FLASHBACK: 45 Years Since Broncos' Home Opener

This year marks the 45^th birthday of the Enmax Centre.

The ground was broken on the facility in 1972 and took a couple of years to complete. Now, it was originally built to host the 1975 Canada Games.

But the hockey community obviously saw this as an opportunity to find a new home and maybe even a new league.

The Lethbridge Sugar Kings were one of the original Alberta Junior Hockey League teams, playing for about a decade before folding after the 1972-1973 season because they failed to post a $5,000 performance bond as required, according to the Lethbridge Herald in July 1973.

Now it was a tumultuous time leading up to that summer, as many questions lingered around the future of the franchise.

Rumours were running rampant that the team was being sold for months as the team struggled mightily on the ice, finishing last in the six-team AJHL.

In fact, one report in the Herald said the team was up for sale in May, but might have already been sold in a cloud of secrecy and even some murmurs of a lawsuit.

A couple of groups did come forward to keep the AJHL in Lethbridge and eventually, the Longhorns came out as the victors.

They stuck around for a couple of years, but were granted an indefinite leave of absence ahead of the 1974-1975 campaign as the Western Canadian Hockey League’s Lethbridge Broncos were introduced as a tenant of the new $4-million Canada Games Sportsplex.

The first game held there happened on October 6, 1974 with the largest crowd ever to witness a hockey game in Lethbridge taking in the festivities.

Featuring future NHLers Bryan Trottier, Ron Delorme and Brian Sutter, the home team delighted the 4,641 fans in attendance with a 5-1 win over the Regina Pats.

The defending Memorial Cup champions struck first with a goal from Dave Faulkner about five minutes into the game. But the Broncos would storm back with two goals in under a minute off the sticks of Phil Jensen and Trottier.

Sutter added the first insurance marker in the second before the icing on the cake was added by Greg Woods and John Lutz in the third.

As veteran sports editor Pat Sullivan remarked in his column: “they came, they saw and they conquered.”

He did go onto question whether fans would continue to support the team if they lost a few games.

The fans did keep coming as the team posted a 28-38-10 record in their inaugural season, good enough for second place in the East Division, losing in the first round of the playoffs to those same Regina Pats.

The Broncos stayed in the league until the end of the 1985-1986 season before heading to Swift Current.

But that’s another story for another day.

30 YEARS AGO: Canes & Chiefs Undo Controversial Trade

The brass of the 1989-1990 Lethbridge Hurricanes didn’t have to do a whole lot of tinkering to get themselves to their best finish ever.

While looking through that team from 30 years ago, it’s hard to argue why they didn’t have to make any major trades.

With a top six forward group of Wes Walz, Corey Lyons, Bryan Bosch, Mark Greig, Kelly Ens and Jason Ruff, they knew they were going to score goals.

The one challenge was on the blueline, which was a young group including 16-year-olds Darcy Werenka, Shane Peacock and, on occasion, Jamie Pushor.

So they did make a couple of moves early on. One was pretty straight-forward, sending 17-year-old Chad Seibel to Prince Albert for 19-year-old Ron Gunville.

The other wasn’t so straight-forward.

At the end of October 1989, the Hurricanes sent forward Colin Gregor to Spokane for another 19-year-old defenseman by the name of Scott Farrell.

Farrell was an absolute beast the year before, picking up 42 points and 221 penalty minutes on his way to being selected in the 11^th round of the NHL Draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It seemed like a pretty good deal for a team loading up for a long playoff run, but he no-showed.

Farrell finally came to Lethbridge about a week later, not commenting on the holdout, only saying he was taken by surprise with the trade and wanted to put it all behind him.

And things looked alright, as he picked up a goal in his first game and came as advertised over the course of four games in November 1989, grabbing an assist and 22 more penalty minutes.

But by the end of the month, he was packing his bags again, heading back to Spokane for Colin Gregor. According to the Brandon Sun, Gregor had also initially failed to report to the Chiefs. He did show up, putting up seven points in six games.

In its article, the Sun said both players actually went home again wanting a trade, leading to both being sent to their original teams.

They weren’t the only players around the league that were not suiting up for their teams. The WHL actually enacted a new suspension policy, where players who refused to report were placed on a suspension list rather than taking a spot on a team’s 50-player protected list.

It alleviated the pressures on teams to try to accommodate players with beefs, leading to the players finally saying that enough was enough.

Speaking of enough, that was all the trading the Hurricanes did during that phenomenal season 30 years ago.

Head coach Bob Loucks said right up until the trade deadline that he was sniffing around for another veteran defenseman. But teams would reply with questions about that top six forward group and he wasn’t ready to part with any of them.

Obviously that was the right move, as the Hurricanes went on to the WHL Final that season.

If you’re wondering about Farrell, just a few days after being dealt back to Spokane, the demanding defensive prospect was sent packing again to Tri-City. He tried to get into coaching after his WHL career was over, then played a bit in Britain and the Pacific Southwest League.

All those headaches and not a sniff of the NHL.

P.S. Colin Gregor is the father of former WHLer and current San Jose Sharks prospect Noah Gregor.

Hurricanes Bucking Attendance Trends

As someone who has been involved in game-day entertainment for more than a decade now, I’ve become quite fascinated in consumer trends in the Western Hockey League.

For some reason, this year has seemed a little quieter around the Scotiabank Saddledome for Calgary Hitmen games. Instead of just shrugging it off, I decided to put on my math nerd pants, and investigated.

As it turns out, I wasn’t wrong. Through the first ten home games, the Hitmen have totalled 55,475 fans in the stands. That’s down slightly from the 55,955 of 2018, but when you look at the last five years, it’s down considerably. The high over the five years was 72,126 in 2016.

Now I’m not trying to get too political here but given all the conversation around the economy and jobs and everything else in our world, I thought I would see if this is something seen across the other Alberta markets.

In Edmonton, the pace has also slowed down considerably. Through the first nine home games of the season, the Oil Kings picked up 47,784 fans. That’s down from the 2016 top number of 77,342, where they actually had a couple of nights with over 10,000 in the stands.

In Red Deer, things have dropped off as well. From the high of 43,343 in the first eight games of 2015 to 30,124 in the first eight of this season.

In Medicine Hat, the story is the same. The Tigers have seen 21,557 fans through the turnstiles through their first seven home games. That’s down from 31,290 in 2015.

And then there’s Lethbridge, who is trending in the opposite direction. Through the first ten home games, the Hurricanes have attracted 37,134 fans. That’s up from 35,966 last season, and it’s been trending up each year over the last five. Back in 2015, the number at the Enmax Centre was 32,193.

Now there is one slight caveat with the numbers and that is with the ratio of weekend games versus weekday games. The Hurricanes have had two midweek games thus far, while at this point last year, they had four. That said, the number has hovered between two and four over the last five years.

The reason for the numerical discrepancy is up for anyone to argue. It could be the number of minor hockey teams that come through at this time of year. It could also be the nightly promotions, or the weather, or the ticket prices or the quality of the team on the ice, or yes, the economic conditions in each city and the amount of disposable income people have.

I know it’s a lot of numbers, but it is interesting to look at the quantitative evidence in front of us when we’re asking questions about the atmosphere in each of the WHL’s rinks through the first quarter of the season and to ask why something is happening.

Canes At The Quarter

Hard to believe, but the Lethbridge Hurricanes are already one quarter of the way through the regular season.

They sit just two points out of first place in the Central Division, sitting with an 11-4-0-3 record. In fact, they are 8-0-0-2 in their last ten games.

Now, keep in mind they have played two more games than many other teams including Edmonton and Medicine Hat, but they have scored the most goals in the entire WHL (67) and are in the middle of the pack in goals against (48).

I haven't been able to see the Hurricanes in person yet, as they don't actually visit Calgary until mid-December. But I have watched and read enough to say there are a trio of things that really stand out to me when it comes to the team's performance thus far.

#1. Dylan Cozens

File this one under: No $*%@ Sherlock. The kid is pretty good, sitting second in league scoring with 11 goals and 14 assists. The Buffalo Sabres first round draft pick has been clutch, particularly on the powerplay where he has ten of his points. He has three game-winners and a shorthanded goal to boot. And Cozens has just as many games with four points as he has with no points (twice). The only thing that might get in his way heading into the second half would be an invite to the World Juniors, which I don't think Canadian hockey fans would be too disappointed to see.

#2. Blueline Offense

Three of the top six point-getters for the Hurricanes this season come from the back end. Alex Cotton leads the entire WHL in points by a defenceman with 18 in 18 games. Calen Addison and Koletrane Wilson round out that top three with 14 and 12 points, respectively. In fact, all three rank in the top 13 in league scoring amongst blue liners. And despite not having a ton of points in the early going, Ty Prefontaine is tied for first among WHL defenseman with a +15 rating. That's not bad for the entire group in the top four.

#3. Goaltending Tandem

When you're scoring a ton of goals, it's easy to overlook the contributions of your goaltenders and the Hurricanes have benefitted from having two goalies not only split the workload, but do it effectively. Carl Tetachuk and Bryan Thomson have been very good with Tetachuk holding a better goals against average (2.15) and save percentage (93%). Neither are leading the league, but they are doing more than enough to keep the team in games, allowing five goals in just one game.

An honourable mention of the day has to go to breakout star Oliver Okuliar, who is coming off back-to-back hat tricks against Winnipeg and Brandon over the weekend and now has 11 goals in his last 7 games and 15 overall.

Not a bad first quarter of the season for the Lethbridge Hurricanes. We will recap the second quarter of the season after the December 14th-15th weekend, which happens to be the final weekend before the Christmas break.