WHL honours ex-Blazers GM

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The numbers are astounding.
For a six-season stretch — 1989-90 through 1994-95 — the Kamloops Blazers
won four WHL championships. They won three Memorial Cup titles in the last
four seasons of that run.
During those six regular seasons, they had a record of 301-111-20, which
works out to an almost unfathomable .720 winning percentage.
In those six springs, they played in 99 playoff games, winning 66 of them.
Yes, when the going got tough they won at a .667 clip.
Bob Brown, the architect of those seasons, was honoured Tuesday night as the
WHL presented the Blazers’ former general manager with its prestigious
Governors Award. He is the first person with any ties to the Blazers to be
so honoured.
WHL commissioner Ron Robison informed Brown of the honour on Monday. Dr. Bob
Smillie, a longtime Blazers’ board member and team supporter, and Bruce
Hamilton, the Kelowna Rockets’ president and the chairman of the WHL’s board
of governors, presented Brown with the award last night, prior to the
Blazers’ playoff game at Interior Savings Centre.
“It was a nice phone call. I never had an inkling,” Brown said. “I felt
really honoured when Ron phoned me. Any time you are recognized by your
peers . . . it’s something special, for sure.”
This award is the highest honour that can be bestowed on an individual by
the WHL’s board of governors and goes, to quote a WHL release, “to
individuals who, through their outstanding service as a builder of the
league and achievements in the game, have contributed to the growth and
development of the WHL.”
Brown spent nine seasons (1986-95) as the Blazers’ general manager, during
which time the team also won seven division titles. He was inexplicably
fired by team president Colin Day on June 5, 1995, just two weeks after the
Blazers had won their third Memorial Cup by beating the Detroit Jr. Red
Wings 8-2 in then-Riverside Coliseum.
“Maybe I was blessed to leave when I did,” Brown said. “I think I was. It
has worked out well for me financially and all, so . . .”
Brown, in his seventh season as a scout for the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers, and
his wife, Janet, live on the Lower Mainland with their son Sam, 3 1/2. Brown
and Janet, a reporter with radio station CKNW, met in Kamloops while she was
with Radio NL.
“She was covering the turning of the sod for the coliseum,” Brown said.
“That’s where she saw me. We got talking down the road . . . it was like
about a nine-year relationship before we got married.”
Last night, Brown was back in Kamloops for the second time this month.
Already a Blazer Legend, he helped induct Stu MacGregor into the select club
on March 6. MacGregor succeeded Brown as the Blazers’ general manager and
now, as the Oilers’ head scout, is Brown’s boss.
Brown added that it “was great to see” Zac Boyer, who was inducted as a
player on March 6. Boyer, of course, scored the game-winning goal late in
the 1992 Memorial Cup final.
That championship, Brown said, was the highlight of his tenure here.
“Easily . . . easily,” he said. “No doubt about it.”
The two Memorial Cup titles that followed were sweet but couldn’t top the
first one.
“We had the stigma as the only team that had been in it from the west and
had never won it,” Brown said.
Earlier this year, Brown learned that he will be inducted into the B.C.
Hockey Hall of Fame in Penticton on July 25.
“Both (honours were) unexpected,” he said. “The first one, the hall of fame,
I was humbled. To be mentioned with some of those people who are already in
there . . .”
Brown may be feeling somewhat humbled but the numbers show that he belongs
there.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com