The winds of change are blowing through the Portland Winter Hawks’ organization. . . . Dean (Scooter) Vrooman, who left the Winter Hawks more than a year ago after a lengthy stint as the team’s much-loved play-by-play voice, remembers the legendary Brian Shaw in a story that was prepared a couple of years ago as part of a book project that never got off the ground . . .
PART 1:
Brian Shaw ruled with an iron hand and a tender heart
For 10 years, I sat behind Portland Winter Hawks’ founder Brian Shaw on the team bus, until he became too ill to travel during his team’s run to the WHL championship series in 1992-93.
Shaw finally lost his long battle with lymphoma, a cancerous brain tumour, on July 27, 1993 at the age of 62. He left a mark on all levels of hockey, but perhaps his greatest legacy is being one of the people responsible for forming the WHL as we know it today.
I will never forget the day I met Brian Shaw. I was shaking, probably the same way many hockey players shook when they were called into his office.
It was September of 1982 and the Winter Hawks’ office was tucked into a small corner of Memorial Coliseum. Recently informed that I had passed my audition to be the next ‘Voice of the Winter Hawks‘, which turned out to be a radio broadcast of a baseball game, I went to the Hawks’ office to gather as much information about the team and the league as I could get my hands on. My predecessor, original Hawks’ broadcaster Cliff Zauner, at 6-foot-6, had decided extended travel on the team bus was just too much. At 5-foot-7, I did not have the courage to ask if my height was the main reason I was hired.
Shaw’s desk was elevated. It always was. He thought it gave him an edge in negotiations or, at the very least, an added element of intimidation, should he choose to use it. It certainly worked on me. I did not have to ask twice who ran the Winter Hawks. He immediately lit one of his patented cigars and started to grill me.
I don’t remember all of his questions or my answers. I only remember thinking by the end of my meeting that I liked the guy.
“Some of what Brian did was show,” says Ken Hodge, the long-time general manager and head coach. “Brian liked impressive cars, nice clothes, great food and enormous cigars, but he never smoked them. And, even though they were big, most of the time the cigars were cheap. Since he didn’t smoke them, he didn’t care how they tasted. He dressed for success and had a distinguished look about him. The cigars needed to be big to fit his image.”
Hodge should know. Their relationship went all the way back to Hodge’s childhood when he was a defenceman on Shaw’s famous Jasper Place Mohawks midget team. The Mohawks were a team like no other in the Edmonton area, or maybe anywhere else in Canada at the midget level. They dressed well off the ice and they looked very good on the ice. Shaw always was a showman and how his teams looked was important to him.
Shaw started to gain a reputation with the Mohawks and eventually was hired to coach the Moose Jaw Canucks in the WHL’s inaugural season, 1966-67. Hodge was the Canucks’ best defenceman. Moose Jaw surprised the powerful Edmonton Oil Kings in the playoffs and went on to win the league’s first championship in a five-game final over Regina.
Hodge’s playing days ended during that 1966-67 season in Moose Jaw when he took a high stick to an eye. He left to coach the major junior team in Sorel, Que., and then moved on and got a taste of coaching pro hockey in the International league in Flint, Mich. At the tender age of 23, Hodge was one of the youngest coaches ever in the IHL; sheesh, most of his players were older than he was.
Meanwhile, Shaw was hired to coach the OHL’s St. Catharine’s Blackhawks, where his best player was Marcel Dionne, who went on to have a legendary career with the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.
But, through it all, Shaw always wanted to be involved in big-time hockey in the Edmonton area, where he had been raised. He eventually got his chance when was hired to coach the Edmonton Oilers of the World Hockey Association in 1973-74.
Bill Hunter, one of the WHL’s founding fathers, owned the Oilers and the Oil Kings. When asked by Hunter for his opinion, Shaw recommended Hodge to coach the Oil Kings. Hunter eventually fired both Shaw and Hodge, so they put together a group and bought the Oil Kings from Hunter in 1974-75. Shaw used his $50,000 buyout money from his Oilers’ contract when Hunter fired him to become the majority owner of the Oil Kings.
Edmonton was fascinated by the Oilers and the pro game, so it wasn’t long before Shaw and Hodge knew they had to take the Oil Kings elsewhere in order to survive financially.
Few people thought junior hockey could make it in the United States. Shaw, however, didn’t share that belief. After leaning towards moving the Oil Kings to Spokane, he decided instead that Portland would be their destination. And so it was that the Oil Kings moved to Portland over the summer of 1976.
On one of the flights between Portland and Edmonton, Shaw saw a little known movie title ‘Winter Hawk‘. It had a nice tie to Blackhawks. Shaw and Hodge were long-time friends with Tommy Ivan, who just happened to be the vice-president, assistant to the president, and the highest-ranking person without the last name of Wirtz in the entire Chicago Blackhawks organization.
For the first three Winter Hawks’ seasons, Shaw would cut his uniform costs by using recycled sweaters and pants from the Blackhawks. In fact, to keep things afloat, Shaw even flew in an aunt from California to mend the uniforms in order to help get the franchise through another season.
Yes, Shaw was very adept at making the right decisions to save money in order the keep the Winter Hawks afloat while also making good decisions to spend where necessary to market the team.
(Part 1 of 7)
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