From Pastime to Formal Sport

Chapter 3 The 1970s From Pastime to Formal Sport

The 1970s saw Saskatchewan’s prosperity continue in both rural and urban areas.

Agriculture prices were high and resource industries such as petroleum and mining were adding both jobs and revenue to the provincial economy. In the cities, the baby boom generation, both men and women, joined the work force in growing numbers. Sports continued to be an important part of society, with quarterback Ron Lancaster and fullback George Reed of the

Saskatchewan Roughriders making the team a serious contender, although never a winner, for the Grey Cup. As always, hockey was popular with fans cheering the skills of Bobby Orr and the five championships won by the Montreal Canadiens. Although only a few individuals could become professional athletes, more and more people took up sports for recreation and fitness, urged on by Participation advertisements which stated that most sixty-year-old Swedes were fitter than thirty-year-old Canadians. This combination of disposable income and an interest in physical activity led to a growth in many sports, including broomball. In this decade, more people took up the game, organizers established a provincial governing body to standardize rules and arrange competitions, and provincial and national championships began.

Leagues and Local Tournaments

The leagues which had started in the 1960s in several towns and cities continued and expanded in the 1970s, with games scheduled over several weeks during the winter. Both men and women from a district, a workplace, or a team in another sport decided to give broomball a try. They found a coach or organizer, looked for a sponsor to provide funds for league fees and 2 uniforms, and began competing against both new and established local teams. Since teams usually took the names of their sponsors, name changes were common as sponsors withdrew or were replaced. Individuals also moved from team to team, sometimes being recruited for their skills or looking for a different kind of social or competitive experience.

One small centre which remained a broomball hotbed was Bruno. Player Bernie Huber remembers that his team, the Braves dominated the local four- or five-team league:

We had our nucleus of guys and we were pretty serious. We always kept about two lines

and then if one guy would quit, I guess because I was teaching I knew the good athletes

that were coming up and that were interested. So we’d pick up one or two guys as the

older guys were dropping off, or moved away. And we kept that nucleus.1

Two other members of that nucleus were Dennis Dauvin, who remained with Huber on the team for about fifteen years, and star goaltender Donnie Buckle who played without either gloves or a mask:

Some of these guys would hammer the ball and he would stand in there. I thought it was

fantastic how somebody could do that. He used to have big welts on him. I mean those

balls were hard.2

Sometimes opponent Brian Saip remembers Buckle’s size and special abilities:

There he was, bigger than life. I’ll never forget his apple red cheeks, and his barrel chest.

But mostly there was those gigantic hands. He played bare handed and I swear he

literally caught the ball one-handed in mid-air. It was like he had a pair of trapper mitts

on the end of each arm. 3

For a big man his reflexes were very fast and he was as nimble as a cat. More

than one broomball player would be left shaking his head in disbelief every game. Yes,

Buckles was amazing!!3

Several other teams formed in Bruno and surrounding towns. The Selects provided serious competition which occasionally resulted in fights, but left no animosity and eventually ended when the two teams united in 1974 and started competing in the Saskatoon league as the

Selects. Another team, started by a group of farm boys from north of Bruno, was the Cubs, which later became the Axemen. The nearby communities of Peterson, Humboldt, and Viscount also had teams who competed regularly on Saturday nights, a time specially reserved for league play.

Whitkow, north of Saskatoon, was another small community with a big interest in broomball. There the Aces competed in a league against neighbouring teams from Mayfair,

Keatley, Robbit Lake, Glenbush, Hafford, Leask, Marclin and Krydor. Paul Hupaelo and his brother Victor helped start the teams in both Marcelin and Krydor, with Paul remembering some of his skilful teammates on the Rockets: “We had Donald Lavallee, Edward Lavallee – dammit they were good, they could score goals. Eddie Hupaelo was another good one.”4 Paul’s friend

Wayne Horner played on the Blaine Lake Redman and remembers their top players, Wayne

Sand, speedy Evan Savoie, sharpshooter Neil Lavoie, and goaltender Frank Mazurak: “We had to have him as the goalie, because he organized everything so he played where he wanted.”5 As in most other centres, competition between these teams was intense.

Interest in broomball grew in Melfort in northern Saskatchewan grew in the 1970s, particularly the local newspaper sponsored a team called the Melfort Journal. In addition to 4 financial support, the paper publicized the game which helped teams get better ice time. By

1975, three local teams formed a league with those from Tisdale, Star City, St. Brieux, and possibly Beatty, according to competitor Doug Holeien. Holeien played with his two brothers and other hockey players on the Melfort Colt 45s, the strongest team in the area. Their main competitors were the Star City Speedballs, a team which, as its name implies, relied on quickness rather than the physical style of the Colts. Holein became one of broomball’s greatest promoters and was instrumental in getting the game played all winter because he notes, “it was just too good of a game to be played only in the spring.”6 He explains his passion by noting some of the game’s unique features:

They [his teammates] were your best friends, they were my best friends without a doubt.

If you go to a hockey team today and try out, everybody’s strangers to start with. But

these guys were all your best friends, relatives and friends, something that you’d been

asked to do together. Some of the guys were a little younger, some guys were a little

order. Even a nephew could play on the same team as his uncle. I had quite a few

nephews play on my team and it was a real privilege to play with these young kids and

they could play with their uncles, like their Uncle Doug, or Uncle Herb or Uncle Lester.7

Yorkton, also in eastern Saskatchewan, was another area where broomball established itself during this decade. Player and organizer Craig Grunert remembers that play began outdoors but then moved inside the two rinks by 1975 with six teams from the city and the nearby communities of Hyas and Ebenezer competing in a league. The game became so popular that the number teams doubled within five years. There were two teams of teachers, one from the RCMP, and another from the Armed Forces base which included players from Quebec.

Some of the teams were just recreational but others, including Grunert’s Ebenezer teammates, 5 took the game more seriously: “The biggest thing I remember is guys just wanting to pound the ball. The old guys would play D and they would pound the ball and the younger guys would play forward and they’d go after it.”8 Grunert remembers that the intensity increased by the end of the season: “When we met in the playoffs, the rink would be packed. It was a pretty fierce rivalry actually. Off the ice we were all friends and we knew each other. But on the ice it was pretty competitive.”9

Not to be left out in the cold (although perhaps they were in the literal sense because games were initially played on outdoor rinks), the southeast corner of the province around

Estevan adopted the sport of broomball. Lewis Durr joined the Cobras, a team made up of his colleagues at SaskPower. The Cobras dominated a league which included five or six teams, including ones from nearby Torquay and Midale. The game attracted men who were not skilled enough to play on adult hockey teams. Gord Luther, another Estevan player, put together a pick- up team to play in a 1971 winter festival. He and his teammates enjoyed themselves so much that they stayed together, talked Fred’s Wood Works into paying for sweaters, and played outdoor games against any willing opponents. By the fall of 1976, there was enough interest to form an indoor league with eight teams, which played scheduled games in Torquay and Midale.

Luther, as president of the league, tried to make the game safer for participants: “We set up rules for slashing and things like that, adding similar rules to hockey. People were getting hurt, sticks were flying too hard and too high and people were getting injured.”10 The league also purchased balls and had proper nets built so that teams did not have to supply their own. The players in

Estevan also found two other ways to promote the game. Beginning in 1978, they ended their season with a game between the league champions and an all-star group from all the other teams.

Also, with some assistance from local Carling’s representative Pat Casey, Luther and his 6 teammates arranged an exhibition game at the nearby White Bear Reserve, which he remembers as a positive experience:

Those guys knew how to hit. They couldn’t really pass, but they knew how to hit.

They were a bunch of good guys. We sat in the dressing room and everybody

was sharing their beer and their wine. We had a real good time.11

Lloydminster, on Saskatchewan’s western border, continued as a broomball centre in the

1970s, at first with casual play among three or four teams, some from neighbouring Alberta.

One of the earliest teams was known as the Dirty Dozen. Vern Falscheer began playing at age sixteen and after his first year on an older team, found peers to join a team which became known as the Capri Sunrise after their two sponsors, the Capri Hotel and Sunrise Oilfield. These teams and others began an informal league by mid-decade, a league which grew to thirteen men’s teams and five or six women’s teams in about ten years. These players, like most others in the province, had inconsistent rules and equipment, which became more standardized by the end of the decade. For example, referee Jack Duvall, who came from North Battleford to Lloydminster to officiate and a welder by trade, was upset by the continued use of hockey goals. Falscheer remembers him providing regulation replacements:

I think we paid him $100 and we supplied the material and he built them and brought

them down. We still have them, we still use them. We have two sets, we bought a

factory-made set and we still have Jack’s nets.12

Moose Jaw had an active broomball community, with teammates Ken Daniels and Rusty

Pagan as two of its most active members. Even before 1970, the city could boast an indoor league which played in three different time slots on Wednesdays and Sundays, with games 7 beginning about ten o’clock at night and ending after one in the morning. Pagan was goalkeeper for the Bruins, the league’s top team, and also appointed himself team statistician:

One year we had nine guys on the team in the top ten scoring for the league. We went

through thirty-five games once and had a record of thirty-two wins and three ties. And

actually, in that thirty-five game season, I actually had twenty-three shutouts. We had a

really good team. I’ve never seen a team in Moose Jaw that were as good as we were,

and I’m not bragging. There were some good players on the other teams. But I think it

was the camaraderie that did it.13

Pagan credits this team spirit to weekly barbecues, parties, and fundraising bees such as one which raised about $1400 for uniforms.

Daniels was one of the Bruins’ strongest players in spite of a very rough introduction during his first game, when he was cross-checked and suffered fractured ribs. However, he kept playing and won several trophies for both the most goals and the most points during play in the league which sometimes has as many as a dozen teams. During the mid-1970s, the team from the Air Force Base in the city included several players from Ontario and Quebec, two strongholds of broomball at this time. The Bruins often met these teams in the city playoffs and managed to defeat them, mainly because of Daniels’ skills. Pagan remembers one particularly spectacular performance:

We were playing overtime in our playoffs here. First they pulled the goalies, then they

played for two minutes, then they dropped it down by one player. Well they were down

to two-on-to and it was Kenny Daniels and Kenny Anderson out on the ice. They had

gone quite a while and as it happens, Kenny Anderson got a penalty. At that time it was 8

three minutes non-stop. Kenny was out there by himself against two guys for three

minutes. He ragged that ball and they never even got a sniff at it for that penalty – at all.

They never even got it away from him. Then when Kenny Anderson got out from his

penalty, Kenny Daniels took that ball down and scored. That was amazing. And it

comes up every time we have a party. Some guys even do the play-by-play. His ball

control was unbelievable.14

Broomball in North Battleford was dominated by Jim Poitras, whose nickname was

Jimmy P. Among his many contributions was the organization of a team with an unusual name,

HELP. This was an acronym for the team’s motto: Help every little person. The team was proud of its name, which it displayed first of all on white T-shirts with the name written on the front in black tape. They later acquired regular uniforms, but those were often in ugly colours because as league president Poitras felt that other teams should get their choices first. HELP began playing against rural teams in the area until there were enough city teams, including one called 12 Plus One (the name reflecting the one woman who played), to form their own league.

At first they played outdoors until Poitras was able to work out a special arrangement with Father

Syl Lewans of St. Thomas College in North Battleford:

St. Thomas College had excess ice time there and Father Lewans was pretty strict on

lending out any ice to organizations because it was always interfering with the boys there.

So I talked to him and he was very, very good to us. He gave me the key and told me that

he would allot us ice time on conditions that we would open up atthe rink and I would

have to be the last dog there to make sure the rink was locked at night. We also had to

get a group of guys to flood the ice, make sure the ice was perfect when we left. We had

to make sure our broomball nets were off the ice and replaced with their hockey nets. If 9

we did all that, and made sure our dressing rooms were cleaned up, he says, “You can

have your beer, drink it in the dressing rooms if you want, make sure they’re all picked

up, piled up and leave the bottles in the room.” I think he charged us something like $10

or $15 per game. It was just unbelievable because that was all that was required to pay,

as long as we did all that other stuff. So I had a full-time job all winter. Even when our

team wasn’t playing, I had to go and open the rink up and close it up. The next year after

that someone else took over my rink job.15

In spite of some controversies, one of which resulted in the Sweetgrass First Nation team being removed from the league and another which had Poitras’s teammate Jack Duval being barred for knocking out an opponent, the North Battleford Blues Broomball League thrived. A 1977 newspaper article listed the results for nine teams, each of which had played twenty-one games with HELP with the best record of 18-2-1, and noted that HELP had four of the league’s top five scorers.16 An undated article, probably from 1978 years showed only six teams, but HELP retained its top position.17 Many of the North Battleford players were of First Nation ancestry, with one of the teams sponsored by the local Friendship Centre.

League play of course continued in Saskatchewan’s big cities. In Saskatoon, broomball had become popular enough to attract media attention. In 1972, for example, the Star-Phoenix announced the start of league play with a full-page story with five photographs and a headline reading “Broomball—action fast, furious, frantic and full of fun.”18 The article also described the league’s participants and plans:

The Saskatoon Commercial Broomball League swung into action last weekend

plays league games twice a week this year. 10

Games are played Sunday in Warman and Tuesday the action switches to

Langham. The six-team league includes Star-Trailer Court, Saskatoon Aces, Warman

Rovers, United Soccer Club, O’Keefe’s Breweries and Bruno Selects who will play a 45-

game schedule.

Each team carries 20 players and plays under Western Canada Broomball rules.

The league’s big event, the Golden Broom Tournament is slated for Warman Feb. 14.

League president is Jim Edwards, who also plays with Star Trailer Court.

Star Trailer Court won the city championship last season with O’Keefes the most

improved team. Bruno is a new entry this season.

Top scorer last season was Earle McRae of Aces.19

For the rest of the decade, results of league play regularly appeared in the newspaper.

These showed the growth of the game, since by the 1977-78 season, there were eleven men’s teams. In that year, as in earlier ones, the top team was the Aces, whose player Roger Malmgren won the award as top scorer on at least two occasions. Opponents who played the Aces in tournaments, such as Doug Holeien of Melfort, describe his talents:

Roger was likely one of the nicest broomball players to play for or against. But he was

competitive; old Roger the Dodger, he’d be in the middle of it. He’s a big boy and

there’s kids on his team who were bigger than him.20

Another opponent, Rod Simaluk, describes Malmgram’s teammates:

The Aces were such an interesting team. They were older fellas, I think they had a rural

background. But what I remember most about playing them was that they were men. If 11

you went into the corner and you hammered an opponent hard, if it was a young punk,

he’d get chippy and all that. But if it was a Saskatoon Ace, he’d say in a big, gravelly

voice, “Good hit.” They were men. And when you went to shake their hands after the

game, they just had such large hands. They were just such big, large men.21

By the end of the 1970s, women as well as men were involved in league play in

Saskatoon. The earlier teams had disbanded in 1971, but by 1977 there was enough interest to revive it. Player Mary Pshebylow was delighted to compete again even though she was in her mid-forties, and her team, the Saints, developed a fierce rivalry with the Patricia Pats, who were coached by long-time player and organizer Terry Forbes. The best-of-three game final between these two teams was a hotly contested affair. The first two games ended in ties of 0-0, and the third game went into overtime with the same score and had to be settled in overtime, played with no goaltenders and four players per side. The Saints were overjoyed when Melanie Woods was able to score the only goal of the entire series, and the fans in the stands helped the players celebrate by singing When the Saints Go Marching In, the team’s theme song.22

Like Saskatoon, Regina also had an active and growing men’s league in the 1970s, with women becoming involved by the end of the decade. By 1979, there were fourteen men’s teams, seven each in the A and B leagues, and six women’s teams.23 Although detailed records of schedules, venues, and results are missing for many of the years, existing undated newspaper clippings show that games were played in at least one city rink, the Optimist, usually late at night with draws often at 9:30 in the evening, but sometimes at late as midnight. Pilot Butte, a small community east of Regina, fielded a team in the league, while the others came from the city. 12

Continuing from the previous decade, in the early 1970s the Lumberjacks and the Seals were the two top men’s teams. Seals’ player Bob McAfee recalls this rivalry: “When games were played there was more contact and stuff like that, trying to intimidate the other team to get them to play your style.”24 In one game the competition became so intense that McAfee and

Lumberjack player Jerome Zimmer started a fight on the ice which then carried on in the hallway heading to the dressing room. This ended with both players bleeding and injured enough to require emergency treatment, which Zimmer remembers ended rather ironically:

When this happened they took us to the hospital and my wife’s with his wife and they’re

both sitting there talking. They didn’t know each other at the time, and here Bob and I

are laying in bed in the same room, him on one bed and me on the other bed.25

In spite of this confrontation, the next season McAfee and Zimmer were teammates on the Seals, both playing for coach Gerry Frei, to whom both men give credit for much of the Seals’ success.

By mid-decade, a new team was challenging for Regina broomball supremacy. This team had a variety of sponsors and thus a variety of names: they were first the Jolly Roger, then the Sportsman named after Sportsman Sporting Goods (which was frequently misspelled as

Sportsmen in newspaper articles, especially in Saskatoon), and finally at the end of the decade

Alford’s after sponsor Alford’s Flooring. Sportsman’s star player, Joe Schlechter, remembers the final playoff game of the 1976-77 season, when the team claimed its first of many city championships:

It was the last game of the series, I remember, and in those days the overtime rule was

after regulation play after every two minutes and nobody scored, you would remove a

player from the ice. We were right down to two players on the ice. It was Randy Shaw 13

and myself and Murray Achen and Kevin Vogt [of the Lumberjacks). I remember I

wanted to get off the ice so bad, I was so tired but my team wouldn’t let me off.

They wouldn’t let me off because Murray Achen was their best player and I was

the Sportsman’s best player and both of us were looking at each other and we were so

tired but we weren’t allowed to get off the ice. We had to play the whole bloody

overtime. I’ll never forget, the ball was in my end and I was so bloody tired and I

remember Murray passing the ball to Kevin and he was just winding up to shoot it in an

open net and I came out of nowhere and made an incredible save. The ball bounced off

and I shot it off to Randy Shaw and they were both trapped. Randy got a breakaway and

all I remember was running and I couldn’t run any more. I saw Murray Achen throw his

broom along the ice and I knew that was it – we won the city championship. Of course

we went crazy after that.26.

Along with Schlechter, whose skills included speed, agility, and a scoring punch,

Sportsman had several other talented players. Brothers Gary and Randy Shaw played on the forward line with Schlechter. Another pair of brothers, Ted and Bobby Boa, contributed, with

Ted on defence blocking “more shots than our goaltender,” according to Schlechter, and former

Regina Ram football player Rod Simaluk always first back on defence.27 The team also had an enforcer, Terry Hincks, whom Similuk remembers having a special talent for that role:

He was the best good I’ve ever met on the ice. But he also had some skills and he was a

very personable guy. He was just a very physically imposing guy. I think he was 6’2”,

260 pounds and it was just muscle, there was no fat.28 14

Ted Boa acquired almost legendary status among broomball players for two reasons. He had the unique talent of being able to run on the boards as well as on the ice, so he could easily get around unsuspecting defenders. Perhaps because of this, he was chosen as the model for the

SBA’s logo, which showed his Sportsman uniform and his number 13.

The Sportsman also benefited from two men who contributed off the ice. One was coach

Steve Peel, who directed the team for the entire decade. Peel’s players considered him ruthless, willing to use any tactic necessary to win. Schlechter remembers one season when the coach motivated him with anger, getting him to work to add more power to his shot even though he had been the league’s leading scorer the previous season. He had the same philosophy when recruiting players he felt would improve the team. When Brian Saip first played against the

Sportsman, he hit a player hard enough to give him a concussion, an action that impressed Peel so much that he asked Saip to join his squad. Saip turned down the request to stay with his friends, but a few days later his coach told him he was being released to make time for older players to get more ice team. When Saip, only nineteen at the time, phoned Peel to see about playing for him, Peel criticized the other coach’s actions, but before long Saip realized that Peel had orchestrated events, living up to his nickname, the Manipulator. As Saip states, “What Steve wanted, he got.”29

The other man who helped the Sportsman win was Wayne Alford who was sponsoring the team by the end of the decade. Alford was very generous with his funding, providing $7,000 for each of two seasons as well as extra expense money for the players.30 At tournaments and especially after victories, he took the team out for meals and drinks all at his expense, and allowed the players to keep any prize money they won. This helped the team in two ways. The 15 players were able to travel a lot and thus improve their game with the extra competition, and the money was a good incentive when trying to recruit new talent for the team.

By 1976, after a five year absence, women again took up broomball in Regina, forming a league which had six teams by the end of the decade. Two of the early organizers were Jennifer

Soen and Darlene Solie. Solie found that it was difficult to recruit players to a sport where most of the games were played late at night, so she joined a field hockey team at the University of

Regina primarily for the purpose of convincing her athletic teammates to take up broomball.31

Solie found a sponsor, the Bok-o-ria Restaurant, so her team was known as the Bok-o-ria

Broombusters. She also began each season by putting together a book for each team player, listing the roster, the schedule, newspaper clippings reviewing the previous year’s season, and candid photographs of players and events. The Broombusters were one of the two top teams, with Solie as leading scorer, but in the spring of 1979, after winning the league in regular season play, they lost 1-0 to their archrivals, the Packettes, in the playoffs. In the next season, they vowed to do better, beginning by recruiting Joe Schlechter as their coach. This put Schlechter in a rather awkward situation at times, since his wife Patti played on another team, the Chimos.

In addition to regular league play, many broomball players took part in weekend tournaments which were held all over the province. Early in the decade, most of these took place in the spring, after the ice in arenas had become too soft and wet for hockey. Gord Luther of

Estevan remember playing in a final in Redvers with about three or four inches of water on the ice,32 and Regina player Bob McAfee recalls looking “like motor boat because the water is coming off me as I’m sliding along in the water” in Balgonie.33 However, for many players, this could be their only chance to play indoors. Tournaments often began as Saturday events, with play beginning early in the morning and the final taking place late at night, but many quickly 16 grew to two-day affairs. They offered cash prizes which helped players cover the costs of travelling to them; when he was playing with the Seals McAfee remembers “if we went to a tournament and took first prize and won $350 we were laughing.”34 The larger tournaments offered B and sometimes C events to try and attract teams of all levels.

By mid-decade, tournaments had become more numerous as Rod Simaluk of the

Sportsman remembers:

After Christmas, every weekend there was a tournament – you’d go somewhere. Every

small town had a broomball tournament and God, there were teams. You’d go to

Saskatoon and there’d be thirty-two or forty-eight teams. It was just phenomenal.35

In the Melfort district, for example, Doug Holeien remembers that many years there were six or seven tournaments, with Tisdale, Nipawin, Star City, Beatty, and Kinistino and sometimes two teams in Melfort as hosts.36 Other areas of the province were similar, so teams could compete extensively without having to travel too far. One of Terry Forbes’ Saskatoon teammates kept track of the number of games he played in one year, which totalled 160.37 Vern Falscheer of

Lloydminster remembers actually trying to play in two different tournaments in two different places on the same weekend on one occasion, one in Maidstone and another in Jackfish Lake, planning to split the team in half if the games conflicted. However, when they got to Jackfish

Lake and discovered they would be playing outdoors on a rink with only snowbanks for borders, they pulled out of that event.38

Some of the tournaments were held in connection with winter festivals such as Waskimo held on Wascana Lake in Regina in February. Several broomball players remember getting their first taste of the game at this event, which was played on rinks bordered by snow fences stuck 17 into snowbanks. Bob McAfee put together a group of friends from a pool hall, called themselves the Hustlers, and took on a team made up of Saskatchewan Roughriders. The game was rough enough to knock down all the surrounding fences, and one of the Hustlers used his broom to knock a cigar from the mouth of Rider defensive back Geno Wlasuik during an argument. The

Hustlers won 2-1, and McAfee soon joined the Regina Seals to play the game more seriously.39

Brian Saip also started his broomball career at Waskimo, playing with makeshift equipment with his grade ten classmates. One of them couldn’t stop and went sliding through the snowfence:

“He was stuck there and the game just kept on going. Finally one of us went and pulled him out.”40 Like McAfee, Saip continued to play after this and eventually joined Sportsman.

Of all the local tournaments, the one which came to be the most important and has lasted the longest was in Saskatoon. It started in 1971, named the Golden Broom after a beer produced by the sponsor, Molsons. When Molsons withdrew after a few years and was replaced by

Carlings, the new sponsor refused to use the name of a competitor’s product, so it was permanently renamed the Gold Broom.

This tournament grew substantially in size and prominence during the 1970s. In 1974, a small article in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix outlined the upcoming event:

The Saskatoon Commercial Men’s Broomball League is preparing for the fourth annual

Golden Broom tournament Feb. 9-10 in Warman and Langham.

The tourney will be a 16-team, three-event invitational tournament with total prize

money of $1,100. The defending champion Bruno Braves lead the list of teams. 18

Other teams that will be invited include Thompson and Brandon, Man.,

Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge and Red Deer along with Regina, Moose Jaw, Rabbit

Lake, Balgonie and Saskatoon squads.

Entry fee per team is $100.41

By 1977, organizers were offering $2,000 in prize money and expecting twenty-four to thirty teams, and were also staging an exhibition game between all-star teams from the Women’s

Broomball League and the media.42 In 1978, thirty-five teams competed for $3,000,43 and the following year, in the ninth annual event, there were thirteen women’s teams expected.44 As the event grew larger, organizers had to find several rinks to play in, which included those originally used in the small communities surrounding Saskatoon and later the city rinks as well.

There were several reasons for the successful growth of this tournament other than just the overall expansion of the sport. Organizer Bob Dobni credits the selection of date as partly responsible. The tournament was always held the first weekend in February, a date chosen partly in consultation with a local First Nations medicine man from a reserve in the Duck Lake area, who picked it as the most suitable for winter travel.45 Also, particularly in its first years, the tournament provided an early opportunity for teams to play indoors in February, whereas most rinks, including those in the city of Saskatoon, would not allow broomball until the ice was melting too much for hockey, usually much later in the spring. Finally, the Gold Broom was always very well organized. The men in charge, such as Dobni and Terry Forbes, started several months early to raise funds, arrange social events, land promote the event.46

Although there were always Saskatoon teams entered in the Gold Broom, records show that out-of-town teams dominated the A event, with only the Saskatoon Aces winning in 1974. 19

The Bruno Braves won two titles early in the decade and the Bruno Selects in 1975. Regina had four winners: the Drake Hotel Condors in 1972, the Seals in 1976, the Regina Sportsman in

1977, and the Regina Lumberjacks in 1978. In 1979, entries included a team called Joe Blake’s

Sports, from Victoriaville, Quebec, which defeated Regina’s Alford’s [formerly the Sportsman] by a score of 4-2.47 The Quebec team came to Saskatoon to play because their coach had heard of Terry Forbes, who by this time was developing broomball contacts across Canada. Jim

Poitras of North Battleford was one of many spectators who admired the combination of speed, dexterity, and manoeuvrability of the visitors. He also noted that the Quebec players had different rules of etiquette. On one Quebec attack, team captain Joe Blake was rushing along the boards, and Alford’s forward Gary Shaw was about to deliver a thundering check when the referee whistled offside. Shaw pulled up, at which time Blake stopped beside Shaw and planted a big kiss on him to thank him for his sportsmanship. The game then continued, but Shaw stood dumbfounded and shouted “he f#@?ing kissed me” as laughter erupted from the stands.48

Beginning in1977, the Gold Broom also included an event for women. In its first two years, the Regina Broombusters claimed the championship. In 1979 visitors from Edmonton, called the Selects, took the title away from Saskatchewan for the first time.

Although a few top city teams dominated the A event at the Gold Broom, there were other levels of play which included memorable games for all participants. Rusty Pagan of

Moose Jaw remembers one tournament when his team had more play than they bargained for:

We’d just finished the round robin and we figured we’re through because three miracles

had to happen that night for us just to get into a playoff round. So everybody figures it’s

all over, we’re done at ten o’clock at night and half of them go partying all over 20

Saskatoon. Around five o’clock or six o’clock in the morning I don’t know if it was

Terry Forbes or whoever it was, phones Kenny Daniels and told him, “You guys got to be

at the rink at 6:30 and you’ve got to play these guys.” There were guys who were just

coming in. We had to play at 6:30 and if we won that game we’d play at 8:00 and if we

won that game wed play at 9:30 or something. Well, we won those two. But we had

guys showing up for the second game because they had gotten in late, got to the hotel and

we were gone. So somebody told them where we were. Well, we had guys showing up

just pissed. But we played and got through two of them all right but the third one was a

different story.49

Poitras recalls a tournament game in which his team HELP was seeking revenge for what he considered an unfair defeat by the Sportman in a previous competition:

We played them after that in the Gold Broom and told them, “We will show you

this time that we are the deserved winners. They got us when we were flat the first time.

Well, this time they beat us 3-2 in overtime.

Right after that game, it got to be the talk of the country after that. “Oh, Jeez,

HELP is a team. Who are they? Where are they from?” Like we never, ever did go to

provincials or anything. “Oh boy, did they ever give the Sportsman a good go. They’re

playing at such and such time at the Gold Broom.” Jeez, everybody came, there was

standing room only, the rink was full. I kid you not, everybody to this day says that was

one of the best games they’d ever seen in broomball.

After that all the players stood up at centre ice and we shook hands. I got up there

and Steve Peel [the Sportman’s coach] come up and we shook hands right there at centre 21

ice and I said, “Steve, that’s a goddamn good game, but you’d better change the name of

your team, because you’re no sportsmen, you guys.” He said, “Let me tell you, you don’t

need any f#@?ing help either.” We had a good time after that.50

One attraction of the tournaments was the social events connected with them. Doug

Holeien of Melfort remembers the parties held in his area:

They’d have a two-day tournament and a dance, which was kind of the “in” thing back

then. Times have changed now, they don’t really do as much of that. But it was really a

whole social weekend. People would come down Friday for a game. Then they’d play

Saturday and have the big dine and dance type of thing. It was a real big weekend. It

brought a lot of people into the communities, into Melfort. Than at the same time, there

was lots of good broomball.51

Sometimes players tried to use the social events to improve their chances of winning, as

Bob McAfee of Regina recalls:

There was this guy we used to call Roger Ramjet [Malmgren] because he could

motor like hell. Gee, he was fast and he was from Saskatoon. He played with the Aces

there.

One day we were playing in a tournament in Moose Jaw and they had a cabaret at night.

The next morning we were supposed to play the Aces at eight o’clock in the morning. So

we went to the cabaret, Gordie Getz and myself were together, he was my partner at the

time on defence. So we went to this cabaret and we drank a few beers. All of a sudden,

we were getting a few extra ones on our table and all of these Aces were sending these

beers over. 22

So Gordie and I were drinking these beers and having a good laugh and then the

Aces invited us back over to their hotel room and so we went over there. We were

drinking with these guys and all of a sudden it’s like six o’clock in the morning and

we’ve got to play at eight. Gordie and I are looking at one another and Roger there, and

we didn’t really realize what they were doing, but they had been taking turns. Two guys

would drink with us and then they’d go away and sleep for awhile and then they’d come

So we were sitting there drinking with Roger and Roger bet me that he was going

to score a goal, that he was going to run through the whole team. I said, “Roger, I’ll bet

you right now that if you carry the ball and come down my side, you won’t get by.” He

said, I’ll bet you twenty-four beer.” And I said, I’m telling you, you’re not going to do

it.” Roger says, Well, we’ll see.” And so we bet.

Gordie always played the side where Roger played and I said to Gordie to switch

sides with me, so we played the opposite defensive sides now. So Roger and I have to

accept this challenge now. He comes flying down the boards on me and I cranked him

and I took the ball. He came down on me again and I got him both times. And the last

time I hit him, I got my broom a little high on him.

He said, “You sure seem damn serious.” And I said, Well, it’s for twenty-four

beer, Roger.52

Just as out-of province teams travelled to Saskatoon for the Gold Broom tournament, some Saskatchewan teams went to local tournaments in other provinces. Brandon hosted a 23 popular event as did most of the cities in Alberta. Ken Daniels who played with the Moose Jaw

Bruins remembers a trip to Medicine Hat in a chartered bus which cost $800 for the weekend:

We even had a big flag, a Moose Jaw Bruins flag, it must have been about ten feet long.

It was black and yellow and we put that on the inside of the bus so everybody could see it

from the outside. I think the bus driver wasn’t too happy with us but it was fun. That

was the very first trip we had gone on as a team, so it was a pretty big deal for us. We

were all pretty excited about it.

The bus driver was a little apprehensive. I’ll never forget because we ordered

about five or six cases of Baby Duck [wine]. We drank that by the time we got to

Medicine Hat so we had to stop at the liquor board store and we bought another three

cases of Baby Duck. Everybody was totally wiped out by the time we got to Red Deer.53

In 1978, Terry Forbes and his team went even further afield, travelling to and winning a

Thanksgiving tournament in Vancouver, as well as competing in Castlegar, Kamloops,

Lloydminster, Edmonton, and Winnipeg, in addition to playing in several Saskatchewan tournaments.54

Many of the players who recalled their experiences with league and local tournament play mentioned using primitive, makeshift equipment when they started. Their descriptions are like those of players from earlier decades. They modified ordinary household brooms by freezing them or adding weights, to allow them to shoot harder. They put tacks or bleach on their street shoes, runners, or winter boots to try to get better traction on the ice. They played primarily with soccer balls, which often suffered punctures, such as one Brian Saip remembers when the ball was bitten by a big German shepherd when it went over the boards of an outdoor 24 rink.55 However, during this decade most of the players did not use this kind of equipment for very long. When they played against teams with regulation balls, brooms, and footwear, they were almost always beaten, so they quickly realized its value and found ways to purchase it. A few hardy souls refused to don protective equipment such as pads, masks, and helmets, but these were also becoming much more common by 1979.

Playing in leagues and especially in tournaments changed the game of broomball in other ways as well. Players made friends with people in other communities, which made them more eager to travel and compete more extensively. The level of play improved as players were exposed to teams with better equipment, skills, and tactics, particularly noticeable when teams or players came from places like Ontario and Quebec where broomball attracted more participants.

However, tournament play brought to light a lack of consistency with the rules and officiating, which were often quite different from one community or area to another. Occasionally this was serious enough to keep teams from returning to play again in a local tournament the next year, so it was a problem which needed to be addressed.

Creating the Saskatchewan Broomball Association

By the middle of the 1970s, with the number of broomball players steadily increasing, people, especially those organizing leagues and competitions, began to realize the need for some sort of formal organization, something which was beginning to develop in other parts of Canada.

Early in the decade, Bob Dobni had started working with men in Manitoba and Alberta to help organize a season-ending Western Canadian championship for prairie broomballers. Terry

Forbes soon became involved, travelling to this tournament in 1974 even though his own team had not qualified to play, and the next year becoming a member of the organizing committee. 25

Later than same year, Forbes received a letter from Gerald Dion, who held the position of executive director of the Quebec Broomball Federation, and remembers his surprise about this:

I was just blown away to the fact that there was a provincial organization that was able to

employ a full-time person to run the sport in the province. After I got speaking to him, I

was even more amazed to find there was also a secretary. There was also another person

called a technical director, who was involved with developing and enhancing coaching

programs, rule books and so forth. They had an office and they had thousands and

thousands of players. I guess that initial shock motivated me to say, “Hey, if that is the

scope of this game, then we’d better get at it.” So from 1974 on, we started to

communicate by letter and by phone and he informed me of his goal of establishing a

Canadian Broomball Association and a Canadian championship.56

Dion carried through with his plan, hosting a national tournament in Montreal in May of 1976 at which planning began for a national organization to control the sport. The following year the group which had been organizing the Western Canadian championships agreed to host the next national tournament in Calgary in April 1977, at which time provincial representatives, including

Forbes from Saskatchewan, continued the process of organizing the Canadian Broomball

Federation (CBF).

While these events were occurring outside Saskatchewan, Forbes was also working with local people to organize a provincial association. In December of 1976, he met with eleven others from the main broomball centres of Saskatoon, Regina, North Battleford and Moose Jaw to form the Saskatchewan Broomball Association (SBA) with three main objectives: 26

1. To promote and encourage the sport through the province by our provincial

association

2. Unify the rules in the province.

3. Increase the number of broomball players and increase the calibre of play.57

After meeting with a representative of the provincial government’s Department of Culture and

Youth, which oversaw other provincial sports governing bodies, Forbes and others such as Rusty

Pagan from Moose Jaw and Jim Poitras from North Battleford worked out a constitution, chose an executive with Forbes as president, and began to develop programs to meet their objectives as well as maintain and increase contact with the newly formed CBF and other provincial associations, most of which were new as well.

In addition to the inevitable task of fundraising from both membership dues and selling tickets, the SBA immediately began to work towards unified rules for the game. Many players had pointed out inconsistencies, such as the fact that some referees called penalties for hitting the ball with a high broom while others ignored this. Forbes himself had experienced an unusual interpretation of the rules in a local tournament:

I played centre and we drove down to a place called Balgonie and played a tournament

there. To start the game, some referees preferred to drop the ball, other referees would

set the ball on the ice, back away and when the whistle was blown, then the faceoff was

conducted that way.

In any case, you as the centreman, stood right at the face-off dot to take the

faceoff. So at the start of the game I walked right up to the centre-ice faceoff dot and the 27

referee had set the ball down at centre ice and I’m standing there waiting for the other

team. He’s standing outside the large faceoff circle, where he’s standing on that line. I

said, “Well, how do you face off?” and he says, “Well, the rules in Balgonie are that you

stand at the back of the line, then the ref blows the whistle and you run at the ball. The

first one to the ball gets the ball.” I thought, “OK, this is going to be interesting.” I got

to the line and waited for this. The ref blew the whistle and as I ran towards the ball, the

opposing centre was swinging the broom over his head. I of course didn’t want to get

caught with the broom so I backed off and he took the ball. So that was my first

experience with that type of rule.58

Ken Daniels noted another variation in the rules in the Moose Jaw league: when games were played at the Air Force base, helmets were mandatory but not in the other rinks.59

Another problem associated with officiating was the shortage of people to do this very difficult job. Since broomball players were often intense and hit each other hard, tempers became frayed and fights often broke out. Gerry Frei, the official in the game in which a fight between Bob McAfee and Jerome Zimmer ended with both sent to hospital, had to cancel the game completely.60 In North Battleford, players Pete Sack and Jack Duvall, who were noted for their rough play and their intense dislike of each other, both officiated in games when they were not playing. Jim Poitras claims that Zack particularly showed favouritism for Duvall’s opponents in games he called, and Duvall occasionally did likewise. There were enough complaints that league officials considered banning both men from all aspects of the game, but players demanded that Duvall be allowed to continue officiating although he no longer played.

Duvall did stay on as a referee to everyone’s relief, since no one else in the area would take the 28 job.61 One woman was involved in refereeing in the Moose Jaw men’s league, as Daniels remembers:

That was a pretty big deal and she had kind of a tough time there, being a woman. But

she was a stern woman and what she said, she meant. I remember guys arguing with her

saying stuff like “Get this lady out of here.”

But she stuck to her guns and you’ve got to give her credit. I thought she did a

fairly good job. I didn’t ever see any problem with her. She really called a fair game.

But there were some guys, because she was a woman, that gave her a rough ride.62

In the early 1970s, most of the men who officiated broomball games did so on skates because many of them also refereed hockey. This created a problem for the broomball players because their skates scraped the ice creating a snow-like covering which interfered with player movement, as Daniels remembers:

The guys would be wearing broomball shoes and the ice would get all snowy. It was

deadly because the snow on the ice meant you didn’t get any grip with your shoes. It was

brutal. We really had to fight that because the referees here didn’t want to change from

skates to broomball shoes because they didn’t really want to be running around.63

Forbes saw games played on newly flooded ice and officiated by referees with broomball shoes instead of skates when he travelled to the Western championships in Moose Jaw and was impressed with the impact of these changes on the game: 29

With snow ice it seemed to slow the game down and there was a lot more checking and

not as much speed. But with the flooded ice, there’s a heck of a lot more running, the

ball moves more quickly on the ice and to me, it’s much more of an exciting game.64

The newly formed SBA undertook to address these problems associated with officiating, two of which were at least partly solved by the end of the decade. The issue of referees on skates was dealt with fairly quickly, with SBA officials firmly telling the officials they had to wear broomball shoes instead and also asking rink officials to flood the rinks right before the games, to ensure the best possible ice surface. The issue of consistent rules took a little longer, since the first step was to agree on what the rules should actually be and the second to convince all players to adopt them.

SBA officials decided the best approach to developing a rule book was to use a translation of the Quebec rule book with a few adaptations to suit the western philosophy of the game, which was to make the game quicker and encourage more scoring to make it more appealing for both players and fans. As usual, Terry Forbes was actively involved in this process:

In order to inspire a reasonable solution to these rule differences, I took the Quebec rule

book and amended it and changed some of the rules, forgot to write in some and I typed it

on a mutual typewriter. I got it duplicated and made about three hundred copies and

handed it out as our first Saskatchewan rule book.65

Initially, these rules would be used in all tournaments sponsored by the SBA. Local tournament organizers were also encouraged to adopt them, but some flexibility was allowed for a few years. 30

However, the very existence of a Saskatchewan rule book served as a good first step to providing consistency in the way the game was played.

Provincial and Interprovincial Championships

One of the main reasons for forming the SBA was to have a body that could arrange a formal provincial championship whose winner could go on to compete at the national level.

However, this would not the first taste of interprovincial play for Saskatchewan teams because they had participated in the Western Canadian championships since 1970. This annual competition was organized informally by the men who ran leagues on the prairies. Participants included the top one or two teams from leagues in three different provinces: Winnipeg,

Brandon, and Thompson in Manitoba; Calgary, Lethbridge, and Edmonton in Alberta, and

Saskatoon, Regina, North Battleford, and the Northern Lakes district in Saskatchewan. After regular league play ended, ten or twelve teams would meet in whatever centre could find enough indoor ice time to host a double knockout tournament. Saskatchewan fared very well in this competition, winning it every one of the eight years it was held. The Balgonie Barons took the inaugural event in 1970, followed in order by the Regina teams of the Seals, Drake Hotel,

Condors and Lumberjacks. The Saskatoon Aces won in 1975, and then the Regina Sportsman captured the last two crowns before the event was discontinued in favour of a Canadian championship.66

The SBA’s first provincial championship, held in Moose Jaw in 1977, was actually attempting to be two events in one because representatives from Alberta and Manitoba attended to compete for the Western Canadian title. To determine a provincial champion, about a dozen teams from the five Saskatchewan leagues played off in a round robin with the winners of each 31 then competing for the provincial title. The format was fairly complex and stated that in the case of a tie, to save time, total points during the entire competition would determine the winner.

Based on that formula, the HELP team from North Battleford was initially declared provincial champion but organizers then noticed that they had never played the team they were tied with, the Regina Sportsman. At a quick meeting the evening after the round robin ended, the SBA officials decided that these two teams had to play after all, a decision which infuriated HELP coach Jim Poitras, whose team was off celebrating because they did not expect to play for some time:

So we had to play a game that night. Well, I had to run around and try and find guys.

Some guys were at this bar, some guys were at that bar. By the time we got them all back

and dressed, we were so pissed off and nobody was into it anymore, nobody cared to play

anymore, so we played and the Sportsman beat us.67

This made the Sportsman the first provincial champions, and they then went on to defeat a team from Thompson, Manitoba, to win the final Western Canadian championship as well.68

At the second provincial championship, held in Saskatoon in March 1978, the Sportman was again victorious after playing some very close games. They defeated the Lumberjacks in the semifinal and then overpowered the Peterson Cats, surprise finalists, 3-1 to take the title. The

Moose Jaw Bruins placed third. Terry Forbes told a reporter how pleased he was with the event:

“There was some excellent, very close competition and the fan support was great. It says something for the way broomball has progressed in the province.”69

In Regina in 1979, the same men’s team, now called Alfords, dominated the competition.

Led by the championship’s most valuable player (MVP) Gary Shaw, Alfords were undefeated in 32 the preliminary rounds and then defeated the Saskatoon Lords 1-0 in a final game about which coach Steve Peel commented, “I think we outplayed them by quite a bit. It’s a little frustrating not to score more goals, but it’s the end result that counts.”70 For the first time, women also competed for provincial honours in Regina in 1979. Six teams took part, with two from Regina, the Packettes and the Broombusters, meeting in the final. In a closely fought game before a packed arena, the Packettes prevailed 1-0.

In addition to winning the glory of a provincial title, the provincial champions also earned the right to represent Saskatchewan at the national championships, held in a different centre each year. Thus in 1977, the Sportsman travelled to Calgary to take on the best from the rest of Canada. At a pre-tournament cabaret, they were warned by members of other teams:

“We were there last year and the teams were so deadly and you’re going to get killed. You’ll feel embarrassed, you won’t want to play there.”71 Sportsman captain Joe Schlechter admitted to being worried as he sat in the stands watching their next opponent, a Quebec team, beating a team from Thompson about 12-0, a particular concern since the Saskatchewan team had

Thompson recently defeated the Manitoba group by a close 3-2 score. However, the Sportsman decided to play hard and if that was not enough to make the game close, to cause a brawl and have the game called to avoid a humiliating defeat. This proved unnecessary as Schlechter remembers:

So we went out there and we started playing and then we’re playing quite well. Actually

we put our game together and I guess what it started to do was it brought the best out of

us. I remember Quebec scored their first goal with about three or four minutes left in the

game and we ended up losing 3-0. It was a pretty good game. At least we didn’t get

embarrassed. We did the best we could and we didn’t get embarrassed.72 33

In fact, the Sportsman did better than that as the Leader-Post reported. In the round robin, after their loss to the eventual winner Quebec and another to Nova Scotia, they defeated Calgary 1-0 and British Columbia 3-1 to advance to the bronze medal game against Newfoundland. In that contest, Joe Schlechter and Murray Achen each tallied once which left the teams tied at 2-2 at the end of the second period. Then Randy Shaw scored three unanswered goals in the third for a 5-2

Saskatchewan win and the province’s first-ever national medal.73

In 1978, the Sportsman again headed to the Canadian championships, this time in

Halifax. They again lost to a powerful Quebec team in the round robin by the score of 4-2, but won enough games to again reach the bronze medal game. This time, however, they were defeated by a team from Shearwater, Nova Scotia, by a 4-1 score.

Hoping that the third time might be lucky, in 1979 the same men’s team, now called

Alfords, was Saskatchewan’s representative at the national championship, this time in Val d’Or,

Quebec. The team started well, tying Manitoba and easily defeating two Maritime teams, with victories of 3-0 over Newfoundland and then 6-0 over New Brunswick. Then they ran into trouble, losing 6-0 to the local Val d’Or team, a group which had not been able to win their provincial title. In spite of this loss, the team still had a good enough round robin record to advance to the medal round of the tournament.

The Alfords players were smarting from this bad defeat as they headed into the semifinal against the team representing Quebec. This prompted Joe Schlechter to call a team meeting at which time the Alfords players decided to cover their next opponents, the defending champions, one-on-one, a tactic which he recalls worked very well: 34

I’ll never forget that there was about three minutes left in the game, it was still 0-0. Larry

Lolacher just shot one wide of the net that Jerry Kovacs just missed to get his broom on;

we would have scored. Then just after that with about three minutes left, there was a rush

coming down and we had a three-on-two set-up. Me, Lee Murray, and Randy Shaw.

Randy passed me the ball back and I was a little bit deep in the slot, and I noticed the

goalie was not thinking that I was going to shoot. But I had practised this shot for quite

some time before the nationals and I just let it go. It just cleared the cross bar by a couple

of inches and after it hit the plexiglass behind the goalie, he put his arm up to block it. So

I had him beat but I just missed it by a couple of inches. I’ll never forget that as long as I

Then with about two minutes left in the game they just turned around and the

coverage broke down in our end and they scored and we lost 1-0. It was quite a defeat.

For us to come back with a game like that after losing to Val d’Or and rebounding like

that showed what kind of a classy team we really were. We gained respect by everyone.

I remember Quebec telling us that they used this dump play to dump the ball out of their

own end and this was the first time they had to use the dump play all year long because

we were just shutting them down. It was just an incredible game.74

With this defeat, the Saskatchewan representatives then moved to the bronze medal game where they were defeated 2-1 by Ontario, giving them the ranking of fourth in Canada.75

Alfords’ defenceman Rod Simaluk remembers the 1979 nationals as a totally unique and positive experience. For one thing, he started one game with a penalty for wearing a toque, headgear forbidden because it might be a hazard if it fell onto the ice. Team captain Schlechter 35 had been warned about this but he said that Simaluk was so tall that he had not noticed his hat.

Simaluk was impressed with the size of the crowd, which he estimated at 7,000 to 8,000 people, all cheering for the local teams of course, which he said did not matter because all the energy left him “pumped.”76 He was most impressed with the finesse and level of play, which he felt would help him and his teammates:

That was always good for us because then we came backed armed with that much more

knowledge. Then the next year we would try those things. So that was the way that you

improved the game in the province was by going to the nations, learning things and then

just bringing that knowledge back here.77

For the Packettes from Regina, the national championship at Val d’Or was their first exposure to play at this level. The players found the competition too much, losing 4-2 to defending champions Nova Scotia, 2-1 to Alberta, and 6-0 to the host club. This record kept them out of the medal rounds. Annette Gaetz, who had made the all-star team in the

Saskatchewan provincial championship, remembers that although the Packettes were “blown out,” especially by the Quebec team which scored almost instantly, playing in this competition was “the experience of a lifetime.”78 However, like the men, the players all agreed that playing the top teams in the country would help them improve in the future.

* * * * *

By the end of the 1970s, everyone involved in broomball agreed that the game had changed completely over the decade. There were many more people, both men and women, playing in more leagues and competitions. A provincial governing body, the SBA, had been established to encourage consistency in equipment and rules, a slow process at times, but one 36 which was underway, and to maintain contact with players and organizers in other parts of

Canada. The SBA was also organizing formal provincial competitions to declare champions who then went on to compete at the national level. All the men who played the game could take pride in the fact that Saskatchewan’s top team could win several games at that level and had in fact brought home its first medal. The future of the game looked very bright.

1 Huber interview 2 Ibid 3 “Saip’s Spot,” Spotlight on Broomball Winter 1986, p. 16 4 Paul Hupaelo interview 5 Wayne Horner interview 6 Doug Holeien interview 7 Ibid 8 Craig Grunert interview 9 Ibid 10 Gord Luther interview 11 Ibid 12 Vern Falscheer interview 13 Rusty Pagan interview 14 Ibid 15 Jim Poitras interview 16 Binder #1 17 Ibid 18 Saskatoon Star-Phoenix 8 December 1972 19 Ibid 20 Holeien interview 21 Sinaluk interview 22 Pshebylow interview 23 Leader-Post 22 March 1979 24 McAfee interview 25 Zimmer interview 26 Schlechter interview 27 Ibid 28 Simulak interview 29 Saip interview 30 Schlechter interview 31 Darlene Solie interview 32 Luther interview 33 McAfee interview 34 Ibid 35 Simaluk interview 36 Holeien interview 37 Forbes interview 38 Falscheer interview 39 McAfee interview 40 Saip interview 41 “Broomball tournament,” Binder 2, p. 4 42 “Gold Broom tourney upcoming,” Ibid, p. 5 43 “Defending champs in broomball event,” Ibid, p. 6 44 “Broomball tourneys set for weekend,” Ibid, p. 20 45 Dobni interview 46 Doug Pederson interview 47 Binder 2, various articles 48 Poitras interview 49 Pagan interview 50 Poitras interview 51 Holeien interview 52 McAfee interview 53 Daniels interview 54 Forbes interview 55 Saip interview 56 Forbes interview 57 Saskatchewan Broomball Association (hereafter SBA) Minutes 11 December 1976 58 Forbes interview 59 Daniels interview 60 Frei interview 61 Poitras interview 62 Daniels interview 63 Ibid 64 Forbes interview 65 Ibid 66 Terry Forbes interview with S. Bingaman, January 15, 2010 67 Poitras interview 68 “Broomball tourney set,” Binder 2, p. 12 69 “Regin Sportsmen win broomball title,” Ibid, p. 13 70 “Alfords and Pacettes No. 1,” Ibid, p. 27 71 Schlechter interview 72 Ibid 73 “Broomball title to Quebec,” Binder 2A 74 Schlechter interview 75 “Regina men finish fourth,” Schlechter scrapbook 1, p. 18 76 Simaluk interview 77 Ibid 78 Annette Gaetz interview