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 4:
As a youth, Brian Shaw was a goaltender for the Nordegg Cougars and Nordegg Panthers hockey clubs, competed in horse races, was a member of the Military Cadets, sang in the United Church Choir, and loved theatrical productions.
That he loved the theatre would be no surprise to anyone in the hockey media who ever interviewed Shaw, shared time with him in the pressroom before games, or attended one of his press conferences in Edmonton, Moose Jaw or Portland. He definitely had a flair for the dramatic.
Shaw had a passion for baseball almost as much as he did for hockey. In fact, he pitched for the Nordegg Athletics baseball club. His practice regimen included throwing briquettes from the one tipple (where briquettes were made from coal) through the windows of adjacent tipples at the mine. He became a pretty good semi-pro pitcher at one point, earning a spot on a fairly high profile team in Grande Coulee, Wash., in 1954. After his baseball career, he moved to Jasper Place, Alta., to live with an aunt and uncle. The mine closed in 1955 and all of the residents were forced to relocate.
Shaw became an entrepreneur at the tender age of 14. He formed Shaw Agencies and sold watches and jewelry, handled costume rentals, delivered fresh flowers for Mother’s Day and other special occasions, and bought and sold horses, among other things. Later, he worked for Ashdown’s Hardware selling paint (he didn’t paint), selling Black Cat cigarettes (he didn’t smoke), and working for Labatt’s Brewery (he didn’t drink). Eventually, he landed a job selling something he did use and thoroughly enjoyed – he sold televisions and other appliances for Philco. It was no accident that the first hockey team he coached was the Philco Predictas in Jasper Place, the precursor to the Mohawks. Shaw sold Philco a sponsorship for the team name. He was one of the first operators of a hockey team to create a program and sell advertising in it as a way to generate revenue.
Since the Predictas were not an Edmonton-based team, they were not allowed to play in the City of Edmonton’s elite league. So, since they couldn’t play in the city league and realizing he had a group of high-calibre hockey players, Shaw set up the Philcos in exhibition juvenile games wherever he could. They played in the Alberta communities of Stettler, Ponoka, Westlock, Hobbema and Lacombe and even ventured to Uranium City, Sask., in 1960. Those towns eventually made up a highly competitive league that gave the Philo Predicatas accreditation to compete in the provincial juvenile final.
Shaw created the Jasper Place Mohawks from the Predictas and won provincial juvenile A championships in 1962 and 1963. In those days, juvenile hockey was anything but juvenile – it was high level and Shaw used the team’s success and the high quality players that played for him to negotiate an affiliation with the Chicago Blackhawks, thus the name change. The Mohawks traveled to several cities in the United States, including Spokane, Portland, Stockton, Calif., and Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah, in 1963-64.
“To play against increasingly better competition, Brian took his teams to the outlying towns and cities and eventually to the United States,” said his cousin Fred Shaw, who played for Brian on the Mohawks. “We had a lot of the very best talent in the area. I remember the games in Uranium City were against teams with very good senior hockey players. The games were close and well attended.
“There is no doubt that during the trips to the U.S. with the Mohawks, Brian began to realize the potential for hockey in northwestern American cities. That was particularly true in Portland where I remember a very well attended game in 1964 when an-out-of shape coach Brian Shaw decided to put on the pads and play goal. One Portland defenceman had a big slap shot. Brian got very frustrated at his teammates because they weren’t checking, leaving him alone to face the terror. By the end of the first period, his shoulders and chest were badly bruised. Between periods, the goalie-turned-coach chewed us all out and in no uncertain terms ordered us to stand in front of, hook, trip, hold, and (use) any other measure to keep this gunman from firing the puck at him.”
Once he put the pads aside for good, Shaw definitely earned the reputation for letting nothing stand in the way of what he perceived to be a good trade. In fact, anyone who didn’t believe it would only have to be reminded that during his first season of running the Moose Jaw Canucks, Shaw traded his cousin Fred to the Flin Flon Bombers.
And, if it was right for the team, Shaw would reacquire the same player in a later trade. In fact, in his second season in Moose Jaw, he brought back cousin Fred.
One of Shaw’s favorite phrases was: “Never make a trade out of fear, but never fear to make a trade.” Cousin Fred’s hockey journey under Brian was a prime example.
After the Mohawks, Brian invested in a plumbing company in Castro Valley, Calif. Above all else, in hockey and out of hockey, Shaw was a salesman. Although he was anything but a handyman, Shaw successfully sold plumbing supplies and gadgets. He recruited his uncle, now a certified plumber, and his aunt, getting them to move from Jasper Place to Castro Valley to join the business.
But Shaw desperately missed hockey and soon found his way back to the game with the Moose Jaw Canucks, St. Catharine’s Blackhawks, the Oilers, the Oil Kings ... and eventually he wound up in Portland where the Winter Hawks lost their first seven games in 1976-77.
Shaw wheeled and dealed, and sold and sold, overcoming the 0-7 start on the way to seven straight winning seasons. But of all the coal, briquettes, paint, cigarettes, beer, hockey teams and hockey sponsorships he sold during his career, bringing the 1983 Memorial Cup to Portland’s Memorial Coliseum was, without question, his biggest sale ever.
(Part 4 of 7)
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