1981 MEMORIAL CUP
Victoria Cougars, Kitchener Rangers and Cornwall Royals
at Windsor (Arena)
For the second year in a row, the Cornwall Royals, a team from Ontario, represented the province of Quebec in the Memorial Cup tournament.
And the Royals were back as the defending champions.
Prior to the tournament, a rule change had been implemented that would hopefully prevent an incident that had occurred a year earlier in Regina.
In 1980, the Peterborough Petes were put in a position where it was possible for them to determine the fate of another team by losing a game, and plenty of people in Regina felt they did just that.
Beginning with 1981, if after four games one team had clinched a berth in the final, the other two teams would play a two-game, total-goal series. If one team clinched a spot in the final after five games, the other two were to play a sudden-death semifinal game.
The Royals, as in 1980, were sparked by centre Dale Hawerchuk, now a 17-year-old veteran of the junior wars who played between John Kirk and Gilles Crepeau.
Head coach Doug Carpenter was gone, however, having moved on to the professional ranks as head coach of the American Hockey League's New Brunswick Hawks. Replacing him was Bob Kilger, who had been released as an NHL referee after the 1979-80 season and now was the Royals' general manager and head coach.
This would be Cornwall's last season in the QMJHL. The Royals would play in the Ontario league the next season.
And the Royals wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. They finished with the league's best regular-season record -- 44-26-2 -- scoring a league-high 403 goals in the process.
Hawerchuk won the QMJHL scoring championship, his 183 points providing a 17-point margin over Alain Lemieux of the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs. Hawerchuk also led the league in goals (81) and assists (102).
Scott Arniel of the Royals finished seventh with 123 points, including 52 goals.
The Royals also featured a rookie centre by the name of Doug Gilmour.
There were 11 veterans of the 1980 Memorial Cup-championship team back for another go-round, including forwards Marc Crawford, who was also the team captain, Arniel, Crepeau and Hawerchuk, along with defencemen Fred Arthur and Fred Boimistruck. The goaltending was provided by Joe Mantione and Corrado Micalef, the latter a pretournament addition from the Sherbrooke Castors.
As they had a year ago, the Royals started the playoffs in low gear. The Quebec Remparts, with the QMJHL's eighth-best record (31-39-2) provided the first-round opposition and took the Royals the full seven games.
Sherbrooke was next up and it, too, took the Royals to seven games before losing out.
At this point, the Royals had played 14 postseason games, winning eight and outscoring the opposition 69-51.
After all that, the championship final was rather anticlimactic, with the Royals beating the Draveurs in five games.
Meanwhile, the Kitchener Rangers, coached by Orval Tessier, were winning the Ontario Hockey League championship and penning something of a Cinderella story in the process. Tessier had played for the Barrie Flyers when they won the Memorial Cup in 1953 and he coached the Quebec Remparts to the 1971 title.
Just one year earlier, the Rangers had finished at 17-51-0, the worst record in the OHL. In 1980-81, they doubled their regular-season points total, finishing 34-33-1, and won the Emms Division on the final day of the regular season. They won 13 of their last 14 games to set the tone for the postseason.
In the playoffs, which featured nine-point series, the Rangers dumped the Niagara Falls Flyers 9-5 and then took out the Windsor Spitfires.
The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds had finished with the OHL's best regular-season record (47-19-2) and were expected to give the Ranges a tussle. It didn't happen as Kitchener romped to a 9-3 series victory.
The Rangers' offence was sparked by veteran Jeff Larmer and rookie Brian Bellows. Just 16 years of age, Bellows, the team captain, was coming off a 116-point regular season.
Kitchener's goaltending was handled by Wendell Young. A 17-year-old rookie, Young had really come to the fore in the postseason, posting a 3.15 GAA.
There was some pre-tournament talk suggesting that officials had wanted to move the tournament from Windsor to Kitchener to take advantage of the Rangers being in the event. But the switch never happened.
The Victoria Cougars, a team that featured goaltender Grant Fuhr, represented the WHL.
Jack Shupe, a veteran of the western Canadian coaching wars, was running the Cougars. Shupe had last been to the Memorial Cup tournament in 1973 with the Medicine Hat Tigers.
The Cougars actually trailed the Calgary Wranglers 3-1 in the WHL's best-of-seven final before rallying. They didn't win the WHL title until Terry Sydoryk broke a 2-2 tie at 18:07 of the third period of Game 7. An empty-netter by Grant Rezansoff made the final score 4-2.
The Cougars had finished on top of the West Division, their 121 points (60-11-1) leaving them eight ahead of the Portland Winter Hawks.
The Cougars' offensive leader was centre Barry Pederson, whose 147 points left him third in the scoring race, just 13 points off the lead.
Pederson added 36 points in the playoffs, second behind the 43 points put up by Calgary's Bill Hobbins.
Pederson was supported by Rezansoff, who totalled 27 playoff points after a 97-point regular season, Rich Chernomaz (113 regular-season points), Torrie Robertson 111), Brad Palmer, Paul Cyr, Bud McCarthy and Mark Morrison. This was a team that could score -- witness its league-high 462 goals.
But it was Fuhr who dominated this team. He was the primary reason for it surrendering only 217 regular-season goals, 49 fewer than any other team.
The Cougars opened the playoffs by sweeping the Spokane Flyers in four games. They then took apart the Winter Hawks in four straight.
That sent them into the final where they fell behind the Doug Sauter-coached Wranglers, who featured goaltender Mike Vernon, 3-1 in games before roaring back to win their first WHL championship since they entered the league in 1971.
"Fuhr was the difference,” Sauter said. "There's no doubt he's an all-star.”
This would also mark the first Memorial Cup appearance for a team from Victoria.
The tournament opened in Windsor on May 3 with Cornwall skating its way to a 6-3 victory over Kitchener, which took a 12-game unbeaten streak into the game, before 3,960 fans.
The Royals got off to a great start by beating Young on their first two shots, by defenceman Eric Calder and right-winger Dan Frawley, before the game was three minutes old.
"The first period was most important,” said Kilger, "since we wanted to play our game right from the start. We knew that we would have to take the body-checking, but they would have to skate with us.”
Hawerchuk, Arniel, Crepeau and Calder, with his second of the night, rounded out Cornwall's scoring.
Mario Michieli, Mike Clayton and Bellows, who spent most of the game being shadowed by Crawford, scored for Kitchener.
"We backed into our own end and took some useless penalties in the first period,” Tessier said. "And you can't do that against a team such as Cornwall that has Memorial Cup experience.”
Trailing 2-1 in the first period, the Rangers took two minor penalties and the Royals responded with power-play goals by Hawerchuk and Arniel before the period was half over.
After Arniel's goal, at 9:59, Steve Bienkowski replaced Young, who it turned out had injured his right arm in the warmup.
"I had asked him if he was all right before the game and he said, ‘Yes,' ” Tessier explained. "But he didn't even move on three of the goals.
"I used to be able to rely on my goaltenders telling me how they feel, but I don't know if I can do that any more.”
At the other end, Mantione stopped 18 shots in the first period and 43 on the game.
"They kept me on my toes,” he said. "I didn't expect them to come out as strong as they did, but it seems they shoot a lot more in the Ontario league than they do in Quebec.”
The Rangers actually fought their way back into this one and were within two goals when Bienkowski allowed a Calder floater from outside the blue line to get past him.
"That goal really killed us,” said Tessier, who obviously wasn't pleased with his goaltending. "We were totally deflated after that.”
Things didn't get any better for the Rangers on May 4 when they were beaten 7-4 by the Cougars before 3,200 fans.
"We got out there and we looked at the Cougar uniforms and we thought they were very pretty,” Tessier said. "We played like tourists at the start as we stood around and stared at them.”
The Cougars were wearing Cooperall uniforms, which featured full-length nylon pants, rather than knee-high pants with wool stockings.
"I don't know if we're feeling a letdown after the OHL final against Sault Ste. Marie,” Tessier added, “but the more this happens, the more I think we are.”
With the Rangers standing around, the Cougars roared out to a 4-0 lead before the game was 22 minutes old.
Pederson, with three, Cyr, Tony Feltrin, Daryl Coldwell and Morrison scored for the Cougars.
Kitchener got two goals from Russ Adam and one each from Lee MacKenzie and Larmer.
Bienkowski made 32 saves and went the distance despite being injured at 10:17 of the first period when a Pederson wrist shot hit him in the throat.
"I wanted to take him out,” Tessier said, "but the trainer (Les Bradley) assured me he could continue.”
The Rangers suffered one other injury when centre Grant Martin, their leading postseason scorer, banged up his right leg when he was checked by Len Dawes midway in the second period.
"Kitchener was kind of sloppy in their own end and they don't have a good skater,” said Fuhr, who made 28 saves and allowed his club to skate into a 7-1 lead. "But the guys in front of me also cut them off, so that they only had so much to shoot at.”
The bloom came off the Cougars the following night, May 5, as Mantione turned aside 29 shots to lead the Royals to a 3-1 victory in front of 3,629 fans.
"Joe played a superb hockey game for us,” Kilger said. "It was a challenge for him to play against Fuhr, whom many consider to be the best goalie in Canada.
"Joe's a very confident young man, and if you were to ask him who's the best goalie, he'd say, ‘Joe Mantione.’ ”
Crepeau, with two, and Arniel scored for the Royals, who now were 2-0 in the tournament.
Morrison counted for the Cougars (1-1).
"I love playing against another good goalie,” said the 18-year-old Mantione, who was one year removed from a junior B team in Hamilton. "I play that much harder just to show that I'm as good as the guy at the other end.”
Fuhr, the guy at the other end on this night, was no slouch himself, with 34 saves.
"I'm not going to pinch myself,” said Mantione, a 5-foot-10, 159-pounder, who put up a 4.00 GAA in the regular season. "I want to keep this happening.”
Mantione gave up a power-play goal to Morrison at 11:54 of the first period and was perfect after that.
The Cougars, who had lost right-winger Stu Kulak to a knee injury in their first game, watched as defenceman Rob Jacobson left with a facial cut. And Bob McGill, another defenceman, was playing with strained back muscles.
Cornwall, meanwhile, lost Kirk, the left winger on Hawerchuk's line, with a bruised shoulder on his first shift of the game.
By now, Tessier had brought in another goaltender -- Mike Moffat from the Kingston Canadians -- and was thinking about starting him in place of the injured Bienkowski.
Instead, he came back with Young and it paid off with a 6-4 victory over the Royals on May 6 in front of 3,433 fans.
Bellows led the way with three goals, but after the game Tessier was talking about his 2 1/2-year-old grandson, who went by the monicker Crusher.
"Crusher told the guys they had to win because he didn't come all the way to Windsor (from Cornwall) for nothing,” Tessier said of the team's pregame pep talk.
Mike Moher added a goal and two assists for the Rangers, with Kerry Williston and Larmer adding a goal apiece.
Hawerchuk, who was beginning to take control of this tournament, struck for three goals for the Royals and now led the event with seven points. Gilmour had Cornwall's other goal.
"We were so embarrassed by our first two games that we didn't want to show our faces around anywhere,” Bellows admitted. "The first two games we stood around.
"But in this game we took the initiative and made the other team adapt to us.”
Kitchener centre Russ Adam, who set up two goals, agreed with Bellows.
"We felt bad about letting down the fans, the league and ourselves since we're better than those games indicated,” Adam said.
On May 7, the Rangers came full circle as they beat the Cougars 4-2 to even their record at 2-2. Cornwall was 2-1, Victoria 1-2.
Moher, Bellows, Bob Hicks and Kevin Casey scored for the Rangers, before 3,400 fans.
Pederson and Coldwell replied for the Cougars.
The Cougars were eliminated on May 8 as Hawerchuk struck for four goals, two of them shorthanded and two on the power play, in an 8-4 Cornwall victory before 4,086 fans.
"The fact we gave up those two breakaway goals by Hawerchuk is unbelievable,” Shupe said. "I don't think we gave up a goal like that all year.”
The victory sent the Royals into the final, giving them a chance at their second straight title.
Arniel, with two, Crawford and Roy Russell also scored for the Royals.
Robertson, with two, Morrison and Cyr counted for the Cougars.
Hawerchuk's first goal came at 16:59 of the first period, with his club shorthanded and trailing 1-0 after Robertson had scored for Victoria.
Hawerchuk intercepted a pass at the Cornwall blue line and went in alone.
"I was lucky to pick up the puck,” said Hawerchuk. "I noticed how slow the puck would be moving across the ice, and I was just ready when it took a bad bounce. The ice was a little slow tonight.”
His second shorthanded goal proved to be the game-winner.
The Royals were leading 4-3 when he picked off another errant pass at his blue line.
"Fuhr came out to meet me and he had all the angles covered,” said Hawerchuk, who now had eight goals and 11 points in four games. "I wanted to shoot up high, but he had that covered, too.
"Luckily, I spotted an opening between the pads and I put it there.”
Kilger, for one, was thrilled that Hawerchuk was putting on a show.
"I'm glad to see what Dale has been doing in this tournament,” Kilger said. "He has a great deal of ability, a hell of a lot of heart, and he's all that we've been telling people he is for the past year.
"I think he's making a believer out of a lot of knowledgeable hockey people. And I definitely think he's the player of the year.”
Micalef, the QMJHL's top goaltender with Sherbrooke, stopped 35 shots and was especially sharp in the first period when the Cougars fired 20 shots at him.
"I thought we started off well in the first period, but we unfortunately only got one goal,” Shupe said. "Then we just fell apart in the second and third.”
Then, on May 10, the Royals became the fourth team to win back-to-back championships when they dumped the Rangers 5-2 behind three goals from Arniel before a sellout crowd of 4,500.
It was the Royals' third Memorial Cup title in 12 years. The first one, in 1972, was won with Tessier as head coach.
Gilmour and Russell also scored for the Royals, who got 35 saves from Micalef.
Bellows and Mike Eagles found the range for the Rangers, who got a dazzling 41-save performance from Young.
"This is by far the most exciting thing that I've ever experienced,” Kilger said. "I think now it's over I'll go out to the water, and if the fish aren't biting, I'll walk on the water.”
Still, the 1981 tournament belonged to Hawerchuk, who earlier in the week had been named major junior hockey's player of the year.
For the second straight year he was the tournament's top scorer. And this time he was named the most valuable player. He set one tournament record by scoring eight goals and tied another by totaling 13 points.
(Morrison went home with the sportsmanship award, with Micalef named the top goaltender. Micalef was on the all-star team along with Arthur and Kitchener's Joe McDonnell on defence, and forwards Hawerchuk, Crawford and Bellows.)
In later years, Gilmour would recall Hawerchuk's role in the tournament:
"He carried the team most of the season and through the playoffs and with his leadership we won the Memorial Cup. He did everything well. He just dominated when he was on the ice. He was the guy we looked at to bring us that leadership and score goals.”
Perhaps the ultimate compliment came from Bobby Clarke who, in the early 1990s, remembered that tournament.
"If you didn't know who he was when you walked in the door,” Clarke said, "you would think you were watching (Wayne) Gretzky.”
NEXT: 1982 (Portland Winter Hawks, Kitchener Rangers and Sherbrooke Castors)