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.