Memorial Cup Flashback: Drugs Hat Reigns In Again-To-Again Wins In 1987 And 1988

Memorial Cup Flashback: Drugs Hat Reigns In Again-To-Again Wins In 1987 And 1988

To discover ways to win, generally it’s important to lose.

 

It was a painful lesson for the Drugs Hat Tigers to review within the spring of 1986.

 

The Tigers had roared into the playoffs after breezing by the common season with an astonishing 54-17-1 record- a run that helped them clinch the Scotty Munro Memorial Trophy as common season champions for the primary time and stays probably the most profitable common season in franchise historical past.

 

However all of that success went out the window after they had been dispatched by the Kamloops Blazers in 5 quick video games within the 1986 WHL Championship Collection.

 

Whereas the next season noticed gamers like rookie and future Vancouver Canucks nice Trevor Linden burst onto the scene, the group was additionally shifting on with out strong veterans, together with Captain Al Conroy, who had aged out of the league.

 

Drugs Hat opted to not identify a captain in Conroy’s absence, as an alternative shifting ahead with 5 alternates – a rarity on the time.

 

In 1986-87, the Tigers had been capable of climb the mountain with a seven-game win over the Portland Winter Hawks to say the group’s second-ever WHL Championship and transfer on to the 1987 Memorial Cup in Oshawa, Ontario.

 

Drugs Hat dominated the match with flashy offensive talent, lockdown defence, bruising powerful guys and all-star goaltending.

 

Whereas the Tigers dropped their opening match to the host Oshawa Generals 5-3, they didn’t blink after that, defeating the Longueil Chevaliers in three straight conferences earlier than throttling the Generals 6-2 to raise the Memorial Cup for the primary time.

 

All-Star defenceman Wayne McBean was named the winner of the Stafford Smythe Memorial Trophy because the match’s most dear player- although he didn’t understand it on the time.

 

“I wasn’t even sure that it was me that won because they announced it in French,” McBean chuckled. “Our team was such a good team. It was a collective effort, and it was an award that basically anybody on our team could have won there. There could have been seven different MVPs on our team, and I was just lucky enough to be picked.”

 

The cyclical nature of junior hockey meant Drugs Hat’s dominant window might simply shut the subsequent season, with gamers like McBean and Head Coach Bryan Maxwell shifting on to the skilled ranks.

 

Basic Supervisor Russ Farwell tapped blueliner Dean Chynoweth to be the group’s subsequent captain and introduced in new bench boss Barry Melrose, who was contemporary off of retiring from a 10-year professional enjoying career- and fewer than impressed with the group he was helming in 1987-88.

 

“At Christmastime, we were in sixth place, his first coaching job, and he wondered what the hell he walked into,” Chynoweth recalled. “We didn’t get out of the gate very well. We had fat cat syndrome. I’ll never forget, we played New Westminster, the old Bruins that are no longer, we lost that game and we had a practice before getting ready to get on the bus to go to Seattle. Barry Melrose called us all to the centre circle and just unleashed on us.”

 

The wake-up name marked a turning level.

 

Drugs Hat steadily improved and acquired a lift with the return of McBean after the 1988 IIHF World Junior Championship. As he remembers it, the Tigers went 22-0 to roll into the playoffs.

 

The Tabbies had been close to unstoppable within the postseason, incomes a bye by the primary spherical, eliminating Prince Albert in six video games and sweeping the Saskatoon Blades within the Division Last to arrange a rematch of the 1986 Last towards the Kamloops Blazers, the place they shut down star winger Mark Recchi and firm in six matches.

 

The second journey to the match, held in Chicoutimi, Quebec, in Might of 1988, was additionally tinged with loss.

 

After a very disappointing 5-2 loss to the Windsor Spitfires in round-robin play, the Tigers returned to their resort to study that ahead Neil Brady’s mom, Helen, had handed away after a battle with most cancers.

 

“It felt like losing a member of the team,” McBean stated. “The entire team went to the funeral, and he (Neil) had just been drafted second overall by New Jersey and and Neil and I played midget AAA together and went to Medicine Hat at the same time together… To see the pain that he was going through with his mom, dying of cancer, it affected the entire team, and we all rallied around Neil and and he did an amazing job in just being able to play through that with the situation with his mom.”

 

Rally, they did.

 

The Tigers downed a Hull Olympiques roster that featured a younger Martin Gelinas by a 5-3 rating to make sure a rematch within the title match towards Windsor.

 

At first, the Tabbies appeared destined for a repeat of their round-robin drubbing with Windsor scoring thrice within the opening eight minutes- together with a strike from present Dallas Stars Head Coach Peter Deboer.

 

However the Tigers steadily clawed their method again, tying the sport at 3-3 early within the second interval and Rob DiMaio giving them their first lead of the night time.

 

It got here all the way down to a 6-6 tie with underneath three minutes remaining and extra time looming.

 

With 2:43 on the clock, Chynoweth acquired the puck to DiMaio to tee up Pederson for the game-winning one-timer.

 

DiMaio was named the match’s MVP and Mark Fitzpatrick picked up a second Hap Emms Memorial Trophy for high goaltender.

 

Memorably, Chynoweth, who had performed restricted minutes within the 1987 match because of a damaged rib, skated to centre ice to obtain the Memorial Cup from his father, Ed Chynoweth.

 

“Growing up in a hockey family with the last name I have, I’ve been to a lot of Memorial Cups with my family,” Dean stated. “To get it when I was the Captain was really special. It was years of hard work for everyone involved, different sacrifices, and being able to share with families, friends… It was awesome.”

 

On the time, the Tigers had been the third group and second WHL membership (following the New Westminster Bruins in 1977-87) to win back-to-back Memorial Cups after the institution of the WCHL/WHL.

 

“The first time, there’s kind of a euphoria around the entire dressing room and surprise and excitement, but the second year, it was humbling,” McBean mused. “I bear in mind Dean and I went and had dinner by ourselves, and simply form of mirrored on the second and what we had achieved. I discovered it very surreal and fairly humbling. It was a very, actually superb expertise.

 

Just about in all places I went after Drugs Hat, enjoying within the NHL, it all the time circled again to the Drugs Hat Tigers and the back-to-back Memorial Cup champions and the totally different gamers that we had on the group, how deep we had been and the way superb an expertise it was.”

 

Whereas it could not really feel prefer it occurred yesterday, the gamers have carried the legacy of the accomplishment with them with satisfaction.

 

“Once I got into coaching and I got back to junior, I probably had a greater appreciation of our accomplishments,” Chynoweth added. “When you’re playing, you’re getting ready for the next year, getting ready to turn pro. Later on, when you reflect on it, you come to the realization of, ‘Wow, maybe it was even a bigger accomplishment than we felt at the time’.”

 

The alumni hope to see the most recent version of the Tigers be the subsequent to hoist the CHL’s high prize as round-robin motion continues this week in Rimouski.

 

Drugs Hat opened the match with a 5-4 win over the host Oceanic on Friday night time in entrance of a sellout crowd of greater than 4,500.

 

The Tigers return to the ice on Monday, Might 26, to face the QMJHL Champion Moncton Wildcats at 5:00 p.m. MST.