It happens, just ask the Blazers

The disbelief hadn’t yet become ennui when the inbox took a hit.
The note was from a gent who lives in Pittsburgh and is a big WHL fan, one who, for whatever reason, pays particular attention to the Kamloops Blazers.
“I don’t think they’ve won a playoff series since I put on a Blazer bumper sticker and that’s a long, long time ago,” he wrote.
And then he asked this question:
“Young people in Kamloops, do they ask when was the last time they won a series?”
If you think the playoff woes that have befallen your Blazers — they still are your Blazers, aren’t they? — haven’t been noticed around the world, well, you’d be wrong. We are a society that really loves train wrecks, and this has become a playoff train wreck of monstrous proportions with numbers that border on the ridiculous.
When an outsider mentions that the Blazers have lost 19 straight playoff games, all you can do is shrug your shoulders. When it is mentioned that the Blazers have won five of their last 48 playoff games — and that 5-43 is a .104 winning percentage — you can only roll your eyes.
And if the outsider dares to go on and mention the eight straight overtime losses, the not having won an overtime game at home since Jarome Iginla scored in extra time in 1996, to having exited the WHL playoffs in the first round in 10 of the last 11 years — the Blazers didn’t qualify in the other season or it might be 11-for-11 — and to having been swept in seven of those series . . . well, about all you can do is quote Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland: “It happens.”
But, you know, stuff — really strange stuff — just seems to happen, and has happened, to this hockey team, and we’re not referring to all the off-ice hijinks that occurred over the last decade and beyond.
Sheesh, do you remember Alan Manness? Nice young man. His father, Clayton, was Manitoba’s Minister of Finance at one point. Alan started his WHL career with the Blazers in 1996. They later traded him to the Regina Pats, who sent him to the Seattle Thunderbirds.
So it came to pass that Manness was there when it started to happen. He had a goal and three assists as the host Thunderbirds thrashed the Blazers 7-2 in Game 2 of what would become the first sweep of this extended non-playoff run. You may recall that Seattle forward Oleg Saprykin was tossed for cross-checking defenceman Micki DuPont, who would later be named the CHL’s top defenceman, in the back of the head.
Saprykin sat out one game, while DuPont didn’t miss a game, although he wasn’t the same player he had been. In Game 4, Saprykin had two goals and two assists, Seattle won 5-2 and the Blazers were gone.
Yes, it happens.
Then came the spring of 2001. The Blazers were to meet up with the Spokane Chiefs in the first round. Spokane defenceman Kurt Sauer was a stud — big, tough, mean and dominant. The Blazers were going to need forward Paul Brown, who wasn’t big but thought he was tough and had an unpredictable edge to his game, to try to neutralize Sauer.
Except that Brown got into some trouble in the last game of the regular season against the Rockets in Kelowna and drew a two-game suspension. What was Brown doing? Well, he was running around trying to start a late-game scrap because as he said, “I wanted to get to 300 PIMs.”
The Chiefs outscored the Blazers 20-5 and swept into the second round.
It was becoming evident that something was at work here.
And then there was the classic six-game series with the Kootenay Ice in 2003. That one will be remembered for Game 3, a four-overtime thriller that is the longest game in WHL history. It also will be remembered for Game 6, the series’ final game that went into the third overtime period. The Blazers lost them both.
Kamloops forward Scottie Upshall, a talent who lived on the edge, took 17 minor penalties in that series, including five in Game 3. His penalties led to 13 Ice power plays and three Kootenay goals. When a well-timed goal or two could have won a series, Upshall, who scored 99 regular-season goals with the Blazers, came up empty. He had a lot of chances but didn’t score even one goal in the six games.
It happens.
In the spring of 2004, the Vancouver Giants were in their third season of existence. Their coaching staff was led by Dean Evason, a Blazers Legend, and included former Blazers captain Craig Bonner (yes, he now is the Kamloops general manager) and Darcy Wakaluk. All three had been Blazers coaches two years earlier when Kamloops was swept by the Rockets. In another one of those changes in directions that have dogged this franchise, all three were fired shortly after that series.
And now the Giants, in the playoffs for a second time, were trying to win their first playoff series. They held a 3-1 lead in games as they played Game 5 at home, but, suddenly, they were losing 4-1 with under 12 minutes to play in the third period. Game 6 would be played the next night in Kamloops. Well, you know the rest. Three goals in under 10 minutes tied it and forward Ty Morris won it in overtime. Game 6 never happened.
It happens. It just seems to happen more to some organizations than to others.
In the spring of 2005, the Blazers hooked up again with the Ice. When forward Kevin Hayman scored at 18:57 of the third period to give the Blazers a 3-2 victory in Game 3, and a 2-1 series lead, Kamloops looked to be in good shape.
The date was March 29.
Who was to know that from then until now the Blazers wouldn’t win another playoff game?
One night later, the Ice’s Dale Mahovsky broke Kamloops’ hearts at 1:25 of overtime and the Blazers, it would seem, have never recovered.
Kamloops won 40 games in the 2006-07 regular season but Ray Macias, who led all WHL defencemen in points, left in Game 70 with a season-ending wrist injury.
In the first round, the Blazers met up with the Prince George Cougars, who had run hot and cold for a lot of the season. Sniper Devin Setoguchi, who had been acquired from the Saskatoon Blades, had 36 goals in 55 games but, observers said, should have been capable of so much more.
Well, guess what happened? Yes, with Setoguchi scoring and Real Cyr tending goal like he never had before, the Cougars swept the Blazers. Setoguchi scored five goals, two of them OT winners, and set up two others. Cyr stood on his head and then some, winning four one-goal games, including three in OT.
The Cougars went 15 games deep into the playoffs that spring. The Blazers went home. Again.
Yes, it happens.
There was an ownership change and a coaching change and an ugly four-game beating by the Tri-City Americans in 2008.
And then came 2008-09, when the Blazers would lose 13 times — 13 STINKIN’ TIMES — to the Rockets. Of course, the last four of those losses came in the playoffs. Ahh, that used to be such a rivalry.
Which brings us to this season, one that ended Wednesday night at Interior Savings Centre. Yes, the Blazers were swept again, this time by the Giants, who won three one-goal games, two of those in OT.
Now think about this: The Giants, with seven 1990-born players and three 20-year-olds on their roster, held the lead for 11 per cent of the four games; the Blazers, with one 19-year-old and three 20s, were out front 32.3 per cent of the time.
The Blazers held at least one lead in each of the four games. In Games 1 and 3, both of which were won by Vancouver in OT, the Giants led for a combined total of 32 seconds.
And still the Blazers got swept.
These teams met 14 times this season, if you include exhibition games. The Giants won 11 times — three in overtime and four others in shootouts.
The Blazers were close, but you know what they say about close.
Still, there are those in the hockey community who feel the Blazers finally are headed in the right direction, that they no longer are stumbling around the hockey wasteland, operating by guess and by golly.
Another email showed up in the inbox Thursday morning. This one, from a respected NHL executive, offered: “I like where Kamloops is going . . . (head coach) Guy Charron is a great guy (and an) excellent coach.”
That he is. He also has a two-year contract. And in five months, he’ll be running his first Blazers training camp.
Charron has had his first taste of playoffs with this organization now. He knows that what he watched transpire has roots that run deeper than one season. There were times when the look in his eyes told you he didn’t quite believe what he had seen.
But you can bet he now knows that, in these parts, it happens.
Charron is the latest person charged with stopping it.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
gdrinnan.blogspot.com