Wheat Kings Rally to Make Final

Thursday, August 12, 2021 brandonsun.com REPORT GAME RESULTS BEFORE 9 P.M. PHONE 204.571.7442 FAX 204.727.0385 Sports EMAIL [email protected] TRY TO BEAT THAT!: THE 1978-79 BRANDON WHEAT KINGS Wheat Kings rally to make fi nal BY PERRY BERGSON just lost our heads and we didn’t then we got back in. It was a play the way we should have little different because we used Just four days after the 1978- played. But that’s what hap- (Bart Hunter) a lot instead of 79 Brandon Wheat Kings beat pens. We had a brawl and we Knickle. We tried to play as well the Portland Winter Hawks thought we had them scared as could.” in Game 6 to win the Western and they weren’t. They were at GREGG DRINNAN: “I always Hockey League champion- home.” felt badly for Rick and Scotty ship, they were preparing to TIM LOCKRIDGE: “I think we Olson too with the way things face off against the host Trois- all kind of let our guard down a turned out at the Memorial Rivières Draveurs in the Memo- little bit now that we were there. Cup. I felt badly for Dunc too rial Cup. Maybe we were thinking we because of the decision he had From 1972 until 1983, and were better than we really were to make to go to Bart Hunter af- again for one year in 1987, the because I know we went into ter you ride those guys for 101 Western Hockey League, On- the game with Trois-Rivières games.” tario Hockey League and the thinking there was no way these WES COULSON: “Dunc didn’t Quebec Major Junior Hockey guys were going to beat us. They come in and yell and scream. League each sent their champi- came out and tried to intimi- Yes, he would once in a while, on to a three-team event. Each date us.” but that caught me off guard champ played the others twice, RICK KNICKLE: “I had a puck when Hunter did that. Literally, with the top two clubs advanc- thrown at me during the game. I think’s that what we needed. ing to the fi nal. A guy came down the aisle and Were we feeling a bit sorry for GREGG DRINNAN (Brandon threw a puck at me when the ourselves because we lost the Sun): “You don’t realize it at play was in the other end. I saw fi rst two games? I don’t think so the time because you’re travel- him and he missed me, but now but maybe we had it our own ling with them and one game Brandon’s Laurie Boschman carries the puck against the Peterborough Petes. there’s two pucks on the ice. My way for quite a while and now bleeds into the next. When you (Brandon Sun fi le photos) mom and dad are at the game all of a sudden we have some look at it afterwards and think and they’re getting abused and adversity and we have to show what you’re putting 20-year- the game. Some of them are surrounded by people in the that we can overcome that.” olds through without a whole 60 minutes of high stress, and stands during the brawl. It was BRANT KIESSIG: “Scotty Ol- lot of time for their bodies to some aren’t, but most of them pretty scary at times.” son never got to play because rejuvenate and regenerate, a lot are. When you get into a six- all of a sudden Dunc didn’t have of hotel food and a lot of times game series against a team like GAME 2 confi dence in him, and the in those days it was stop at A&W Portland, it’s high stress, it’s The Wheat Kings picked a team sees that and is going ‘OK, and bring the box of burgers on travel, it’s hard on your body. spectacularly bad time to em- there is something wrong here.’ the bus on the way home.” In those days, you didn’t have bark on their fi rst losing streak The machinery is wonky. And RICK KNICKLE: “You don’t nutritionists and all that kind of of the season when they fell in even though Bart Hunter came really think about it while you’re stuff, the electronic resources to overtime 7-6 to the Petes on in and played unbelievable, we doing it. It’s after the fact. You’re help your muscles and for the May 8. Suddenly the team that still had things going on in front young and you’re playing and most part you’re riding the bus. had lost fi ve times during a of him that weren’t normal for what does it mean, but when By the time they got to Quebec, 72-game regular season found us. I don’t know if Brad Mc- I see the guys who were there, they were really running on themselves one defeat away Crimmon even came off the ice and being on the team with Brad fumes.” from elimination. in the third period of that fi nal and all those guys, and what I RICK KNICKLE: “When we game.” had gone through with them GAME 1 lost our fi rst two games, Brad GREGG DRINNAN: “They that year and the year before, it The signs are there that it was (McCrimmon) said ‘Listen, we had gone through over 100 was pretty amazing. At the time, diminished Wheat Kings squad have come so far, we can’t lose games with the laid-back Rick you’re so mentally drained … It by the time they arrived in Que- another game.’ He put it as an- Knickle and the smiling Scotty was a tough grind, and we had bec. other one of those roadblocks. Olson, neither one of whom one more grind to get through They lost two games in a row That whole year, nothing was would say s— if their mouths at the Memorial Cup.” for the fi rst time all season, and going to stop us. If you want to were full of it, and neither of KELLY McCRIMMON: “Our were outshot in four of the fi ve try to beat us up, that’s not go- whom was close to being a vo- travel and our playoffs and the games at the Memorial Cup. To ing to happen. We had so many cal leader on that team. All of a amount Brad played … we did put the latter stat into context, weapons and so many things. sudden you’ve got Bart Hunter the round-robin with Leth- in 94 regular season and playoff For my part, I just tried to not in the mix who has a sharp bridge and Portland and then games, they were outshot just be the weak link.” tongue, is quick to speak, he’s a league fi nal with Portland. 12 times. DAVE McDONALD: “Ev- fi ery and emotionally he’s all You don’t think of it at the time In the fi rst game, a 4-1 loss erybody looks at it a different that stuff. He came in and re- when you’re playing, you’re a to Trois-Rivières on May 6, the way. We lost the fi rst game 4-1 ally, really played well. Without young guy, but when you look teams brawled during the pre- to Trois-Rivières and then the him, and with the other two at it in hindsight it’s hard to game skate. While the Wheat next one to Peterborough, 7-6. and especially with Rick in a fathom that we could travel that Kings may have thought they We could have been a little out slump, Bart really came in and much in the WHL playoffs.” had the hosts exactly where of sorts. You’re not used to los- saved their butts. It’s pretty hard GREGG DRINNAN: “When they wanted them, it didn’t ing is one thing. It’s the same for to be critical of his selection as the season starts, the teams work out that way. each team, except maybe the MVP, because without his per- know who has a chance to win STEPHEN PATRICK: “We host team.” formance, especially in his fi rst the championship and who don’t know a player on the other RICK KNICKLE: “For me it two games, they aren’t in the fi - doesn’t. At the start of the sea- team, we don’t know their stats, was bittersweet because I was nal. It had to be a shock in the son, the teams that have a we don’t know their records, drained. I had nothing left, and dressing room.” chance put so much into getting we don’t know who their scor- nothing left when I got down to TIM LOCKRIDGE: “Every- to that championship that when ers are, who the penalty killers the Memorial Cup. I played OK body accepted him. He came in they win it, they have noth- or the tough guys are, nothing. the fi rst game, the second game (and was vocal) and I think ev- ing left. It’s so hard for them to You’re going into a French town I was awful and I didn’t play the erybody respected that. It was a make a turn-around to get from with French fans and you don’t rest.” little different because we didn’t that high to get back up again know anything.

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