in the mid-1970s, said. "But the QMJHL tried to get us out until we proved ourselves by winning the Memorial Cup in 1971 and 1972.”
    The Royals, at that point, weren't allowed to take part in the QMJHL midget draft but were allowed to trade within the league. Things got ugly when the Ontario Hockey Association ruled that Cornwall couldn't take players from Ontario.
    But that was eventually sorted out and the Royals took part in the Ontario midget draft after refusing a QMJHL offer to take part in its draft.
    Cornwall's executive sometimes pondered moving over to the Ontario league, but felt there was too much travel involved there.
    As the 1980 Memorial Cup tournament approached, the Royals were the last QMJHL team to have won the championship, having accomplished that in 1972.
    They won the QMJHL's 1979-80 championship under second-year head coach Doug Carpenter, and they won it by beating the Sherbrooke Castors in six games in the championship final.
    The Royals, who went 41-25-6 in the regular season, won the sixth game 5-3, with centre Dale Hawerchuk, at just 16 years of age, scoring two goals and adding three assists.
    The Royals started slowly along the playoff trail, taking seven games to eliminate the Shawinigan Cataractes. They followed that up by ousting the Chicoutimi Sagueneens, the QMJHL's highest-scoring team, in five games.
    Then they finished off the Castors, who had the QMJHL's best regular-season record (45-20-7) that season.
    Yes, Hawerchuk was the key to this team. Ironically, he had played for Keenan the previous season in Oshawa. Hawerchuk played between future NHL head coach Mark Crawford and Mike Corrigan and totaled 103 points, including 66 assists. In 18 playoff games, Hawerchuk led the QMJHL in all three major offensive categories, with 20 goals, 26 assists and 46 points.
    Corrigan had 13 goals and 18 assists in the postseason, while Crawford, who had suffered a broken jaw early in the regular season, had eight goals and 20 assists.
    While Hawerchuk may have been the key individual, this was a team with some offensive balance -- each of the nine top forwards had scored at least 20 regular-season goals.
    Team captain Dan Daoust, who had 102 points, played between Rod Willard and Crepeau (he led the team with 48 goals), with the third line featuring Newell Brown, Scott Arniel and Pat Haramis.
    Also on the Royals was right-winger Bobby Hull Jr., who had played the previous season with the WHL's Lethbridge Broncos. He scored 13 goals for the Royals. His brother Blake is pictured in the Royals' 1979-80 guide as a 17-year-old left wing-centre. Blake spent most of the season with a junior B team but practised regularly with the Royals.
    The Royals had two excellent defencemen in Dave Ezard and Fred Arthur.
    Ezard actually led the Royals in regular-season points, with 105, and his 45 goals set a QMJHL single-season record for defencemen.
    Arthur led the Royals in assists, setting up 70 goals in 67 games. And, at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, he was highly rated by NHL scouts.
    No one in this tournament, however, was rated any higher than Regina centre Doug Wickenheiser.
    He was the centrepiece of the Pats rebuilding program, one that had them in the Memorial Cup just one year after they posted an 18-47-7 record.
    During the offseason, team ownership changed hands, going from a group of local businessmen to the Saskatoon-based Pinder family.
    Bob Strumm, a Saskatoon native who had been running the WHL's Billings Bighorns, was hired as the Pats' general manager and he brought in Bryan Murray as head coach. Murray had plenty of coaching experience, but none at the major junior level. (Ironically, Carpenter and Murray were the best of friends, having been in the same physical education class at McGill University and roommates at Montreal's Macdonald College.)
    Strumm and Murray put together a team that won the WHL's East Division, with 95 points, an increase of 52 points over the previous season. The Pats went on to win the WHL championship in 18 games.
    First to fall was Lethbridge, in four games. Then, the Medicine Hat Tigers (3-1) and Regina (2-2) advanced from a round-robin series that left Brandon (1-3) on the outside looking in.
    The Pats then ousted the Tigers in five games and followed that up by winning the championship from the Victoria Cougars in five games.
    Wickenheiser was the postseason leader in assists (28) and points (40), while teammate Mike Blaisdell was No. 1 in goals (16).
    The Pats could boast of five players who had broken the century mark during the regular season. Wickenheiser won the scoring title with 170 points, including a league-high 89 goals. Also over 100 points were centre Ron Flockhart (130), defenceman Darren Veitch (122), who would play 40 minutes a game, left-winger Brian Varga (118) and Blaisdell, a right winger who had 71 goals and 109 points in 63 games.
    Those five players, all of whom were featured on the first power-play unit, scored 282 goals, accounting for 65.8 per cent of the Pats' 429 regular-season goals.
    The goaltender was none other than Bart Hunter, who had spent 1978-79 with the Portland Winter Hawks and then was added to Brandon's roster for the 1979 Memorial Cup tournament, where he wound up being selected the most valuable player. He knew all about the pressure of this event.
    The Pats' foot soldiers included three players who had been with the Royals the previous season -- defencemen John McMillan and Mike Rainville, and right-winger Darren Galley, all of whom had moved west with Murray.
    The tournament opened on May 4 in Brandon with the Petes beating the Pats 5-4 in overtime. The game was won when Mark Reeds scored at 3:52 of overtime in front of 4,055 fans.
    Gardner, who scored one goal and set up three others, including the winner, was easily the best player on the ice.
    The game was won off a faceoff in the Pats zone, one that provided some insight into Keenan the strategist.
    With Wickenheiser poised to take the draw for Regina, Keenan chose, at the last minute, to send on the line of Gardner, Hidi and Reeds.
    "Gardner's line had been productive all night,” Keenan explained, "and it was an opportunity in the offensive zone in sudden-death overtime. And Wickenheiser hadn't faced Gardner all night, so it was a change.”
    Gardner won the draw, pulling it back to Reeds. Veitch failed to move out and block Reeds, whose quick wrist shot beat Hunter.
    The Petes had come out looking as though they were going to blow away the Pats. Floyd, Reeds (he had two shots and scored on both of them) and Gardner gave Peterborough a 3-0 first-period lead. And it could have been worse, as the Pats generated only five shots on goal against a tight-checking Petes team. Surprisingly, Hunter was beaten on three of six shots he faced.
    "We played so poorly in the first period,” Murray said. "We were definitely tight. I think it was quite simply a lack of experience at this level.”
    Murray admitted the Petes gave his club some problems.
    "Their forechecking bothered us at times,” he said. "But our wingers didn't really help out much. Our guys were terribly slow in setting up. I thought that three of our four defencemen played very well, but they certainly didn't get much help.”
    The Pats got second-period goals from Darren Bobyck and Blaisdell to go into the third trailing 3-2.
    Regina's most effective line on this night featured Glen Sorenson, Jock Callander and Barry Ziegler, and it was this threesome that forged a tie when Sorenson scored at 2:47 of the third period.
    But 48 seconds later it was tied, as Hidi banged a rebound past Hunter.
    The Pats forced overtime when Varga tipped in a shot by Veitch with just 1:24 left to play.
    "After we got up 3-0,” Keenan said, "perhaps we got off our game a little. Give the Pats credit, though. They showed a lot of intensity in coming back.”
    Gardner felt "we played really well in the first period, but we relaxed after that. And Regina has too much offence to relax.”
    Everyone was waiting for the Pats' offence to explode, but it didn't happen the next night when they were beaten 5-3 by Cornwall in front of 3,540 Brandon fans.
    "I don't know if we're pressing and that's hurting us,” Murray said. "We didn't do the things we normally do. You know the kids want to win but this isn't the Regina Pats team I'm accustomed to.
    "It looks like the year is over for them. Some of our stars aren't doing a thing out there. They've got no intensity at all.
    "Hawerchuk played our stars right into the ground.”
    This one, too, could have been worse as the Royals outshot the Pats, 54-27.
    "I thought we played exceptionally well,” Carpenter said. "We played very disciplined. We took the middle away from Regina's centremen.”
    The Royals led 2-1 after the first period and Murray said it was only Hunter's play -- he stopped 20 shots -- that kept it from being 5-1.
    Defenceman Fred Boimistruck scored both those goals for Cornwall, sandwiching them around a Regina score by Veitch.
    Veitch then tied the score early in the second period, but Ezard put the Royals out front at 12:16 when he scored on one of his booming slapshots.
    Ezard later left the ice on a stretcher after being checked by Bill Ansell. The preliminary diagnosis was an Achilles tendon injury.
    Brown and Crawford added goals for Cornwall, with Varga scoring Regina's final goal.
    All five of Cornwall's goals were scored from well out -- actually, from above the circles -- and Carpenter credited scouting for that.
    "I watched Regina and Peterborough in the first game,” Carpenter said, "and the Petes' first goal was a bad one. I didn't think (Hunter) played the angle very well, so I said we'd work on that.”
    The third game of the tournament -- before 3,273 fans in Brandon on May 6 -- featured two supposedly disciplined teams who tried to destroy their reputations inside of three hours.
    The Petes ended up with an 8-6 victory -- their 13th straight triumph -- that left them 2-0 as the tournament shifted to Regina. The Royals now were 1-1, with the Pats at 0-2.
    Ezard dressed but lasted just 10 seconds before that Achilles tendon injury forced him out of the game.
    That forced Carpenter to give Pat O'Kane and Dan Zavarise, two 17-year-old defencemen, more playing time than they would normally get.
    Last edited by nivek_wahs; 06-18-2008 at 01:27 PM.

  7. #67
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    1980 continued...

    The Petes outshot the Royals 7-0 only to have Boimistruck give Cornwall a 1-0 lead on his team's first shot.
    Boimistruck would score again before the first period was up, and the Royals also got a goal from Crepeau. Steve Smith and Floyd replied for the Petes.
    Crepeau sent the Royals out front 4-2 just 24 seconds into the second period.
    Cornwall seemed to have things pretty much under control when the roof fell in and the Petes, a team not known for its offensive firepower, struck for five goals in a span of five minutes 37 seconds.
    It started with Ryder's goal at 12:45. Then Tom Fergus scored. Then it was Floyd's turn, and he gave the Petes a 5-4 lead. Gardner made it 6-4 at 16:06 and Floyd closed the outburst with his third of the game at 18:22.
    Just like that it was 7-4.
    "That was not really very typical of us,” Keenan said. "It's not often we get exchanging goals like that with another team.”
    Cornwall cut the lead to 7-5 in the third period when Brown scored in the midst of three consecutive Peterborough minor penalties. And the Royals made it 7-6 when Crepeau rounded out his hat trick at 14:06.
    Beckon finished off the night's scoring at 15:10.
    "We still played fairly good hockey,” Keenan said, "but we do need a bit more consistency.”
    The teams headed for Regina and the remainder of the tournament.
    In the first game in Regina, on May 7, the Petes overcame a 3-0 deficit to begin the third period and edged the Pats 4-3 before 6,008 fans, the largest crowd in the history of the Agridome.
    The Petes, who clinched a spot in the final with the victory, scored four goals early in the third, with Bill Gardner getting the winner at 7:56.
    After a scoreless first period, Regina got second-period goals from Veitch, Ziegler and Flockhart.
    But it came apart in the third period as the Petes won it on goals from Fenyves, Murphy, Cirella and Gardner.
    "I felt we could work a lot harder than we had,” Keenan said. "We had poor distribution, as far as ice time, among our four lines for the first two periods. As a result, we had a lot left for that third period.
    "It didn't surprise me that the team came back. We've developed somewhat of a character in that respect.”
    Keenan spent part of the game attempting to play mind games with Wickenheiser and the Pats. He repeatedly had Gardner, an alternate captain, ask referee Glen Agar to examine one of Wickenheiser's gloves.
    Initially, Agar chose to ignore the request. Then, when Keenan called his players to the bench, Agar hit the Petes with a bench minor. Agar then chose to examine the glove and penalized Wickenheiser for using illegal equipment. The glove apparently had a hole in its palm.
    "That,” seethed Murray, "is the cheapest thing a coach could call at this level of play. It shows what kind of class he has. We're in it to have a group of kids play and have the best team win. If that means calling stick or goalpad or glove measurements, then I think it's cheap.
    "The glove was worn through, not cut out. It's obvious that will happen to equipment after 90 games.
    "It riled our players. Some of them were obviously upset and between periods the others were all standing around taping the little holes in their gloves. I guess you forget what the whole game is about and try to win any way.
    "Keenan showed his class and it upset our kids.”
    Unfortunately, this was mild compared with what was to come.
    On May 8, in front of 5,884 fans, the Pats finally got their offence untracked. And they used it to blow out the Royals 11-2.
    Blaisdell had three goals and three assists, with Flockhart totaling two goals and four assists. Their six-point outings tied the single-game Memorial Cup record already shared by Joe Contini and Ric Seiling, teammates with the Hamilton Fincups in the 1976 tournament.
    Galley, the left winger with Blaisdell and Flockhart, had two goals and an assist, giving the line 15 points on the night.
    Wickenheiser, Callander, Ansell and Bobyck also scored for Regina.
    Brown had both Cornwall goals.
    "We had been playing too cautiously,” Blaisdell said, "concerned mainly with sticking with our man. But tonight we didn't worry as much about the defensive thing.
    "When you look at the last Peterborough game (a 4-3 Petes' victory), we went out trying to run and intimidate them. Going down their roster, man for man, I feel we have a better skating team. Perhaps we should have been skating and let them try to run us.
    "Maybe this game is too little too late but Peterborough looks like a team with a lot of pride. There's no way they should lose (in the next game against Cornwall). The Petes and the Pats are the two best teams in the tournament and I hope Peterborough shows its class by playing a strong game.”
    Already there were ominous thoughts about what might lay ahead.
    The Petes, you see, were guaranteed a spot in the tournament final. But . . . yes, there was a big but.
    The Pats were 1-3 and finished with the round-robin portion. The Petes, at 3-0, had yet to play the 1-2 Royals. A Peterborough victory, meaning a Cornwall loss, would put the Pats into the final against the Petes.
    And for a while on May 9 it looked as though that might happen.
    The Petes, who now were riding a 14-game postseason winning streak, held a 4-1 lead over the Royals in the second period.
    But, with 5,823 fans looking on, the Royals scored four goals and posted a 5-4 victory, thus getting the other spot in the final.
    The ugliness began with 1:26 to play. Fans now realized their Pats weren't going to be in the final and began chanting "Throw the game” and "Petes, go home.”
    Soon, the fans began throwing things -- toilet paper, programs, soft drinks -- at the Petes. There was a 15-minute delay before play could be resumed and that only happened with the arrival of some Regina city policemen.
    Dave Senick, in the Regina Leader-Post, wrote:
    "(The Petes) finally left amidst a shower of drinks and debris and remained locked in their dressing room for an hour. When they did leave, they silently walked out single file, stoically looking straight ahead and not stopping to talk to anyone.”
    The Petes took a 2-1 lead into the second period. But there were already ominous signs. Peterborough had a five-minute power play in the first period and managed but three routine shots on the Cornwall goal.
    By the end of the second, the Royals had cut the deficit to 4-2. They then scored three times in the third, twice on the power play, to take the victory.
    Corrigan scored at 4:51 of the third to start the Cornwall comeback. Ezard tied it at 6:00 and Willard got the winner at 9:48, scoring with a backhand from the slot after he had been allowed to stand, unmolested, in front of LaFerriere.
    Fenyves, Reeds, Hidi and Floyd scored for Peterborough.
    The fix, Regina said, was in.
    "This is a real disappointing day to be involved in junior hockey,” Murray said. "It wasn't a hockey game. Peterborough made sure they didn't win . . . It was a mistake that Peterborough was ahead by the third period but they soon corrected it. They avoided moving the puck out of their own zone.
    "It's just a shame that people paid good money to see something like this. I didn't believe this would happen.”
    Murray continued:
    "What do we, as adults, tell the kids who were exposed to this? You talk to them and try to instil in them things like discipline and pride, but how will you ever get their confidence after something like this?”
    Murray revealed that he had been interested in the Peterborough coaching job.
    "It was between myself and Mike for the coaching job in Peterborough and I just told their owner that he had made the right choice,” Murray said, his voice dripping in sarcasm. "Maybe this is what you have to do to win.”
    Strumm, as competitive an individual as ever lived, was stunned.
    "I never expected something like this to happen,” he said. "When I play checkers with my nine-year-old nephew, I play to win.
    "They've got quite a tradition in Peterborough with people like Scotty Bowman, Roger Neilson and Gary Green coaching there in the past. But this has put a black mark on the Petes.”
    Keenan was asked if his team had thrown the game.
    He replied: "I have no comment about tonight's game. We're preparing for Sunday's game.”
    Keenan was then asked "about your team's third-period collapse.”
    He replied: "I have no comment about tonight's game. We're preparing for Sunday's game.”
    Across the way, the Royals were all but forgotten. And all they cared about was being in the final.
    "I don't know if the Petes gave an effort or not,” Carpenter said. "We got in the final and that's what we're here for.
    "But when you've got to rely on another team to get you into the final, you have no one to blame but yourself. Regina was playing this tournament in its own backyard and only won one out of four games. Who do they have to blame but themselves?”
    Cornwall goaltender Ron Scott added: "I think Peterborough came into this game with nothing to work for. They were already in the final. I don't think they gave it their best effort, but they gave it some effort, at least.”
    As for the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League and its executives, well, the reaction was mixed.
    CMJHL president Ed Chynoweth, who was finishing up one season as general manager of the WHL's Calgary Wranglers, refused to comment.
    Roland Mercier, chairman of the Memorial Cup committee, was asked if he thought the Petes had thrown the game. He responded: "No.”
    "All teams had bad games in this series,” Mercier explained. "All teams should play to win on the ice, not expect anybody to help them.”
    QMJHL president Marcel Robert offered: "Personally, I feel it was a fair game.”
    And OMJHL commissioner David Branch said: "There's no question in my mind (the Petes) played to their full potential. They're a top-notch organization. If they weren't due for a loss, I don't know who would be.”
    The following morning, the CMJHL executive committee held an emergency meeting.
    "It was unanimous there has to be a modification,” Branch said. "No team should be put in the position Peterborough was Friday night.”
    Brian Shaw, the WHL's chairman of the board, added: "We, as adults, have put the youngsters in a precarious position because there is a loophole or two in the formula as we know it.
    "The format, as it stands, is all right as long we put in a modification to prevent a recurrence of what happened Friday night. This formula is the best to bring together competitors from across Canada.
    "There was a suggestion to go back to an East-West final, but we're involved with the education of our players. We don't want them out of class for the length of time it would take. With the present round-robin taking exactly one week, they don't miss too much school.”
    The executive now was considering altering the format, allowing the round-robin winner to move into the final with the other two teams playing off for the other berth.
    "We were lucky for eight years under this system,” Chynoweth said. "There's no sense moaning over what's happened now. Everybody coming into this knew the rules, knew the pitfalls and whatever. It's just unfortunate that this had to happen in our league's turn as host and in the host team's own city.
    "Still, we (in junior hockey) do recognize that we do get ourselves into some great holes with the way we conduct ourselves at times.”
    A change aimed at avoiding this situation would be implemented prior to the 1981 tournament. But the biggest change would come in 1984 when the CMJHL turned it into a four-team tournament by allowing a host team to have an automatic berth.
    After all that, it was somewhat anticlimactic when the Royals won the final May 11, beating the Petes 3-2 on Robert Savard's only goal of the tournament, at 1:28 of overtime, in front of 3,500 fans.
    Savard had scored just five goals all season before he went the length of the ice to win the championship.
    "This was the most important goal in my life,” he said. "I told everybody back home, wait 'til we get into the championship game, I'll score the winner. But to actually do it is just incredible.”
    Savard's goal was also the signal for some of the fans to unleash their frustrations. They did so by subjecting the Peterborough bench to a barrage of eggs, tomatoes, garbage and debris.
    The Petes were not a pretty sight as they took part in the traditional postgame ceremonies, their uniforms and Keenan's suit splattered and stained.
    The game had been interrupted on 16 occasions as fans threw eggs onto the ice. Someone even went so far as to throw a live chicken in the direction of the Petes' bench.
    "Certainly, the crowd affected our play,” Keenan said. "There's no question about it. These are people who are only 18 and 19 years old and there's only so much you can expect from them.”
    Daoust and Ezard also scored for the Royals, with Smith and Bovair counting for the Petes.
    All of which set the stage for Savard, who took the puck from his zone into a Peterborough corner, cut toward the net and beat LaFerriere for the winner.
    "I started to skate up over the red line,” Savard said. "I was thinking of dumping the puck in but their defencemen were backing up. I decided to go to the corner and look for someone high in the slot to pass to but nobody came after me.
    "I looked up and saw a lot of ice so I went in and shot the puck right between his legs. It was a dream come true, the biggest and best goal of my career.”
    Keenan and the Petes were left to defend themselves from charges emanating from their prior loss to the Royals.
    Murphy pointed out that that game "was the first game in a long, long time that wasn't a matter of life or death for us. We weren't prepared for it.”
    Keenan offered: "I'm fed up with the nonsense that is going on here. We never, ever threw a hockey game. It's been insinuated time and time again. We did not throw the game, we never had the intention of throwing the game. It was never in my mind. It was never a direction given any of our players. It was complete nonsense, garbage.”
    He said he chose not to discuss the matter after that game because of the reception he received.
    "I'm thoroughly disgusted with the irresponsible reporting of the reporters, their outright attacking me after the last game,” he said. "In terms of their questioning, they were fans with microphones rather than responsible reporters.”
    As for the fans' behaviour in the final, he blamed that on the media, too.
    "I'm sure the media prompted it, the talk shows and so on,” Keenan said. "It's just unbelievable that you people would act that way.”
    And he took time to fire a volley at, well, at just about everyone:
    "This whole ugly scene that's been created in the last three days has put an awful tarnish mark on the City of Regina and on hockey. With national television, all of Canada, I'm sure, is thoroughly disgusted with this city, with Regina Pats' fans, with the complete atmosphere that's been created out here.
    "It wasn't just a small group of individuals who were abusing us tonight. It was most of the arena and that's a great reflection on the people from this city . . . The conduct of people in Regina is deplorable, disgraceful to their city and to their province. I feel very, very sorry for the representation they gave the western part of Canada.”


    NEXT: 1981 (Victoria Cougars, Kitchener Rangers and Cornwall Royals)

  8. #68
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1981

    1981 MEMORIAL CUP
    Victoria Cougars, Kitchener Rangers and Cornwall Royals
    at Windsor (Arena)


    For the second year in a row, the Cornwall Royals, a team from Ontario, represented the province of Quebec in the Memorial Cup tournament.
    And the Royals were back as the defending champions.
    Prior to the tournament, a rule change had been implemented that would hopefully prevent an incident that had occurred a year earlier in Regina.
    In 1980, the Peterborough Petes were put in a position where it was possible for them to determine the fate of another team by losing a game, and plenty of people in Regina felt they did just that.
    Beginning with 1981, if after four games one team had clinched a berth in the final, the other two teams would play a two-game, total-goal series. If one team clinched a spot in the final after five games, the other two were to play a sudden-death semifinal game.
    The Royals, as in 1980, were sparked by centre Dale Hawerchuk, now a 17-year-old veteran of the junior wars who played between John Kirk and Gilles Crepeau.
    Head coach Doug Carpenter was gone, however, having moved on to the professional ranks as head coach of the American Hockey League's New Brunswick Hawks. Replacing him was Bob Kilger, who had been released as an NHL referee after the 1979-80 season and now was the Royals' general manager and head coach.
    This would be Cornwall's last season in the QMJHL. The Royals would play in the Ontario league the next season.
    And the Royals wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. They finished with the league's best regular-season record -- 44-26-2 -- scoring a league-high 403 goals in the process.
    Hawerchuk won the QMJHL scoring championship, his 183 points providing a 17-point margin over Alain Lemieux of the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs. Hawerchuk also led the league in goals (81) and assists (102).
    Scott Arniel of the Royals finished seventh with 123 points, including 52 goals.
    The Royals also featured a rookie centre by the name of Doug Gilmour.
    There were 11 veterans of the 1980 Memorial Cup-championship team back for another go-round, including forwards Marc Crawford, who was also the team captain, Arniel, Crepeau and Hawerchuk, along with defencemen Fred Arthur and Fred Boimistruck. The goaltending was provided by Joe Mantione and Corrado Micalef, the latter a pretournament addition from the Sherbrooke Castors.
    As they had a year ago, the Royals started the playoffs in low gear. The Quebec Remparts, with the QMJHL's eighth-best record (31-39-2) provided the first-round opposition and took the Royals the full seven games.
    Sherbrooke was next up and it, too, took the Royals to seven games before losing out.
    At this point, the Royals had played 14 postseason games, winning eight and outscoring the opposition 69-51.
    After all that, the championship final was rather anticlimactic, with the Royals beating the Draveurs in five games.
    Meanwhile, the Kitchener Rangers, coached by Orval Tessier, were winning the Ontario Hockey League championship and penning something of a Cinderella story in the process. Tessier had played for the Barrie Flyers when they won the Memorial Cup in 1953 and he coached the Quebec Remparts to the 1971 title.
    Just one year earlier, the Rangers had finished at 17-51-0, the worst record in the OHL. In 1980-81, they doubled their regular-season points total, finishing 34-33-1, and won the Emms Division on the final day of the regular season. They won 13 of their last 14 games to set the tone for the postseason.
    In the playoffs, which featured nine-point series, the Rangers dumped the Niagara Falls Flyers 9-5 and then took out the Windsor Spitfires.
    The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds had finished with the OHL's best regular-season record (47-19-2) and were expected to give the Ranges a tussle. It didn't happen as Kitchener romped to a 9-3 series victory.
    The Rangers' offence was sparked by veteran Jeff Larmer and rookie Brian Bellows. Just 16 years of age, Bellows, the team captain, was coming off a 116-point regular season.
    Kitchener's goaltending was handled by Wendell Young. A 17-year-old rookie, Young had really come to the fore in the postseason, posting a 3.15 GAA.
    There was some pre-tournament talk suggesting that officials had wanted to move the tournament from Windsor to Kitchener to take advantage of the Rangers being in the event. But the switch never happened.
    The Victoria Cougars, a team that featured goaltender Grant Fuhr, represented the WHL.
    Jack Shupe, a veteran of the western Canadian coaching wars, was running the Cougars. Shupe had last been to the Memorial Cup tournament in 1973 with the Medicine Hat Tigers.
    The Cougars actually trailed the Calgary Wranglers 3-1 in the WHL's best-of-seven final before rallying. They didn't win the WHL title until Terry Sydoryk broke a 2-2 tie at 18:07 of the third period of Game 7. An empty-netter by Grant Rezansoff made the final score 4-2.
    The Cougars had finished on top of the West Division, their 121 points (60-11-1) leaving them eight ahead of the Portland Winter Hawks.
    The Cougars' offensive leader was centre Barry Pederson, whose 147 points left him third in the scoring race, just 13 points off the lead.
    Pederson added 36 points in the playoffs, second behind the 43 points put up by Calgary's Bill Hobbins.
    Pederson was supported by Rezansoff, who totalled 27 playoff points after a 97-point regular season, Rich Chernomaz (113 regular-season points), Torrie Robertson 111), Brad Palmer, Paul Cyr, Bud McCarthy and Mark Morrison. This was a team that could score -- witness its league-high 462 goals.
    But it was Fuhr who dominated this team. He was the primary reason for it surrendering only 217 regular-season goals, 49 fewer than any other team.
    The Cougars opened the playoffs by sweeping the Spokane Flyers in four games. They then took apart the Winter Hawks in four straight.
    That sent them into the final where they fell behind the Doug Sauter-coached Wranglers, who featured goaltender Mike Vernon, 3-1 in games before roaring back to win their first WHL championship since they entered the league in 1971.
    "Fuhr was the difference,” Sauter said. "There's no doubt he's an all-star.”
    This would also mark the first Memorial Cup appearance for a team from Victoria.
    The tournament opened in Windsor on May 3 with Cornwall skating its way to a 6-3 victory over Kitchener, which took a 12-game unbeaten streak into the game, before 3,960 fans.
    The Royals got off to a great start by beating Young on their first two shots, by defenceman Eric Calder and right-winger Dan Frawley, before the game was three minutes old.
    "The first period was most important,” said Kilger, "since we wanted to play our game right from the start. We knew that we would have to take the body-checking, but they would have to skate with us.”
    Hawerchuk, Arniel, Crepeau and Calder, with his second of the night, rounded out Cornwall's scoring.
    Mario Michieli, Mike Clayton and Bellows, who spent most of the game being shadowed by Crawford, scored for Kitchener.
    "We backed into our own end and took some useless penalties in the first period,” Tessier said. "And you can't do that against a team such as Cornwall that has Memorial Cup experience.”
    Trailing 2-1 in the first period, the Rangers took two minor penalties and the Royals responded with power-play goals by Hawerchuk and Arniel before the period was half over.
    After Arniel's goal, at 9:59, Steve Bienkowski replaced Young, who it turned out had injured his right arm in the warmup.
    "I had asked him if he was all right before the game and he said, ‘Yes,' ” Tessier explained. "But he didn't even move on three of the goals.
    "I used to be able to rely on my goaltenders telling me how they feel, but I don't know if I can do that any more.”
    At the other end, Mantione stopped 18 shots in the first period and 43 on the game.
    "They kept me on my toes,” he said. "I didn't expect them to come out as strong as they did, but it seems they shoot a lot more in the Ontario league than they do in Quebec.”
    The Rangers actually fought their way back into this one and were within two goals when Bienkowski allowed a Calder floater from outside the blue line to get past him.
    "That goal really killed us,” said Tessier, who obviously wasn't pleased with his goaltending. "We were totally deflated after that.”
    Things didn't get any better for the Rangers on May 4 when they were beaten 7-4 by the Cougars before 3,200 fans.
    "We got out there and we looked at the Cougar uniforms and we thought they were very pretty,” Tessier said. "We played like tourists at the start as we stood around and stared at them.”
    The Cougars were wearing Cooperall uniforms, which featured full-length nylon pants, rather than knee-high pants with wool stockings.
    "I don't know if we're feeling a letdown after the OHL final against Sault Ste. Marie,” Tessier added, “but the more this happens, the more I think we are.”
    With the Rangers standing around, the Cougars roared out to a 4-0 lead before the game was 22 minutes old.
    Pederson, with three, Cyr, Tony Feltrin, Daryl Coldwell and Morrison scored for the Cougars.
    Kitchener got two goals from Russ Adam and one each from Lee MacKenzie and Larmer.
    Bienkowski made 32 saves and went the distance despite being injured at 10:17 of the first period when a Pederson wrist shot hit him in the throat.
    "I wanted to take him out,” Tessier said, "but the trainer (Les Bradley) assured me he could continue.”
    The Rangers suffered one other injury when centre Grant Martin, their leading postseason scorer, banged up his right leg when he was checked by Len Dawes midway in the second period.
    "Kitchener was kind of sloppy in their own end and they don't have a good skater,” said Fuhr, who made 28 saves and allowed his club to skate into a 7-1 lead. "But the guys in front of me also cut them off, so that they only had so much to shoot at.”
    The bloom came off the Cougars the following night, May 5, as Mantione turned aside 29 shots to lead the Royals to a 3-1 victory in front of 3,629 fans.
    "Joe played a superb hockey game for us,” Kilger said. "It was a challenge for him to play against Fuhr, whom many consider to be the best goalie in Canada.
    "Joe's a very confident young man, and if you were to ask him who's the best goalie, he'd say, ‘Joe Mantione.’ ”
    Crepeau, with two, and Arniel scored for the Royals, who now were 2-0 in the tournament.
    Morrison counted for the Cougars (1-1).
    "I love playing against another good goalie,” said the 18-year-old Mantione, who was one year removed from a junior B team in Hamilton. "I play that much harder just to show that I'm as good as the guy at the other end.”
    Fuhr, the guy at the other end on this night, was no slouch himself, with 34 saves.
    "I'm not going to pinch myself,” said Mantione, a 5-foot-10, 159-pounder, who put up a 4.00 GAA in the regular season. "I want to keep this happening.”
    Mantione gave up a power-play goal to Morrison at 11:54 of the first period and was perfect after that.
    The Cougars, who had lost right-winger Stu Kulak to a knee injury in their first game, watched as defenceman Rob Jacobson left with a facial cut. And Bob McGill, another defenceman, was playing with strained back muscles.
    Cornwall, meanwhile, lost Kirk, the left winger on Hawerchuk's line, with a bruised shoulder on his first shift of the game.
    By now, Tessier had brought in another goaltender -- Mike Moffat from the Kingston Canadians -- and was thinking about starting him in place of the injured Bienkowski.
    Instead, he came back with Young and it paid off with a 6-4 victory over the Royals on May 6 in front of 3,433 fans.
    Bellows led the way with three goals, but after the game Tessier was talking about his 2 1/2-year-old grandson, who went by the monicker Crusher.
    "Crusher told the guys they had to win because he didn't come all the way to Windsor (from Cornwall) for nothing,” Tessier said of the team's pregame pep talk.
    Mike Moher added a goal and two assists for the Rangers, with Kerry Williston and Larmer adding a goal apiece.
    Hawerchuk, who was beginning to take control of this tournament, struck for three goals for the Royals and now led the event with seven points. Gilmour had Cornwall's other goal.
    "We were so embarrassed by our first two games that we didn't want to show our faces around anywhere,” Bellows admitted. "The first two games we stood around.
    "But in this game we took the initiative and made the other team adapt to us.”
    Kitchener centre Russ Adam, who set up two goals, agreed with Bellows.
    "We felt bad about letting down the fans, the league and ourselves since we're better than those games indicated,” Adam said.
    On May 7, the Rangers came full circle as they beat the Cougars 4-2 to even their record at 2-2. Cornwall was 2-1, Victoria 1-2.
    Moher, Bellows, Bob Hicks and Kevin Casey scored for the Rangers, before 3,400 fans.
    Pederson and Coldwell replied for the Cougars.
    The Cougars were eliminated on May 8 as Hawerchuk struck for four goals, two of them shorthanded and two on the power play, in an 8-4 Cornwall victory before 4,086 fans.
    "The fact we gave up those two breakaway goals by Hawerchuk is unbelievable,” Shupe said. "I don't think we gave up a goal like that all year.”
    The victory sent the Royals into the final, giving them a chance at their second straight title.
    Arniel, with two, Crawford and Roy Russell also scored for the Royals.
    Robertson, with two, Morrison and Cyr counted for the Cougars.
    Hawerchuk's first goal came at 16:59 of the first period, with his club shorthanded and trailing 1-0 after Robertson had scored for Victoria.
    Hawerchuk intercepted a pass at the Cornwall blue line and went in alone.
    "I was lucky to pick up the puck,” said Hawerchuk. "I noticed how slow the puck would be moving across the ice, and I was just ready when it took a bad bounce. The ice was a little slow tonight.”
    His second shorthanded goal proved to be the game-winner.
    The Royals were leading 4-3 when he picked off another errant pass at his blue line.
    "Fuhr came out to meet me and he had all the angles covered,” said Hawerchuk, who now had eight goals and 11 points in four games. "I wanted to shoot up high, but he had that covered, too.
    "Luckily, I spotted an opening between the pads and I put it there.”
    Kilger, for one, was thrilled that Hawerchuk was putting on a show.
    "I'm glad to see what Dale has been doing in this tournament,” Kilger said. "He has a great deal of ability, a hell of a lot of heart, and he's all that we've been telling people he is for the past year.
    "I think he's making a believer out of a lot of knowledgeable hockey people. And I definitely think he's the player of the year.”
    Micalef, the QMJHL's top goaltender with Sherbrooke, stopped 35 shots and was especially sharp in the first period when the Cougars fired 20 shots at him.
    "I thought we started off well in the first period, but we unfortunately only got one goal,” Shupe said. "Then we just fell apart in the second and third.”
    Then, on May 10, the Royals became the fourth team to win back-to-back championships when they dumped the Rangers 5-2 behind three goals from Arniel before a sellout crowd of 4,500.
    It was the Royals' third Memorial Cup title in 12 years. The first one, in 1972, was won with Tessier as head coach.
    Gilmour and Russell also scored for the Royals, who got 35 saves from Micalef.
    Bellows and Mike Eagles found the range for the Rangers, who got a dazzling 41-save performance from Young.
    "This is by far the most exciting thing that I've ever experienced,” Kilger said. "I think now it's over I'll go out to the water, and if the fish aren't biting, I'll walk on the water.”
    Still, the 1981 tournament belonged to Hawerchuk, who earlier in the week had been named major junior hockey's player of the year.
    For the second straight year he was the tournament's top scorer. And this time he was named the most valuable player. He set one tournament record by scoring eight goals and tied another by totaling 13 points.
    (Morrison went home with the sportsmanship award, with Micalef named the top goaltender. Micalef was on the all-star team along with Arthur and Kitchener's Joe McDonnell on defence, and forwards Hawerchuk, Crawford and Bellows.)
    In later years, Gilmour would recall Hawerchuk's role in the tournament:
    "He carried the team most of the season and through the playoffs and with his leadership we won the Memorial Cup. He did everything well. He just dominated when he was on the ice. He was the guy we looked at to bring us that leadership and score goals.”
    Perhaps the ultimate compliment came from Bobby Clarke who, in the early 1990s, remembered that tournament.
    "If you didn't know who he was when you walked in the door,” Clarke said, "you would think you were watching (Wayne) Gretzky.”


    NEXT: 1982 (Portland Winter Hawks, Kitchener Rangers and Sherbrooke Castors)

  9. #69
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1982

    1982 MEMORIAL CUP
    Portland Winter Hawks, Kitchener Rangers and Sherbrooke Castors
    at Hull (Robert Guertin Arena)


    What once had been unthinkable finally happened in the spring of 1982 -- an American team was one of the three teams to qualify for the Memorial Cup tournament.
    Understand, however, that this wasn't an ordinary major junior hockey franchise. This was the Portland Winter Hawks, who had penned an incredible success story.
    The Winter Hawks moved to Portland from Edmonton in time for the 1976-77 season. Six seasons later, the Winter Hawks were Western Hockey League champions.
    This was a franchise that had been orphaned by the birth of the World Hockey Assocation.
    Before they were the Winter Hawks, they were the Edmonton Oil Kings, one of junior hockey's most storied franchises.
    It was apparent early on that Edmonton wasn't big enough for the WHA's Alberta Oilers, who would later become the Edmonton Oilers, and the junior Oil Kings.
    What complicated matters was that the Oilers actually owned the Oil Kings.
    That changed on Nov. 18, 1975, when a group headed by Brian Shaw and Ken Hodge bought the Oil Kings from World Hockey Enterprises. The price? Slightly more than $150,000. That would be their final season in Edmonton.
    ‘Wild' Bill Hunter, a longtime Oil Kings' executive and coach who was then with the Oilers, pointed out that the sale was done because "our primary work must centre with the Edmonton Oilers.”
    Hodge immediately took over as head coach of the Oil Kings, replacing Doug Messier. Yes, he is Mark's father. Ironically, Hodge had been fired as the Oil Kings’ coach the previous March.
    Hodge was a familiar face in western junior circles; in fact, he was well-known throughout the junior hockey world.
    He had played with the Moose Jaw Canucks, but his playing career was cut short by an eye injury. He got into coaching at an early age, serving as an assistant coach with the Swift Current Broncos before his 21st birthday.
    By 1968-69, he was coaching the Sorel, Que., Eperviers, a team that lost the eastern final to the Montreal Junior Canadiens, featuring the likes of Gilbert Perreault, Marc Tardif and Rejean Houle.
    Hodge would go on to coach in the west for 22 seasons, posting a Canadian major record 741 victories.
    Shaw, who became the franchise's governor and general manager, was even more highly recognized in junior circles than was Hodge.
    Born in Nordegg, Alta., in 1930, Shaw had been pretty much on his own since the age of 15. His parents had died during his childhood and a grandmother who raised him passed away when he was 15.
    Shaw was a goaltender in his playing days, but he knew early on that he wanted to coach, a career he began in the late 1950s with the Jasper Place Juveniles in Edmonton.
    By the time he became an owner of the Oil Kings, he had an extensive coaching portfolio. He had worked behind the bench with the Oil Kings on a few occasions, the first in August of 1971. His Moose Jaw Canucks won the WHL's first championship in the spring of 1967. He also coached the Ontario junior league's St. Catharines Black Hawks and the year before first coaching in Edmonton he was the personnel director of the International league's Flint Generals.
    Yes, Shaw and Hodge knew their way around a dressing room.
    The Oil Kings, who once drew 180,000 fans over one season, averaged 1,100 fans per game -- they played in the 5,800-seat Edmonton Gardens -- and lost more than $100,000 in 1974-75. Those figures didn't improve the following season.
    On June 11, 1976, Shaw announced that the Oil Kings were moving to Portland.
    They were an immediate success on the ice and at the gate. But, despite having 33 players drafted by NHL teams in their first five seasons in Portland, that first championship had eluded them. Until now.
    And now the Winter Hawks were about to compete in their first Memorial Cup tournament.
    "There's something special about this team,” Hodge said. "They've shown the ability to win the important games. We've never done as well in the playoffs.
    "I don't think we've ever been as disciplined on the ice. The players are more concerned with what the team does than what they do as individuals.”
    Offensively, the Winter Hawks were led by centre Ken Yaremchuk. He totalled 58 goals and 99 assists in 72 regular-season games.
    Yaremchuk keyed Portland's top line, with wingers Brian Shaw (the GM's nephew) and Randy Heath. Shaw had 56 goals and 76 assists, with Heath scoring 52 goals and setting up 47 others.
    "I've watched the Memorial Cup on television up in Canada the last three years,” Portland centre Ken Yaremchuk said. "It's the next biggest thing after the Stanley Cup.”
    This was a team that could boast of 13 players with at least 10 goals, including Perry Pelensky (40), Rob Geale (31), Richard Kromm (16), Kevin Griffin (27) and Grant Sasser (19).
    The defence was on the large size, featuring 6-footers Gary Nylund, Kelly Hubbard, Randy Turnbull, Brian Curran and Jim Playfair.
    And in goal stood Darrell May, who was putting the wraps on what had been a solid four-year WHL career. During the Memorial Cup, he would get help from Mike Vernon, who was added from the Calgary Wranglers.
    At 46-24-2, the Winter Hawks had the West Division's best record, but it was behind the Lethbridge Broncos (50-22-0) and Regina Pats (48-24-0).
    The Winter Hawks opened the playoffs by sweeping the Kamloops Junior Oilers. Portland then won the West Division with a six-game victory over the Seattle Breakers.
    That put them into the championship series against Regina. It was not a pretty affair.
    On April 30, the Winter Hawks beat the visiting Pats 5-3 in a game that featured numerous fights. At one point, the Pats, who were coached by Bill LaForge, left their bench. Hodge kept his players on their bench.
    And, at one stage, GM Brian Shaw got into it on the ice with Regina trainer Dennis Scott.
    The Winter Hawks won their first championship on May 2, drubbing the suspension-riddled Pats 9-2 and taking the series 4-1.
    And so it was that the Winter Hawks became the first American-based team to qualify for the Memorial Cup.
    This tournament would also include the Ontario league's Kitchener Rangers, back for the second year in a row, and the Quebec league's Sherbrooke Castors.
    The Rangers, coached by Joe Crozier, were keyed by linemates Brian Bellows and Jeff Larmer, and goaltender Wendell Young.
    Bellows, the captain, was the team's undisputed leader and was coming off a 97-point regular season in which he had scored 45 goals in 47 games.
    Bellows, a 17-year-old right winger, played on a line with centre Grant Martin and left-winger Jeff Larmer. Between them, they had scored 42 of the 71 goals Kitchener had scored in the playoffs. Larmer had 21 goals and 14 assists in 15 playoff games; in fact, he had gone goalless in just one of those games. Bellows had 16 goals and 13 assists; Martin had three goals and 15 assists, but had sat out the last three games with a suspension.
    Mike Eagles, Mike Hough, Mike Moher, Mario Michieli and John Tucker could find the net, too.
    Young was backed up by Darryl Boudreau, and the Rangers had added Jim Ralph from the Ottawa 67's as a third goaltender.
    Defensively, the star was Al MacInnis, who was becoming a legend thanks to a booming slapshot. He had 25 goals and 50 assists in 59 regular-season games.
    This defence also featured Scott Stevens and David Shaw, both of whom were rookies, along with Robert Savard, who was quite a story. He had scored the Memorial Cup-winning goal in overtime for the Cornwall Royals in Regina in 1980. And he was a member of the Royals the following season when they won it all in Windsor.
    And now Savard was trying to make it three Memorial Cup championships in a row.
    The Rangers went 44-21-3 in the regular season to finish on top of the Emms Division, and then skated past the Windsor Spitfires, Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and Ottawa 67's in the playoffs.
    Kitchener went into the Memorial Cup on a real roll. Going back two seasons, the Rangers had lost just one of 27 OHL playoff games. Throw in Memorial Cup games and their overall playoff record over the last two seasons was 23-3-7.
    Sherbrooke, under coach Andre Boisvert, put together a 42-20-2 regular season to finish first in what was now a one-division Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
    Centre John Chabot was the key offensively. He finished third in the scoring race with 143 points, including a league-high 109 assists.
    Daniel Campeau tied for 10th with 108 points, including 58 goals.
    Also on this team were the likes of left-winger Gerard Gallant (34 goals), right-winger Sean McKenna (57) and right-winger Luc Bachand (35), Dave Kasper and Gord Donnelly. The defence featured first-team all-stars Paul Boutillier and Michel Petit.
    The goaltender was Michel Morissette and he was coming off a fine season, posting a 3.51 goals-against average in 45 games.
    The QMJHL's first-round of postseason play was an eight-team round-robin series. Sherbrooke went 9-5-0 to finish second behind the Laval Voisins (10-4-0).
    The Castors then went up against Laval in the second round and swept the Voisins, outscoring them 28-11 in the process.
    In the championship final, Sherbrooke got past Trois-Rivieres in four games, outscoring the Draveurs 28-10.
    The Castors had been the regular-season's highest-scoring team, with 392 goals. But they could keep the puck out of their net, too, as their 265 goals-against, third-lowest in the league, could attest.
    This would be Sherbrooke's third Memorial Cup appearance, following 1975 and 1977. This one would be a little more special, though, because major junnior hockey was on its way out of Sherbrooke.
    When another hockey season arrived, the NHL's Winnipeg Jets would have a team in Sherbrooke. The Castors? They relocated to St. Jean.
    Sherbrooke opened the tournament as though it was a team with a purpose.
    The Castors, who were thought to be the third-best team in the tournament, opened by hammering the Rangers 10-4 in front of 2,529 fans on May 8.
    Sherbrooke, backed by a 52-save effort from Morissette, opened up a 4-1 first-period lead and never looked back.
    Gallant struck for three Sherbrooke goals, with McKenna and Alain Gilbert adding two each, and singles coming from Bachand, Alain Menard and Petit.
    Larmer had two goals for Kitchener, with Martin and Eagles adding one apiece.
    Kitchener went through two goaltenders in the loss, with Young and Darryl Boudreau facing 33 shots.
    The next night, before 2,396 fans, the Rangers got on track by whipping the Winter Hawks 9-2.
    "You didn't see the real Rangers in that first game against Sherbrooke -- tonight, you did,” Bellows said. "That's the way we're going to play from here on.”
    Larmer had two goals and two assists against Portland and now had seven points in his first two games. He said the Rangers held a team meeting after their opening loss and chose to change tactics.
    They had tried to intimidate Sherbrooke and found that it didn't work. Against Portland, the Rangers chose to return to the fundamentals -- skating, passing and shooting.
    Martin added two goals for Kitchener, with singles coming from Bellows, Michieli, Dave Nicholls, Hough and Moher.
    Shaw and Geale scored for the Winter Hawks, who were outshot 40-31.
    May's Memorial Cup debut lasted 16 minutes 38 seconds. He was replaced by Vernon with the Rangers leading 5-1.
    "We just didn't play our game,” said Shaw the GM. "The players were nervous and they didn't hit.
    "But they'll be hitting against Sherbrooke and the defence will have to do the work out there they didn't do tonight.”
    The Rangers dumped the Beavers 4-0 on May 11 and the 2,359 fans witnessed a brawl-marred game.
    Bellows and MacInnis had two goals each, with Young stopping 29 shots for the shutout.
    But when it was over everyone was talking about the 20-minute brawl at 8:29 of the second period that necessitated a 35-minute delay as referee Daniel Cournoyer sorted it out.
    According to The Canadian Press:
    "It started with Gerard Gallant of Sherbrooke dropping Kitchener's Mike Eagles to the ice with a slash to the head in the Sherbrooke defensive zone.
    "Kitchener players immediately took after Gallant. In seconds, the benches were empty with knots of struggling players swarming like bees from one part of the ice to another.”
    Gallant ended up with a triple major and a game misconduct. Kitchener's Kevin Casey, the first player to leave a bench, took a double minor and a game misconduct.
    "I gave (Eagles) a little bump and he gave me a jab in the stomach,” Gallant said. "I just went to give him a little jab (back) in the chest and my stick went up a little high.”
    Within 24 hours, the Canadian Major Junior Hockey League's discipline committee acted on the altercation. The Rangers and Castors had to post $500 bonds. Kitchener was fined $1,000 because Casey was the first player off the bench.
    Portland stayed alive on May 12 with a 4-2 victory over Kitchener. Attendance was 2,575.
    The Winter Hawks got all four of their goals in the first period, from Heath, Yaremchuk, Kromm and Shaw. With Portland leading 4-0 at 12:26 of the first period, Young was replaced by Ralph.
    "We thought before the game we were sure to be in the final -- you're on top of the world,” Bellows said. "Then it suddenly dawns on you that you could be out of the tournament.”
    No matter. The Rangers were 2-2 and knew they would be in the final.
    "Because we played so well last night (in beating the Castors 4-0), we thought we could do the same tonight,” Crozier said. "But we gave away a lot of chances early and then we couldn't beat their goalie.”
    Bellows and Martin scored for the Rangers, who outshot the Winter Hawks 19-5 in the second period and 12-5 in the third but were continually stymied by May.
    Kitchener fired at least 10 shots at May during a second-period major penalty incurred by Turnbull. That onslaught included a Bellows slapshot that put May down and out for close to five minutes. He later needed six stitches to close a cut over his right eye.
    Hodge said he was still waiting for the real Winter Hawks to show up.
    "The first period was the first time we looked like the Winter Hawks,” he said, "and then it was only for 20 minutes.”
    With the Rangers already assured a berth in the final, the next night's game -- Portland against Sherbrooke -- became a sudden-death semifinal contest.
    A Portland victory would leave the Winter Hawks at 3-1 and put them into the final. A Sherbrooke victory would leave the Castors and Winter Hawks at 2-2 and it would come down to goals-for and goals-against.
    And that other berth would go to the Castors, who whipped the Winter Hawks 7-3 on May 13 before 2,694 fans.
    All three teams finished at 2-2, with the Winter Hawks losing out in the tiebreaker -- Sherbrooke was plus-five, Kitchener was plus-three, Portland was minus-eight.
    Sherbrooke had to first survive the loss of Morissette. The goaltender was ejected from the game after he left his crease to enter a second-period altercation.
    The donnybrook resulted in referee Phil DesGagnes suspending play at 16:54 of the second period and adding that to the start of the third period.
    DesGagnes penalized every player on the ice, with the exception of Vernon. Playfair also received a game misconduct. He was involved in a scrap with Kasper and then tried to get at Kasper in the penalty box.
    Chabot and Gilbert scored to give Sherbrooke a 2-1 first-period lead, with Geale scoring for Portland.
    Kromm scored on a power play early in the second period to tie the score 2-2.
    Moments later, Morissette stoned David Kromm, Richard's brother, from in close and the Castors seemed to take life from that.
    McKenna scored, and then Bachand and Chabot struck for power-play goals at 14:00 and 14:28.
    Bachand and Gallant added third-period goals, with Turnbull scoring for Portland in the final period.
    And so ended the first bid by an American-based team to win the Memorial Cup. The Winter Hawks would be back. And, yes, they would win.
    On May 15, Kitchener won its first Memorial Cup championship, riding their captain to a 7-4 victory over the Castors before 4,091 fans.
    The star was Bellows, who finished off his junior career with a brilliant five-point outing.
    He scored three first-period goals as the Rangers took a 3-1 lead.
    Bellows then set up second-period goals by Martin and MacInnis and the Rangers now led 5-2, with both Sherbrooke goals having been scored by McKenna, who would be named the tournament's most outstanding player.
    Eagles wrapped up the victory with a pair of third-period shorthanded goals, while Mike Fafard and Boutillier scored Sherbrooke's last two goals.
    The all-star team would feature Morissette in goal, Nylund, MacInnis and Boutillier on defence (the latter two tied), and McKenna on right wing, Chabot at centre and Larmer on left wing.
    Bellows' five-point outing didn't figure in the voting as that was done prior to the final. He was named the most sportsmanlike player.
    Larmer led the tournament with 13 points, one more than Bellows and two ahead of McKenna. Bellows and McKenna were tops with six goals each.
    "We knew we had the better club and we took it right to them,” Crozier said.
    "We just borrowed the Montreal Canadiens' defence and cut away the middle of the ice. That kept them to the outside where they couldn't hurt us.”
    In later years, that defence would come to be known as the neutral-zone trap.
    This would be the Castors' final season in Sherbrooke. Major junior hockey wouldn't return until the 1992-93 season when the Trois-Rivieres franchise relocated and became known as the Faucons.
    And let's not forget Robert Savard, the Kitchener defenceman. He was on his third Memorial Cup championship team, making him at that point the only player to have played on three winners.

    NEXT: 1983 (Portland Winter Hawks, Lethbridge Broncos, Oshawa Generals and Verdun Junior)

  10. #70
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    From Gregg Drinnan...1983

    1983 MEMORIAL CUP
    Portland Winter Hawks, Lethbridge Broncos, Oshawa Generals and Verdun Junior
    at Portland (Memorial Coliseum)


    And then there were four.
    Beginning with 1983, the Memorial Cup would be decided using a four-team round-robin format.
    Officials had decided to allow a host team automatic entry.
    "This format, with a home-team as a participant, is the only economical salvation for the Memorial Cup tournament,” Brian Shaw, general manager of the WHL's Portland Winter Hawks, explained. "You can't play in buildings with only 2,000 or 3,000 fans, considering the cost of bringing in teams.”
    (Ironically, that is exactly what would happen in the spring of 1994 in Laval, Que., and the Canadian Hockey League immediately began exploring the possibilities of returning to a best-of-seven Memorial Cup final featuring East versus West.)
    But, for now, it was a four-team event and the first one would be played in Portland's Memorial Coliseum, meaning the Winter Hawks would be the first host team.
    Major junior hockey was in for the time of its life as the Winter Hawks sold more than 6,500 eight-game ticket packages.
    There was no denying that Portland was the most successful major junior franchise in North America.
    "We are successful because of our people,” Shaw said. "We're a family that has stayed together for seven years.
    "There has been virtually no turnover, from the general manager to the coach to the scouts to the trainer. We've been here from Day 1 -- July 21, 1976. We all share in everything.”
    The 1982-83 edition of the Winter Hawks would go on to write one of the more intriguing stories in Memorial Cup history.
    It became the first team to win the Memorial Cup without winning a league championship, the first host team in a Memorial Cup tournament and the first host team to win it all.
    (During the week, Verdun Junior centre Pat LaFontaine would become the first American player named the Canadian Hockey League's player of the year. He would repeat his acceptance speech in French, for which he drew a rousing salute from his teammates. And when it was over, Portland centre Alfie Turcotte would be the first American player named the tournament's most valuable player.)
    And Portland, under coach Ken Hodge, won the Memorial Cup with a goaltender who never played one WHL regular-season or playoff game in a Winter Hawks uniform.
    Still, if you were going to pick a host team, well, it was tough to go against the Winter Hawks.
    They may not have won the WHL championship, but they did get to the final.
    Their 50-22-0 regular-season record was the best in the West Division and second only to the Saskatoon Blades (52-19-1) in the WHL. And the Winter Hawks set a WHL record by scoring 495 goals.
    The Winter Hawks swept the Seattle Breakers in four games in an opening-round playoff series and then won the West Division championship by ousting the Victoria Cougars in five games.
    Portland lost the championship final in five games to the Lethbridge Broncos, a team that caught fire in the playoffs after a 38-31-3 regular-season record left them fifth in the East Division.
    Seven Portland players had 100 or more points -- Ken Yaremchuk (160), Randy Heath (151), Alfie Turcotte (127), 17-year-old right-winger Cam Neely (120), Grant Sasser (119), team captain Richard Kromm (103), whose father, Bobby, coached the Trail Smoke Eaters to the world championship in 1961, and defenceman Brad Duggan (100). Ray Ferraro had 90 points in 50 games.
    There were nine 20-goal scorers on that 1982-83 Portland team that averaged almost seven goals a game. On defence, the Hawks gave up the incredible total of 387 goals (almost 5.5 goals a game) -- only the 1988-89 Winter Hawks were able to finish on top of a division and surrender more goals (395).
    Portland goaltender Bruno Campese went into the 1983 Memorial Cup with a 5.45 goals-against average in the regular season. In the postseason, that figure was an incredible 5.75. Ian Wood, Campese's backup, had his season ended by a neck injury in the playoffs.
    Portland added goaltender Mike Vernon from the Calgary Wranglers and he would play in three games, including the final.
    Lethbridge, under head coach John Chapman, got off to a dismal start and was 12-23-2 halfway through the regular season. The Broncos, however, put together a 26-8-1 finish and were on a roll going into the playoffs.
    Lethbridge had scored 211 fewer goals than had Portland. But the Broncos had also allowed 116 fewer goals.
    Centre Doug Kyle was the Broncos' leading scorer. His 103 points, including 47 goals, left him tied for 26th in the WHL scoring race.
    Next in line on the Broncos was Ivan Krook, with 88 points.
    The Sutter twins -- Ron and Rich -- combined for 72 goals and 150 points, but it was their character that meant so much to this team.
    Other forwards like J.C. McEwan and Troy Loney brought grit to the lineup.
    On defence, there were the likes of Mark Tinordi, Bob Rouse, Darcy Kaminski, Gerald Diduck and Marty Ruff.
    And in goal there was Ken Wregget, who had a 3.49 GA, second to Vernon's 3.26 during the regular season. Unfortunately, the Broncos wouldn't have Wregget's services in the Memorial Cup tournament after he injured an ankle in the last game of the WHL final.
    In the playoffs, the Broncos simply got on a roll.
    Led by Ron Sutter, who would top all playoff scorers in goals (22) and points (41), the Broncos swept a best-of-five first-round series from the Winnipeg Warriors, then eliminated Saskatoon in six and Calgary in six.
    In the WHL final, the Broncos took out the Winter Hawks in five games.
    And, yes, familiarity does breed contempt.
    By the time the teams arrived in Portland, there wasn't any love lost between the Winter Hawks and the Broncos.
    Oshawa, meanwhile, had finished third in the OHL's Leyden Division, with a 45-22-3 record.
    The Generals, of head coach Paul Theriault, had also been through a roller-coaster of a season. They opened with left-winger Tony Tanti and defenceman Joe Cirella, both of whom were expected to be in the NHL, on their roster. Left-winger Dave Andreychuk, though, was with the Buffalo Sabres.
    Eventually, Andreychuk was returned and the Generals put together a 24-game unbeaten string.
    Then came the world junior tournament, with Andreychuk, Cirella and Tanti joining Team Canada. Only Cirella returned, as Andreychuk went back to Buffalo and Tanti ended up with the Vancouver Canucks.
    "For a month and a half, we were at rock bottom,” Theriault said. "It was the lowest point of the season for the hockey club.
    "We had to change our style completely. By the middle of February, we started to win. We began believing we could win.”
    Up front, the team was led by right-winger John MacLean, who totalled 98 points, including 47 goals, and Dave Gans. In the postseason, MacLean and Gans totalled 37 points each.
    The best of Oshawa's defencemen was Cirella, the team captain. He had played 65 games with the NHL's Colorado Rockies in 1981-82. Back in Oshawa for 1982-83, he had 55 assists and 68 points in 56 games.
    And the Generals, who allowed 255 regular-season goals, relied heavily on goaltender Peter Sidorkiewicz. He was 36-20-3 with a 3.61 GAA in the regular season. In the postseason, he won 15 of 16 decisions and posted a 3.53 GAA.
    The Generals, in winning their first OHL championship since 1965-66 when Bobby Orr was the star attraction, swept the Peterborough Petes, got past the Ottawa 67's and then, in the final, swept the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.
    Head coach Pierre Creamer's Verdun squad was the first Montreal-area team to win the QMJHL title since the league was formed prior to the 1969-70 season.
    The Junior had one star, but oh, what a star he was.
    Centre Pat LaFontaine, an 18-year-old from Detroit, had won the QMJHL scoring title with an incredible 234 points. He was also tops in goals (104) and assists (130).
    Jean-Maurice Cool was sixth in the scoring race, with 149 points, including 65 goals. Gerard Gallant, who came over from the St. Jean Castors in a trade, was 10th. He had 128 points, including 54 goals.
    Still, Verdun, which scored a league-high 486 goals, didn't have the QMJHL's best record. At 50-19-1, it trailed centre Mario Lemieux and his Laval Voisins (53-17-0) in the Robert Lebel Division, the league having returned to a two-division format. Shawinigan Cataractes were 52-16-2 and on top of the Frank Dilio Division.
    Verdun took out the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs in four games in an opening best-of-seven series, and then ousted Shawinigan in six games to reach the final.
    That final went six games with the Junior Canadiens finally sidelining the Longueuil Chevaliers, an expansion team under head coach Jacques Lemaire, who had upset Laval in a five-game semifinal series. Verdun played its home games in the final series in the Montreal Forum and drew almost 60,000 fans.
    LaFontaine picked up in the playoffs where he had left off in the regular season. In 15 postseason games, he had 35 points, including 11 goals.
    There was plenty of bad blood in this tournament, too, most of it between Lethbridge and Portland.
    Part of it was due to the fact the Broncos and Winter Hawks had met in the WHL final. Then, too, there was the situation involving Wregget and Vernon.
    With Wregget hurt, the Broncos needed a goaltender and wanted Vernon, who had already joined the Winter Hawks as a backup to Campese.
    Vernon had been practising with Portland for three days when Lethbridge lost Wregget. Vernon then apparently refused to join the Broncos, something that had Chapman steaming.
    "It's garbage that Vernon should be allowed to play for Portland after he turned us down,” Chapman said. "The rules say the league champion gets the first pick when adding a goaltender.”
    Chapman, who added goaltender Dave Ross from the Kamloops Junior Oilers, later apologized.
    "I was wrong because if Mike Vernon didn't want to play for us, Dave Ross would have rode a bike from New Haven to be in this series,” Chapman said. "I was flogging a dead horse.”
    Unfortunately for the Broncos, they were out of this tournament almost before it got started.
    One of the problems associated with a four-team tournament was that it had to start on Saturday and one team could be done by Monday.
    Which is what happened to Lethbridge.
    But we're getting ahead of ourselves . . .
    The tournament opened on May 7 with a doubleheader -- 5,735 fans watched Oshawa whip Lethbridge 8-2 and 7,346 fans saw Portland open with a 7-6 victory over Verdun.
    Defenceman Norm Schmidt, who was coming off a severe leg injury, and Gans had two goals each for Oshawa, which led 1-0 after one period before outscoring Lethbridge 4-1 in the second. Cirella, Dale DeGray, Dan Gratton and Jeff Steffen also scored for the Generals.
    Rich Sutter had both Lethbridge goals.
    In the other Saturday game, Portland, with Vernon in goal, took a 4-1 first-period lead and stretched it to 7-2 after two periods. Verdun then struck for four third-period goals but couldn't get the equalizer.
    Sasser and Neely had two goals each for the Winter Hawks, with singles coming from Yaremchuk, Heath and Curt Brandolini.
    Gallant, with two, Cool, LaFontaine, Jacques Sylvestre and Daniel Roy replied for Verdun, which outshot Portland 44-31.
    On May 8, Verdun beat Lethbridge 4-3 in front of 5,764 fans and Portland doubled up on Oshawa 10-5 with 6,070 fans in attendance.
    Verdun got two goals from Sylvestre and singles from Gallant and Roy as it took a 4-2 lead into the third period.
    Krook pulled the Broncos to within one at 13:45 of the third period but that was as close as they would get.
    Again, Rich Sutter scored twice for the Broncos, who outshot Verdun, 47-33.
    In the other Sunday game, Oshawa scored the game's first two goals and actually took a 3-2 lead into the second period. The Winter Hawks outscored the Generals 4-2 in the second and then got the only four goals of the third period.

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