B00ADOAFYO EBOK (12 page)

The Broncos also were drawing a lot of interest from NHL scouts, who were flocking to their games to watch the likes of Kennedy, Sakic, Wilkie, Soberlak, and Ryan McGill. While watching the Broncos and Medicine Hat one night, veteran scout Glen Sonmor said, “I’ve never been to a single game where so many potential first-round draft picks are playing.”

The Broncos — in this case, Peter Soberlak (16) and Tim Tisdale (13) — loved to apply pressure to the opposing goaltender.
Rod Steensland.

In the end, the Broncos qualified for the playoffs, their 28–40–4 record good enough for the East Division’s sixth and final playoff spot.

On the night they clinched a playoff spot, promotions director John Foster hung up the telephone, stuck out a hand, and delivered the news: “Congratulations, Graham, you’re in the playoffs.”

A chorus of whoops and yells followed: “We’re in! We’re in!” Players and management shouted it loudly and proudly in the dressing room. The players were jumping up and down and stomping their feet.

“This is a great tribute to the players,” James told the
Swift Current Sun
. “It has been a lot of hard work to get this far. It has been a tough grind. There were times when it didn’t look like we were going to make it.”

The Broncos felt a huge sense of relief just to have made the playoffs. But when it came time to restart their engines, they just couldn’t do it. The well finally had run dry. Emotionally, the Broncos were done. At the time of the season when emotion means the most, the Broncos couldn’t find it. The Prince Albert Raiders won the first-round best-of-five series in four games.

“Surviving the tragedy and all it encompassed and going on to make the playoffs, when we could have quit and gone home early, showed the gritty character that was part of each and every one of us,” Wilkie says. “Although we eventually got beat in the first round, we felt pretty good about the season and how it turned out.”

Game 4 of that series was played in Swift Current. The Broncos knew that a loss to the Raiders, who had finished third with a 43–26–3 record, would end their season, and the home team knew the odds were very much against them.

“It was a very emotional night,” Wilkie remembers. “When the game ended, it was almost a relief that it was over. Finally, this season from hell was over.”

The Raiders won that fourth game 7–4, and as it ended the 3,215 fans showed their appreciation with a thunderous standing ovation.

“The fans said it all,” said an emotional John Rittinger, the team’s governor. “That five-minute ovation told the entire story. They were saying, ‘Thanks a lot, we’re mighty proud of you.’”

It was hard to believe that what the Broncos had been through had really happened; that it wasn’t a nightmare. But life, indeed, was moving on.

By season’s end, the Broncos had purchased a new bus; well, a new “used” bus. It was a 1977 model MC8 that was purchased for $100,000 from Beaver Bus Lines of Winnipeg. It had a new motor and a rebuilt standard four-speed transmission with about two hundred thousand kilometres registered. It could seat forty-seven passengers on newly upholstered seats with overhead lights and a washroom in the rear. Unlike the old bus, there was no duct tape anywhere.

The “new” bus was mostly paid for through a fundraising dinner that had been sponsored by the Horseshoe Lodge and had featured Don Cherry as the guest speaker. Grapes even waived his normal fee for such engagements, “to help the Bronco hockey club.” He thrilled the crowd of 285 as he spoke candidly and humorously about his days with the Boston Bruins and Colorado Rockies. When he spoke of the Broncos, he didn’t hold anything back.

“If there was ever a team in the world who could have written off the season, this is it,” he said. “It would have been so easy for them to quit, they’ve had a built-in excuse: losing four friends and teammates. But they didn’t quit.

“It’s an honour for me to be here and do what I can. I get chills thinking about how they made the playoffs through all this. They’ve got amazing character, which is something that can’t be taught.”

The NHL draft was held in Detroit in June. Four Broncos were drafted in the first two rounds. The Quebec Nordiques took Joe Sakic with the fifteenth selection of the first round. Six picks later, the Edmonton Oilers grabbed Peter Soberlak. In the second round, twenty-ninth overall, the Chicago Blackhawks took Ryan McGill. And with the forty-first pick, the Detroit Red Wings took Bob Wilkie. All told, five Broncos were drafted that day, as Ian Herbers was taken by the Buffalo Sabres in the tenth round.

As James would tell the
Sun
, “This is our finest hour. We have already lived the nightmare. Right now, we’re living the dream.”

The 1989 Memorial Cup

A
s
the 1988–89 WHL season began, the Swift Current Broncos’ roster still included six key players who had been on their bus when it crashed on December 30, 1986.

Joe Sakic, the high-scoring centre, was only nineteen years of age, but already had moved on to the NHL’s Quebec Nordiques. Other players, such as forward Tracy Egeland and defencemen Ryan McGill and Clarke Polglase, had been traded. Defenceman Ian Herbers had used up his junior eligibility the previous season and had left for the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Some players — goaltender Pat Nogier and forward Lonnie Spink among them — simply had returned home knowing that hockey no longer was the most important thing in their lives.

However, goaltender Trevor Kruger, defencemen Danny Lambert and Bob Wilkie, and forwards Peter Soberlak, Tim Tisdale, and Sheldon Kennedy were back.

The Broncos also had added some promising young players, including four forwards with tremendous offensive skills: Kimbi Daniels, Peter Kasowski, Geoff Sanderson, and Brian Sakic, Joe’s younger brother. As well, Trevor Kruger’s twin brother, Darren, was on the roster. A defenceman with terrific offensive skills, he would get a lot of ice time and would run the power play.

The players knew that this team had the potential to do great things. And they expected to do well. As the season began, there was a real air of excitement in the dressing room.

The previous season, 1987–88, had been something of a success. The Broncos, coming off the season during which four teammates had died, went 44–26–2, for ninety points.

At first glance, that would seem to be a pretty good record. But it was only good for fourth spot in the eight-team East Division, behind the Saskatoon Blades (ninety-seven points), Medicine Hat Tigers (ninety-four), and Prince Albert Raiders (ninety-one). The Broncos beat the Regina Pats 3–1 in a best-of-five first-round playoff series, but then were beaten 4–2 by the Blades in a best-of-seven series.

Joe Sakic had tied for the WHL scoring title, but he was gone now and people were wondering how the Broncos would make up for having lost his incredible offensive and leadership skills.

The 1988–89 season started with a bang, especially for Tim Tisdale, a home-grown centre who was a quiet, unassuming guy off the ice. On the ice, however, it was a different story: he was a gifted scorer who let his stick do the talking. A back injury that required surgery had limited him to thirty-two games in 1987–88, but now he was back and he was healthy.

The
Swift Current Sun
reported that Tisdale, then twenty, was “playing the arsonist, burning the Regina Pats and Moose Jaw Warriors for ten points in two games as the Broncos opened the 1988–89 season with a pair of one-goal decisions.”

Obviously, Tisdale was making up for lost time. Still, even he was surprised at his golden touch. “I knew I could go out and help the offence,” he told the
Sun
, “but I never dreamed it would start like this. I’m shooting the puck better and more often. Last [season], I used to carry it a lot and always look for the open man. Now I am taking the shots. I think I’ve had fifteen in two games, and I had nine against Regina alone.”

Tisdale also admitted that he had felt pressure the previous season, pressure that no longer was there. “There isn’t as much pressure as last [season],” he explained. “That was my first year as a veteran and that’s when I knew I had to be a leader.”

Those two opening victories came on the road, and the Broncos didn’t cool off. By mid-October, they had won eight straight games, the last one an 8–2 victory over the visiting Warriors. The Broncos won despite the fact that the team’s general manager and head coach, Graham James, was kicked out after loudly criticizing the referee. In a bizarre twist, two players — Peter Soberlak and Dan Lambert — took over the coaching reins because assistant coach Lorne Frey was away on a brief vacation.

As it turned out, the game wasn’t a whole lot about hockey as it included irate fans, thirty-two penalties, and one of the Broncos, Mark McFarlane — an eighteen-year-old right winger from Amherst, Nova Scotia — scaling the partition separating the two penalty boxes and clambering through the timekeeper’s bench in an attempt to get at Moose Jaw defenceman Paul Giokas in the third period. As that went on, the scoreboard suddenly lost power.

Finally, in true WWE fashion, the always quotable James stated, “This was the worst display of officiating I have seen since Hulk Hogan lost his title. The refereeing was ridiculous!”

While the Broncos were getting plenty of offence from Tisdale, they weren’t a one-man show. Trevor Kruger and Sheldon Kennedy were respectively named the East Division’s goaltender and player of the month for October. Kruger had been in goal as the Broncos opened with twelve victories. He posted a 4.24 goals-against average — these were the days of firewagon hockey; the trap had yet to make its way into the WHL. Kennedy had a whopping thirty-three points in thirteen October games. He led the WHL in goals (twenty) and power-play goals (twelve).

Off the ice, the Broncos were enjoying solid fan support. Their average home attendance was 2,339, with a season-ticket base of 1,250, numbers that were rather impressive for such a small community. When Moose Jaw visited on Remembrance Day, the game drew a season-high 2,626 fans, perhaps because folks were looking for a WWE-type rematch.

“[The attendance] is up a little bit,” James told the
Sun
, “but we had tremendous support all of last [season], too. We’ve had some good dates this year, the team has been winning, and we play an exciting style of hockey. The weather has also been good for our games so we’ve had a combination of a lot of things in our favour.”

Sheldon Kennedy’s speed often left him one on one with goaltenders.
Rod Steensland.

James further stated that “the community seems to really take to this team and hopefully it will continue. I guess surprised isn’t the word, because nothing surprises me, but we are very happy.

“I think it is the type of hockey we play, and we have a lot of players who the fans can identify with. That’s something we try not to lose touch with in our scouting. It’s good to have players like [Sheldon] Kennedy and [Dan] Lambert and hopefully we’ll have a few more in the future.”

The fans also loved the Broncos’ spirit, which was never more in evidence than in a wild November matchup in Medicine Hat. The Broncos, who trailed 6–1 at one point, won 7–6 in overtime.

“It was unbelievable,” Frey said. “You can’t even imagine what it’s like. It’s impossible to comprehend what happened tonight. To be down 6–1 and totally out of it, then come back and win it — it’s unbelievable.”

During the game, with the Broncos struggling in the second period, James decided to keep the players at the bench for the second intermission. The players were forced to endure the Medicine Hat hecklers. “He was really disappointed at how we played in our first two periods. We were atrocious. The second was probably our worst period of hockey all year,” Frey told the
Sun
.

By the time the Christmas break arrived, the Broncos had won twenty-eight of thirty-three games and were on a ten-game winning streak. After Christmas, the streak reached twelve before it was halted on New Year’s Eve afternoon, when the Broncos were beaten 8–6 by the Tigers in Medicine Hat. The Broncos were without Soberlak (he had the flu), while Kennedy and Lambert were playing for Canada at the World Junior Championship in Alaska.

Tisdale had been unhappy with that performance and was determined to rebound in the rematch, which, as luck would have it, was scheduled for Swift Current on New Year’s Day. He had two goals and four assists, and Wilkie had a shorthanded goal in the second period. The Broncos whipped the Tigers 8–2.

“We always seem to play well when we score the first goal,” James told the
Sun
. “That was important, especially after we lost our last game. It gave us a psychological edge.”

In the end, the Broncos won six of seven games without Kennedy and Lambert. “I wasn’t surprised at all,” Kennedy said upon his return. “I knew we had a lot of talent and I knew we were still capable of winning. We still had Tisdale, Kasowski, Wilkie, and Kruger, who are good hockey players, and … Kimbi Daniels and those guys came up big.”

In December, the WHL had announced that James, for the second consecutive season, would be the East Division’s head coach at the All-Star Game that would be played in Brandon on January 24. The head coaches came from the teams with the best record in each division after thirty-four games.

“I enjoyed my stint as [all-star] coach last year and I’m looking forward to it again this year,” James told the
Sun
, also noting that there were “going to be some hurt feelings” when he announced which players would be going with him to the game. He certainly was right about that.

In mid-January, it was announced that five Broncos — Kennedy, Tisdale, Lambert, and the Kruger brothers, Darren and Trevor — would join James, Frey, and trainer Grant Farquhar on the East Division team.

The WHL’s 1987–88 East Division all-star team. Note that the front and back rows are reversed in the caption on the photo.
Courtesy of Bob Wilkie.

The WHL’s 1988–89 East Division all-star team.
Courtesy of Bob Wilkie.

Wilkie says he “was devastated not to have been selected.” And, in reflection, he admits that he was by now starting to realize that James wasn’t all he pretended to be. “Earlier in the season, Graham had told me he was going to recommend me for the Canadian team that would play at the World Junior Championship,” Wilkie says. “Well, that didn’t happen, so I was really upset when my name wasn’t on the roster of the East Division all-star team, especially because Graham had hinted on many occasions that I would be there.

“This was typical of his behaviour and I now was beginning to see Graham James for the masterful manipulator that he truly was.”

In their next game, the Broncos ambushed the Brandon Wheat Kings 9–5, and Kennedy, Kyle Reeves, and Wilkie set a WHL record by scoring three goals in sixteen seconds. That broke the record of seventeen seconds that had been shared by the 1967–68 Winnipeg Jets and the 1970–71 Saskatoon Blades. (It would later be broken by the Kelowna Rockets, who lowered it to twelve seconds on February 17, 1996.)

Wilkie learned on January 18 that he would play in the All-Star Game after all, as an injury-replacement for Brandon defenceman Kevin Cheveldayoff of the Wheat Kings (the same Kevin Cheveldayoff who is now the general manager of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets). The West Division won the game 5–1 before 2,933 fans. The game is mostly remembered for a hit by Tri-City Americans defenceman Steve Jaques on centre Mike Modano of the Prince Albert Raiders, who had been the first overall pick by the then–Minnesota North Stars in the 1988 NHL draft. Modano, a highly skilled centre who went on to a brilliant NHL career, emerged with a broken scaphoid, and at the time there was much concern shown for his condition.

And then it was back to Swift Current and on with the season.…