1989 MEMORIAL CUP
Swift Current Broncos, Saskatoon Blades, Peterborough Petes and Laval Titan
at Saskatoon (Saskatchewan Place)
This Memorial Cup tournament should have belonged to the Saskatoon Blades.
That's because the Blades are the only original member of the Western Hockey League to play every season since the first one, 1966-67.
The Blades had put together some great teams over the years but always seemed to run into another team that was just a little bit better.
Now, with a new rink -- the 7,752-seat Saskatchewan Place -- the Blades found themselves in the Memorial Cup, albeit as the host team.
Still, they were in the tournament. And that's all that mattered to the hockey-mad city of Saskatoon.
But the Swift Current Broncos were also in this tournament. They were there as the WHL champions, the conclusion to a most improbable run.
And the Broncos had more than the eyes of a city upon them. A whole nation was watching them; indeed, it was an entire teary-eyed nation.
If ever there was a little team that could in a little city that wanted to, it was the Swift Current Broncos.
John Rittinger, the team's governor, had tried for years to land a team for the city of 16,000 residents that is located in the southwest part of Saskatchewan.
Every time a team became available, or there was a whisper that one might be up for grabs, Rittinger was there.
It was an empty trail of broken dreams until Rittinger and his community group were able to purchase the Lethbridge Broncos after the 1985-86 season.
But, as it turned out, the chase was only a tiny portion of the story.
The remainder began on the night of Dec. 30, 1986, as the Broncos were en route to Regina for a game with the Pats.
A wet snow resulted in icy conditions and the Broncos bus swerved off the Trans-Canada Highway and crashed through a ditch a short distance from home.
Four players – Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff -- were killed.
At the time, John Foster, the Broncos' publicity director, said: "This team will band together and win it for those guys who died. The (survivors) were absolutely professional under stress. If the people of Swift Current could have seen them, they would have been proud.”
Foster was on the bus that night, so he knew of what he spoke. Time would prove him correct, too.
There was more to this tragic tale, however, and in the end it was all enough to have observers wondering if this organization was operating under a permanent black cloud.
Herman Kruger, 67, suffered a fatal heart attack as he entered the church for his great-grandson's funeral.
And later the same day, at a lunch following funeral services, Regina head coach Doug Sauter and Pats trainer Stan Szumlak came to the rescue of Keith Giles, a member of the Prince Albert executive who was choking on some food.
The Broncos learned then that life does go on. And it did. For the most part, the organization was able to put the accident behind itself -- not forgotten, just out of mind.
As Graham James, the team's general manager and head coach, said in the early winter of 1989: "It's not really mentioned now. If guys start whining or feeling sorry for themselves, we remind them of the history of this franchise. That keeps things in perspective.''
But now it was the spring of 1989 and the Broncos -- and the accident -- were front and centre.
Suddenly, everyone was interested in the Broncos. Everyone wanted to know how it was that the organization could recover as quickly as it did.
"I think after the bus accident . . . that galvanized the spirit of the community,” James said. "I think that was a catalyst. Since then we've had to provide a product that's been worthy of fans coming, but I think that incident certainly rallied the community.”
The Broncos opened the 1988-89 season by winning their first 12 games. A team of destiny? People were already starting to wonder.
When the Christmas break arrived the Broncos were riding a 10-game winning streak and had a 28-5-0 record.
When the regular season was done, the Broncos, a team that played in the smallest of any CHL city, a team that played in the CHL's smallest rink (the Centennial Civic Centre seated 2,275 and had standing room for 800), had the CHL's best record -- 55-16-1. By going 33-2-1 at home, they set a WHL record for most home victories in a season.
Still, the best was yet to come.
On April 30, the Broncos completed an amazing run through the WHL playoffs by beating the Winter Hawks 4-1 in Portland. That gave the Broncos a sweep of the best-of-seven WHL championship final.
Earlier, the Broncos had also swept the Moose Jaw Warriors and Saskatoon.
Yes, Swift Current went through the WHL playoffs without losing a game, something no other WHL team had ever done. The Broncos put together a 12-0 run and they carried that momentum into the Memorial Cup tournament.
"This is a great accomplishment for our franchise,” James said. "But I don't want the Memorial Cup to decide if we had a great year.”
Swift Current centre Tim Tisdale added: "We have the team to do it this year. If we can't get up for four games, we don't belong there. I'll be disappointed if we don't win the Memorial Cup.”
Believe one thing -- this team was Graham James.
Raised in Winnipeg, James had been exposed to the flowing style of hockey played by the World Hockey Association's Winnipeg Jets, in particular the style played by Ulf Nilsson, Anders Hedberg and Bobby Hull.
The Broncos were full of players who could pass, skate and shoot. And while not a physical team, the Broncos were intimidating because the power play simply could not be stopped.
Ask the Warriors who one night were beaten by the Broncos to the tune of 11-3, surrendering a WHL record 10 power-play goals in the process.
With Dan Lambert, Bob Wilkie and Darren Kruger rotating on the points, and with virtually any combination of Tisdale, Peter Soberlak, Sheldon Kennedy, Brian Sakic, Peter Kasowski and Kimbi Daniels seeing time up front, the Broncos' power play was awesome before awesome became cool.
Swift Current's power-play unit scored 180 goals that season, breaking the WHL's single-season record by 15 goals. With the man advantage, the Broncos scored 180 goals in 526 chances, an incredible success rate of 34.2 per cent.
Five players scored 100 points or more -- Tisdale (139), Kasowski (131), Kennedy (106), Lambert (102) and Sakic (100). Darren Kruger finished with 97, and set a WHL record with 63 power-play assists.
Tisdale added 32 points in 12 playoff games, while Lambert had 28 points, including 19 assists.
The goaltender was Trevor Kruger, Darren's twin brother. Their younger brother, Scott, was one of the victim's of that bus accident.
And there was James, a man who loved the game of hockey, especially when it's played properly.
Despite public perception which was fueled by the media, James never really campaigned against violence in hockey. It's just that when asked about it, he always provided an answer. That answer was always thought-provoking.
"I'm not comfortable doing this,” he said. "But I think we have a choice. Do we say what we believe or do we keep quiet so everyone in the league likes us? The easiest thing to do is remain neutral, but I don't think that's right.”
He would oftentimes compare hockey to another sport.
"What if golf were like hockey?” he would wonder out loud. "Say Jack Nicklaus had a 20-foot birdie putt and Ben Crenshaw thought, ‘I'm 10 shots behind him, I'm going to get him.' Would he cross-check Nicklaus in the back of the head with his putter?”
Through all of this, James wasn't the most popular person in WHL circles, especially since his Broncos employed Mark McFarlane, a right-winger who totalled 364 penalty minutes.
"I don't want to give the impression we're perfect,” James said. "We get that all the time -- what about McFarlane? But I think we're sending a message saying you can't stick guys. If I see our guys using sticks, I'll talk to them on the bench. If it continues, we'll deal with it at the team level. We've sat guys out for stick infractions. The bottom line is this game wasn't meant to hurt people.”
The toughest part of the Broncos may well have been the players' bench.
"Actually, we're a lot like the Oakland A's in the mid-'70s,” James said. "Guys come to the bench screaming and bitching at each other, but off the ice they get along great.
"We've just got a lot of high-strung people during the game.”
The Blades, meanwhile, were a disappointed bunch.
Under head coach Marcel Comeau they had put together a 42-28-2 record and were never really given the respect they felt they were due.
They had scored 366 goals. But the Broncos had scored more (447). The Blades had allowed 335 goals. The Broncos had allowed fewer (319).
The Blades had one player with 100 points (Kory Kocur, 102); the Broncos had five.
The one area in which the Blades had the edge was in 20-goal scorers. They had 10 of them; the Broncos only had nine.
Yes, the victories were small, indeed.
This was a gritty Saskatoon team that featured Scott Scissons, with 86 points, and three players with 79 points -- defenceman Collin Bauer and forwards Tracey Katelnikoff and Jason Christie.
Dean Kuntz saw the majority of action in goal during the regular season but, by the time the Memorial Cup arrived, Mike Greenlay was the starter.
The Blades opened the postseason with such high hopes, and they only got higher with a four-game sweep of the Lethbridge Hurricanes.
But before they knew it the Blades had been brushed aside by the Broncos, after which the seemingly interminable wait for the Memorial Cup to start was all that was left.
"We'll take a run at it just like the other teams will,” Comeau said. "We're not here for jokes and giggles.”
This time around, the Laval Titan would represent the QMJHL, a league that hadn't had a Quebec-based team win it all since the 1971 Quebec Remparts of Guy Lafleur.
Laval was coached by former NHLer Paulin Bordeleau, who had ended his North American playing career in 1976 and had since played for France at the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary.
Bordeleau ended his playing career after his Olympic experience and returned to Canada in hopes of starting a coaching career.
Laval's leader offensively was right-winger Donald Audette, who totaled 161 points, including 76 goals, in the regular season and added 17 goals in 17 playoff games.
Two other Laval players broke the 100-point barrier -- Denis Chalifoux (137) and Claude Lapointe (104). Audette was third in the scoring race, Chalifoux was tied for 10th.
One of the keys to Laval's chances was centre Neil Carnes, a native of Farmington Hills, Mich. A knee injury limited him to 31 regular-season games, but he rejoined the team in the playoffs and had recorded 18 points in 10 games.
The key on defence was Patrice Brisebois, while goaltender Ghislain Lefebvre was coming of a regular season in which he posted a 3.90 GAA. When Lefebvre fell victim to postseason inconsistency on three occasions, backup Boris Rousson took over.
The Titan had the QMJHL's second-best regular-season record -- their 43-26-1 record just marginally below the 43-25-2 posted by the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs.
Laval opened the postseason by sweeping the Granby Bisons from a best-of-seven quarterfinal series and followed up with a 4-2 series victory over the Shawinigan Cataractes.
The championship final went seven games before the Titan were able to dispose of the Victoriaville Tigres. Laval won the final game 3-1.
"We were the best team in the league,” Bordeleau said. "We had a few lapses when we lost our discipline, but we deserve to represent Quebec in the Memorial Cup.”
The Peterborough Petes, this time coached by Dick Todd, would represent the OHL. It was the fourth time the Petes had appeared in the tournament since the round-robin format began in 1973.
The Petes boasted of the OHL's top goaltending tandem for the second straight season, John Tanner (3.34 GAA) and Todd Bojcun (3.59).
A year earlier, Tanner and Bojcun had carried the Petes into the OHL final, where they were swept by the Windsor Spitfires. This time, the Petes got to the final and took out the Niagara Falls Thunder in six games, winning the last game 8-2.
Earlier in the playoffs, the Petes had trailed the Belleville Bulls and Cornwall Royals.
The Bulls won the opener of their series before the Petes won the next four games. Cornwall won the first two games, only to have the Petes win the next four.
The leader, on the ice and off, was centre Mike Ricci. He was 10th in the regular-season scoring race with 106 points, including 54 goals. At 17 years of age, he wouldn't be eligible for the NHL draft until the summer of 1990.
The Petes only had two other players with more than 20 goals -- right-winger Ross Wilson had 48 (he totalled 89 points) and left-winger Andy MacVicar, who had 25 goals.
The Petes' roster also included the OHL's toughest player. Right-winger Tie Domi had 14 goals, 30 points and 175 penalty minutes.
Saskatoon fans anxiously awaited the first time Domi and Blades centre Kevin Kaminski (68 points, 199 penalty minutes) came face-to-face in a corner.
The Broncos opened the tournament on the afternoon of May 6, beating the Petes 6-4.
Kennedy, with two, Tisdale, Daniels, Sakic and Kevin Knopp scored for the Broncos, who led 3-2 after one period, trailed 4-3 after the second and won it with three third-period goals.
Domi, with two, Mark Myles and Jamey Hicks replied for the Petes, who trailed 3-2 after one period and led 4-3 after two but gave up three goals in the third.
That night, the Blades swung into action with a 5-3 victory over Laval before 8,943 fans.
Laval tied this one 3-3 at 6:22 of the third period, only to have the Blades win it with goals at 10:34 and 15:22.
The hero in Saskatoon's first-ever Memorial Cup game was Brian Gerrits, who had been acquired from the Portland Winter Hawks in 1987-88. He scored twice, including the game-winner.
Scissons, Katelnikoff and Kocur also scored for Saskatoon. Brisebois, Audette and Michel Gingras counted for Laval.
The following day, May 7, the Blades and Petes evened their records at 1-1 as Peterborough beat Saskatoon 3-2.
The Petes built up a 3-1 lead and took a 3-2 lead into what would be a scoreless third period.
Wilson, with two, and MacVicar scored for Peterborough. Defenceman Ken Sutton and centre Jason Smart replied for the Blades.
The star was Bojcun, who kept the Blades off the board for the game's final 24 minutes.
"Our goalies got us through the playoffs,” Wilson said. "Hopefully, they'll get us through the Memorial Cup.”
And, yes, Domi and Kaminski did go fist-to-fist. The spirited bout was scored a draw by observers; it was also the only scrap of the first four games.
After the game, it was revealed that Ricci, who hadn't been terribly effective in the first two games, had chicken pox. He would try to play through it.
That night, Swift Current guaranteed itself a playoff spot by edging Laval 6-5 in front of 8,733 fans.
This time the Broncos won it with two goals six seconds apart in the third period, Wilkie scoring at 15:14 to break a 5-5 tie and Daniels winning it at 15:20 with his second goal of the game.
Lambert also had two goals for the winners, with Tisdale getting the other. Laval, which lost defenceman Eric Dubois with a separated shoulder, got two goals from Carnes and singles from Lapointe, Brisebois and Patrick Caron.
"I honestly didn't think we'd win this game,” Lambert said. Then, in reference to the club's habit of slumbering through the second period, he added: "I thought we'd done this one too many times.”
James said: "Sometimes we forget about the work ethic. But if we don't work, we're like any other team. We don't win.”
The QMJHL had now lost 13 straight games to OHL and WHL teams, a streak that began after the Hull Olympiques beat the Kamloops Blazers 9-3 in Portland on May 16, 1986.
"I just told them that the best team in Canada is the team that wins the Memorial Cup,” Bordeleau said after his team fell to 0-2. "And nobody has won the Memorial Cup yet.”
Prior to the two late goals, the Broncos were struggling to beat Lefebvre, who faced 40 shots in the Laval goal.
"That's as depressed as our bench has been for a long time,” James said. "I thought (Lefebvre) was on such a roll we were never going to beat him. But we're getting good play out of some of our guys and those individual efforts made the difference.”
The QMJHL's winless streak ended on May 9 when Laval beat Peterborough 3-1 before 8,517 fans.
"People said we hadn't won in so long,” Bordeleau said. "I said I'd never lost a game in the Memorial Cup and we'll go from there.”
By the time the game was five minutes old, Laval led 2-0 on goals by Caron and Audette. Carnes got Laval's other goal, with Hicks scoring for the Petes.
"They were a desperate team and we didn't show we were determined to put them away,” Todd stated.
By now, not only did the Petes have Ricci with chicken pox, but a flu bug was making its way through the dressing room.
Saskatoon made believers of everyone on May 10 by earning a berth in the tournament final with a thrilling 5-4 victory over the Broncos in front of a wild crowd of 8,763 fans.
That left the Blades and Broncos with 2-1 records; the Blades got the nod by virtue of their victory over Swift Current.
"(The Saskatoon StarPhoenix) said we were the laughing stock of the tournament,” Comeau said. "That was a motivational tool. He's not on our payroll but that writer certainly helped us out.”
Greenlay was spectacular for the Blades. He had made three starts against the Broncos in the WHL's East Division final and he got the hook in each one of them.
But on this night he stopped 39 shots, including 17 in the third period.
"I was playing with confidence and when you're playing with confidence, the puck just seems to hit you,” Greenlay said. "I'm sick and tired of hearing about that other series. I felt I'd let everybody down. I had three weeks to get ready for this series and get my confidence back. That's what I needed.”
Swift Current, which had a 14-game postseason winning streak snapped, led 3-1 after the first period, on goals by Wilkie, Kasowski and Sakic. With the Broncos ahead 3-0, Dean Holoien scored a late power-play goal for the Blades.
In the second period, Sutton banged in two goals and Smart added a single to put the Blades out front 4-3.
Kennedy tied it at 15:12 of the second period on a Swift Current power play. But Saskatoon's Darin Bader scored what proved to be the winner at 17:01, setting up a scoreless third period.
"(Greenlay) had the answer for everything they threw at him,” Comeau said. "He kept a very impressive offensive team down to a workable number of goals for us.”
The Broncos were left shaking their heads.
"He wasn't very good in the other series,” Lambert said. "Tonight, he showed us what he could do.”
James agreed.
"Certainly, the timing of this could be a little better,” James said. "But I don't want to get too excited over this. We'd beaten them four times in a row, their goalie plays well and we lose by a goal.
"They played 10 or 12 minutes and held on to win the hockey game. We should have buried them in the first period. I don't see any reason to hang our heads.”
That left it up to Laval and Peterborough to decide who would meet Swift Current in the semifinal game.
The Petes and Titan decided that on May 11, with Peterborough riding a 37-save effort by Bojcun to a 5-4 victory before 7,060 fans.
"We played a chippy game,” said Ricci, who scored his first two goals, both of them in the first period. "We have a big team and we had to come out tough and show them we were here to play.”
Todd noticed the difference in his star centre.
"It was obvious from the start that Mike Ricci had another step in his game,” Todd said. "That's a must for our team to be successful.”
Chalifoux opened the scoring with what would be his only goal of the tournament. And the Petes roared back with three straight goals -- two from Ricci and the other from Geoff Ingram.
The Titan came back to fire 29 shots at Bojcun over the final two periods, but they trailed 5-2 going into the third period.
Hicks and Jamie Pegg added second-period goals for the Petes, with Lapointe counting for Laval.
The Titan got third-period goals from Audette and Carnes but they couldn't get the equalizer.
"I wasn't trying to think about what was happening around me,” Bojcun said. "I just tried to stay calm and show my team I was relaxed.”
Bojcun was the game's third star. In his other two starts, he had been selected first star.
The game also helped set a Memorial Cup attendance record. The six-game total was 59,800, breaking the record of 57,256 set in Portland in 1986. By tournament's end, the attendance total would be 77,296.
The Broncos set up an all-Saskatchewan final on May 12 by whipping the Petes 6-2 in front of 8,378 fans.
"We're just like Nolan Ryan going to the mound with just his changeup,” James said. "We didn't have our best stuff.
"We were fighting the puck all night, which is the only thing this team will fight by the way. We were faulty in all areas. We just managed to persevere and win.”
Power-play goals by Tisdale and Trevor Sim gave the Broncos a 2-0 lead after a first period in which the Petes were outshot 9-2.
Sim, who had been acquired from Regina in a midseason trade, upped it to 3-0 early in the second period before Wilson got Peterborough on the board while skating with a two-man advantage.
Blake Knox pushed Swift Current's edge to 4-1 six minutes into the third period before Ricci scored, again with the Petes holding a two-man edge. The Petes couldn't get closer despite firing 38 shots at Kruger over the last two periods, and Tisdale and Daniels closed out the scoring.
"Their goaltender had a big night,” Todd said of Kruger, who finished with 38 saves. "When you're not blessed with an abundance of natural goal scorers, you run into nights like this.”
Todd also pointed a finger at referee Dean Forbes, pointing out that the Petes took six of the eight minor penalties handed out in the first period.
James, though, wasn't buying it.
"I don't think teams have anyone to blame but themselves for the penalties they take,” he said.
And then he began preparations for the final game.
"I feel cheated we haven't been playing our best,” James said. "We're in the national spotlight and the fans haven't seen the real Swift Current Broncos. I feel badly about that.
"But if you would have come up to me at the start of the season and said, ‘You'll be in the Memorial Cup final', I would have been delighted.
"By hook or by crook, we've got a shot at it tomorrow.”
This would be the very first all-WHL final. The only other time two teams from the same league had met in the final was 1984 when the Ottawa 67's beat the host Kitchener Rangers 7-2 in an all-OHL final.
Tears were shed and that bus crash of Dec. 30, 1986 was remembered on May 14 when the Broncos won the Memorial Cup, beating the Blades 4-3 on Tisdale's goal at 3:25 of the first sudden-death overtime period.
"I was just standing there and it hit my stick,” Tisdale said of the biggest goal in Broncos history. "I still don't know how it went in.”
It was a centring pass by Darren Kruger that Tisdale tipped in to win it all.
The game was played in front of 9,078 fans in Saskatchewan Place along with a national television audience.
It was a game for all time.
"It was a great game for us," James said. "We generated a lot of chances against a very good team in their own building.
"For the people who tuned in, they got a helluva show.”
That they did.
Kennedy gave the Broncos a 1-0 lead late in the first period, and Knox upped it to 2-0 early in the second period when only Greenlay was keeping the Blades in this one.
But there has never been any quit in the Blades organization and Saskatoon ended up taking a 3-2 lead into the third period.
Scissons started the comeback at 12:35 of the second period. Katelnikoff tied it with a shorthanded goal at 17:30. Kocur put the Blades out front at 19:43.
"For five minutes we just lost our minds and started giving the puck away,” James said.
The Broncos, despite outshooting the Blades 23-12, trailed 3-2 going into the third period.
"We felt we outplayed them,” Tisdale said, "but we were trailing.”
The Broncos, the fifth team in seven years to win the semifinal game and then beat the first-place team in the final, tied it when Daniels scored at 5:59 of the third period, after which the teams resorted to firewagon hockey.
When the game ended, the Broncos owned a 34-24 edge in shots on goal. But in overtime Saskatoon outshot Swift Current 5-1.
Trevor Kruger made five straight saves in overtime before Tisdale scored.
"I can't think of a thing we could have done differently,” Comeau said. "We gave it a maximum effort but we came up one shot short.
"Life goes on. I'm not sure if some of our players believe that right now, but we couldn't have given any more . . . In the final analysis, the best team won.”
The Broncos ended up 16-1 in the postseason. Combining regular-season and playoff records shows them at 71-17-1.
And when it was over, the accident was remembered.
"When we came back in here I just sat in my stall and thought things over,” said Lambert, the tournament's most valuable player. "You see it on TV and you dream about it, but you never expect something like this to happen.
"Today, it happened for me.”
(Greenlay was selected top goaltender, and Hicks was named most gentlemanly player. The all-star team featured Greenlay, Lambert, Sutton, Tisdale, Kennedy and Carnes.)
James said the accident "is something we downplay.”
"But,” he added, “it meant something to the players who were there and the people involved with the franchise. It's hard to believe we could come back . . . I think it's a great tribute to the guys (Kresse, Scott Kruger, Mantyka and Ruff) and we can let them rest in peace.
"With everyone cheering, it was hard to keep control of your emotions . . . I guess reflection time will come when we're on the bus to Swift.”
Perhaps the headline in the Regina Leader-Post said it best -- Broncos: A Memorial victory.
NEXT: 1990 (Kamloops Blazers, Oshawa Generals, Kitchener Rangers and Laval Titan)