Memories of Bikini Night in the Crushed Can

Here is how Eric Duhatschek of The Globe and Mail began a piece that was posted at globeandmail.com shortly after the Canadian Olympic hockey roster was named:
“The first thing that you need to know about Mike Babcock's coaching style is that he's all about planning and preparation.
“Not everyone will fret over having a right-handed centre to take a critical defensive zone face-off late in a game, but Babcock will. It's what makes him an accomplished NHL coach. The devil is in the details.”
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And how do you think Babcock learned the importance of details?
He did it in places like Moose Jaw where he did a turn as general manager and head coach of the Warriors.
He did it while arranging things like Bikini Night. Yes, Bikini Night!
It was Wednesday, Feb. 10, 1993. The Warriors were on their way to a 27-42-3 record that would leave them eighth in the nine-team Eastern Conference. There would be no playoffs in the Crushed Can that spring.
And so it was that Babcock was forced to think outside the box as he attempted to get people to attend Warriors’ games.
But . . . Bikini Night . . . in the Crushed Can . . . in early February?
Sheesh, it was cold that night.
And the Bikini Night contestants — they actually were ‘professional models’ out of Calgary — had goosebumps on their goosebumps as they paraded onto the ice surface during the intermissions.
“On these bodies,” I wrote in the Regina Leader-Post, “there were goosebumps on the goosebumps. We’re talking big, big, big goosebumps . . . let’s get-out-of-here-and-find-some-heat kind of goosebumps.”
The Warriors would beat the Medicine Hat Tigers, 7-3, that night. Dennis Polonich was the Tigers’ general manager and he was all bundled up in a warm winter coat.
“Bikini Night? Here?” an incredulous Polonich said before the game. “I should have brought my furs.”
Spoken like a true GM, who was thinking of making a few bucks by renting fur coats to the, ahem, models.
There were three female models there that night and, yes, they looked mighty cold and uncomfortable. (In the interests of gender equality, it must be pointed out that three local yokels were on the ice, too, wearing only swim trunks.)
The attendance was 1,716 which was about 180 more than the Warriors normally had for a midweek game.
“There was a bearded guy looking a lot like Brad Tippett. Said he was there to see the hockey game,” I wrote after the game. “So did Jim Bzdel and Glen Sonmor and Marcel Pronovost and Bruce Franklin, hockey scouts all. Local newspaper magnate Bob Calvert said the same thing, too.”
In the end, though, it wasn’t the girls in bikinis who brought the biggest reaction from the crowd.
“The night’s loudest cheers went to Justin Hocking of the Tigers and the Warriors’ Darren Stevenson,” I wrote. “Sorry, purists, but these two got into a second-period slugfest that, as these things go, was a dandy . . . and the cheers almost bought down the roof.”
This was near the end of Babcock’s second season with the Warriors. At that point in time, one might have drawn the conclusion that he was closer to the Lingerie Football League than to the National Hockey League.
But, as we have learned, the devil is in the details. And you wonder if Babcock didn’t learn that night in Moose Jaw to concentrate on coaching and leave some of those others details to someone else.
By the next season, he was coaching the U of Lethbridge Pronghorns. After one season there, he moved on to the Spokane Chiefs with whom he spent six seasons. Then it was into the AHL and, ultimately, the NHL.
Now he is in the process of carving out a Hall of Fame-worthy career.
And he is the head coach of Canada’s Olympic hockey team.
Babcock has come a long way, indeed, from that cold, goosebumpy night in the Crushed Can.