Something happened in a BCHL game the other night that brought back some memories.
The Victoria Grizzlies were leading the host Alberni Valley Bulldogs 4-0 after two periods and the home team’s coaching staff, obviously unhappy, made the players sit on the bench through the entire intermission.
Which reminded me that once upon a time I had started work on what was going to be a column. But some things, who knows what they were, got in the way and it never reached fruition. But I have dug up the notes and put this together.
You can be the judge as to whether what follows is truth or fiction. In the end it doesn’t matter because it’s entertaining, as long as you weren’t one of the players involved. . . .
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Troy Mick was coaching the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers one night when they lost to the Centennials in Merritt. Mick told the players to take off their skates but leave on their gear and get on the bus. When the pizza arrived, he made sure they had their gloves on. Mick later said the bus smelled so bad by the time the Vipers were halfway home that he started to have second thoughts.
On another occasion, Mick ran a late practice while in a rocking chair at centre ice. I believe Brad Tippett, during his stint with the Regina Pats, did the same thing. And one of them, might have been Mick, did it while reading a copy of The Hockey News.
While with the Kamloops Blazers, Mick moved his squad from its swell dressing room in what was then called Sport Mart Place to the frozen confines of Memorial Arena, saying his players would have to earn the right to return to the big room.
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While coaching the SJHL’s Yorkton Terriers, Norm Johnston had his players run around the rink and up and down the main drag in Melville after a New Year’s Day loss to the Millionaires.
Johnston went on to explain what happened with the Terriers.
“The thing in Yorkton was that we as a group decided on a curfew and the boys broke the curfew and I was a bit upset and, looking back, likely was way too upset and the players made me pay for it,” he said. “They ran once downtown and a couple of times in the rink and that was about it. But the stories get better and better as I get older.”
Wait. There’s more to that story.
“I got I fired when I made the boys run in Yorkton,” Johnston said. “Now don't forget that we made a deal about curfew and the next day we got beat 5-2 by Melville and were outshot 54-12. In the third period we could not get out of our end.”
It turned out that at least some of the players had been out late – uhh, really late – bringing in the new year.
“The boys, a great number of them, did not get home until we were loading the bus,” Johnston said, “and that was not the deal. Anyway it cost me my job as some of the boys did not like to get punished for doing something that they should not have done and in hindsight I went too far.”
As for skating players after games. . . .
“I only skated my players once after a game and that was in North Battleford,” Johnston recalled. “We got home late and I skated them but the next day as I was at work by 9 and they were still sleeping I realized that the only person I was hurting was myself. I never skated them again after games.”
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The late Bill LaForge was the head coach of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks when he had the losing team in a scrimmage keep its gear on and do laps around a football field. LaForge’s stint with the Canucks was a short one.
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And then there was the night that the Doug Sauter-coached Calgary Wranglers were playing in Portland. The Winter Hawks, down by a goal, pulled the goaltender. Calgary’s Clint Fehr had a breakaway on the open net . . . and missed. Portland grabbed the loose puck and went down and scored. Fehr wasn’t allowed to change in the dressing room; he had to dress in a hallway and get on the bus without a shower. And legend has it that whenever Fehr nodded off on the bus, Sauter gave him a poke and told him that the coach wasn’t sleeping, so neither was the player.
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And, yes, there was a night when Ernie McLean, coaching the New Westminster Bruins, wasn’t impressed with what he had just witnessed. So he took out his glass eye and set it on a table in the dressing room. “I’m going to keep an eye on you guys,” he said as he walked out.
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Dean Chynoweth, the GM and head coach of the Swift Current Broncos, remembers being an assistant coach under head coach Butch Goring with the Utah Grizzlies. One night, the Grizzlies were losing. During the game, Goring asked Chynoweth to find out if the arena ice was available after the game.
“Do you really think this is a good idea,” Chynoweth asked.
“F--- them” was the reply. “They embarrassed me. They embarrassed you. They embarrassed themselves. They embarrassed the organization. That’s it.”
After the game, Chynoweth was in a chair when …
“Butch looks at me sitting there,” Chynoweth said.
Goring said: “What are you waiting for? You’re skating them.”
So Chynoweth put on his skates and skated them.
“I was the bad guy,” he said.
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Chynoweth also remembered a game when he was playing for the afore-mentioned Doug Sauter with the Medicine Hat Tigers.
On this night, following a game in Lethbridge, Sauter was upset with a forward named Randy Siska, who had his own pattern for his sticks. And, remember, this was in the days of wooden-shafted sticks.
“I was 17. We young guys were terrified of Doug,” Chynoweth said.
He then recalled what happened as Sauter came into the dressing room . . .
“You think you’re better than everyone else because you’ve got your own sticks,” Sauter said to Siska, grabbing a handful of the player’s sticks. “These sticks haven’t worked for you.”
Sauter then whacked a garbage can with one stick. The stick didn’t break. He then leaned it on a bench and stomped on it with one foot. It only served as a springboard. So he put it across two benches and jumped on it with both feet. Again, it only served as a springboard.”
By now, Chynoweth was chuckling so hard telling the story that it ended right there.
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One of the best stories involves the late Muzz MacPherson, when he was coaching the WHL’s Winnipeg Clubs. They were in Calgary and he told his team that if anyone was two minutes late the bus would leave the hotel and head for the arena without them.
So, a while later, there was Muzz walking into the Corral, his ever-present fedora covered with snow.
Guess who had been late for the bus?
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Or so legend has it. . . .
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