1966 Memorial Cup

1966 MEMORIAL CUP
Edmonton Oil Kings vs. Oshawa Generals
at Toronto (Maple Leaf Gardens)

The Edmonton Oil Kings made it seven Memorial Cup finals in a row when they eliminated the Estevan Bruins from the Abbott Cup final in six games.
This was the last Abbott Cup final before major junior hockey came to the Prairies in the form of the Western Canada Junior Hockey League.
The Abbott Cup final was a clash of hockey legends, what with the Bruins managed by Scotty Munro and coached by Ernie (Punch) McLean, and the Oil Kings coached by Ray Kinasewich and managed by Bill Hunter.
Following the series, the Oil Kings, featuring the likes of Garnet (Ace) Bailey, Al Hamilton, Bob Falkenberg and goaltender Don (Smokey) McLeod, announced they would add three Bruins to their roster for the national final – forwards Jim Harrison, Ross Lonsberry and Ted Hodgson. Hunter also said he would take Weyburn Red Wings goaltender Don Caley as a replacement for Pete Neukomm who had suffered a fractured cheekbone in a western semifinal game against the Fort William Canadians.
Edmonton had spent the season playing in the Alberta Senior Hockey League, there being no junior league in Alberta. In fact, the Oil Kings tied the Drumheller Miners for the provincial senior championship.
The Oil Kings' opposition this time around was provided by the Oshawa Generals, featuring 15-year-old defenceman Bobby Orr, Wayne Cashman, Danny O'Shea, goaltender Ian Young, Billy Heindl, Barry Wilkins and Nick Beverley. The Generals were coached by Bep Guidolin and managed by Wren Blair.
Oshawa, which finished fourth in the Ontario Junior Hockey League, had eliminated the Shawinigan Falls Bruins in the eastern final, winning the best-of-five affair in four games.
All games in this national final series were scheduled for Maple Leaf Gardens – the last Memorial Cup series to be played there.
The politicking began early as Blair announced he would protest (1) the presence of the Oil Kings because they didn't play in a junior league; and, (2) the inclusion of three Estevan players on Edmonton's roster.
Blair admitted he didn't expect success but "I'm going to file them anyway.''
Edmonton, which had lost five of the last six Memorial Cup finals, opened the series on May 4 by thrashing Oshawa 7-2, outshooting the Generals 52-20 in the process. Attendance was 4,310.
Centre Ross Perkins scored two shorthanded goals for Edmonton. And you can bet Blair was livid as the three Estevan players all figured in the scoring – Harrison had a goal and two assists, Lonsberry had a goal, and Hodgson had two assists. Galen Head, Hamilton and Bailey added singles. Hamilton also had two assists.
Orr, who dazzled with his rink-length dashes and had at least 10 shots on goal, and Chris Hayes scored for Oshawa, which trailed 4-1 and 5-2 at the period breaks.
Six players picked up fighting majors six minutes into the third period, the altercation starting when Harrison crashed into Orr, after which he was immediately confronted by Oshawa's Bill White. One of the ensuing fights featured Orr, who scored an easy decision over Dave Rochefort.
Kinasewich was upset and accused the Generals of head-hunting.
"I like a rough, hard-checking game,” Kinasewich said, "and if they can't take it, then let them go home.”
Guidolin countered: "We didn't see one good check all night, and you can tell them to stop sending bushers after Orr.”
Oshawa tied the series on May 6, riding a three-goal performance from O'Shea to a 7-1 victory before 7,210 fans, most of them apparently from the Oshawa area.
O'Shea and Cashman had gone into the final with 21 playoff goals apiece.
Cashman, Hayes, Heindl and Ron Dussiaume also scored for the Generals. Cashman also set up three goals as the Generals took period leads of 2-0 and 5-0.
Defenceman Doug Barrie scored Edmonton's lone goal.
Orr was used sparingly. He was on the limp with a groin injury he said he suffered during practice the previous week. Hamilton, Edmonton's top defenceman, was nursing a sore tailbone and hardly played in the third period.
When this one was over, Hunter pointed a finger at referee Frank Daigneault of Montreal.
When a Maple Leaf Gardens publicist said "we'll get a crowd of 14,000 here (for Game 3),” Hunter added: "Yeah, and we'll get a new referee.”
"He's going to lose control,” Kinasewich added, "and that won't be good for the players or the fans.”
After Game 2, Hunter announced the Oil Kings would use Caley in Game 3 only to be informed by the CAHA that he was ineligible.
After the Generals won Game 3 by a 6-2 count on May 8 before 7,365 fans, Hunter was again all over Daigneault.
"Daigneault must have signed a contract with Oshawa before the series,” Hunter said. "Generals' defencemen were stopping shots and pulling the puck into their bodies as they fell, and Daigneault, only five feet away, wasn't calling them.”
The Generals, with Orr playing only on the power play, got two goals from O'Shea and singles from Cashman, George Babcock, Bill Little and Dussiaume. Perkins and Ron Walters scored for the Oil Kings.
Kinasewich yanked McLeod and sent in Jim Knox after the first period with Oshawa leading 4-0.
"You don't expect that a fellow who's played well all season will choke up all of a sudden,” Kinasewich said. "But that's what he's done.
"Oshawa's not that good. We've played better teams than that all season. And this is the first time we've played two bad games in a row this year.”
Guidolin fired back: "You can tell 'em we've got a few surprises for (Game 4). We got the same team.”
The Oil Kings held a team meeting on the off day.
"We've just had a revival meeting,” Hunter said. "And we've given our lads the message – God help Oshawa in the next game.”
McLeod was back at his best in Game 4 as he backstopped the Oil Kings to a 5-3 victory on May 11 before 5,761 fans. That tied the series 2-2.
Trailing 3-2 going into the third period, the Oil Kings exploded for three goals, the winner coming at 16:46 when Hamilton went coast-to-coast and set up Head. Perkins followed with an empty-net goal to wrap it up.
Lonsberry, Ron Anderson and Rochefort also scored for the Oil Kings. Hayes, Cashman and O'Shea scored for Oshawa.
Orr took a regular shift for two periods, but took his gear off after that. He aggravated his groin injury when checked into the boards by Perkins.
"We blew it,” Guidolin said. "We didn't skate. You gotta skate. If you don't, you're dead.”
Kinasewich thought it was Edmonton's turn.
"Don't you think we were due?” he said. "We couldn't get much worse than in the second and third games.”
The Oil Kings wrapped up the Memorial Cup posting two victories in two days – 7-4 on May 14 and 2-1 on May 15.
Craig Cameron had three goals and an assist to lead Edmonton in Game 5. Perkins added two goals and four helpers, with Falkenberg and Hodgson also scoring. Heindl, Dussiaume, Cashman and Hayes scored for Oshawa.
In Game 6, it was two of the Estevan players – Harrison and Hodgson – who provided the victory.
For starters, Harrison put two players – Heindl and Paul Cadieux – out of the game with injuries after hard checks.
Heindl opened the scoring on a power play at 9:10 of the first period. Harrison tied it on a 30-footer at 17:02 of the second period and Hodgson won it with a blistering slap shot at 6:47 of the third.
Both goaltenders – Young and McLeod – stopped 37 shots in front of 5,018 fans.
The hero in the end was McLeod, the goaltender who had been so severely criticized in the early going.
"You are looking at the finest goalie in junior hockey,” Kinasewich said.
"When he gets that look in his eye,” Hunter said, "you just know that nobody's gonna beat him.”
Guidolin offered: "They owe it all to the goalie, who they said choked. What are they saying about him now?”
They were saying they had been misquoted earlier in the series.
This was the first time a western team had won the championship while playing in an eastern rink since the Port Arthur West End Bruins did it in 1948.
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The hockey world is small enough that the Wednesday plane crash that claimed the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team has touched virtually ever corner.
Kamloops is no exception.
Guy Charron, the head coach of the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, knew Lokomotiv head coach Brad McCrimmon and Czech defenceman Karel Rachunek, both of whom were on the ill-fated plane that was carrying the team to its KHL season-opening game.
In 1999, Charron was the head coach of the IHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins, who were affiliated with the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, and had Rachunek on his roster.
“He was a good kid . . . a young guy,” Charron said. “He had good skills . . . good talent. What makes it tough is that I had a rapport with him at one point in his life.”
As Lokomotiv prepared to open its season against Dynamo Minsk in Belarus, Rachunek was the captain of McCrimmon’s team.
Charron got to know McCrimmon while both were working in Calgary, Charron with Canada’s national team and McCrimmon as an assistant coach with the Flames. Like everyone else in hockey, Charron doesn’t have a bad word to say about the man who was known throughout the hockey world as Beast.
(There was a time when McCrimmon was known as Sarge, but that became Beast at some point during his pro career. In a 2008 interview with Craig Custance of Sporting News, McCrimmon said the ‘Beast’ nickname was hung on him by former teammate Peter McNab’s daughter. It was during McCrimmon’s rookie NHL season with the Boston Bruins. According to Custance, “She thought he resembled a children’s character named Beast and the nickname stuck.”)
It’s not that Charron and McCrimmon hung out together or had family barbecues. Rather, they would see each other at coaches’ conferences and compare notes, whether it was about Xs and Os or about the salaries being paid to assistant coaches.
“We had no problem getting together or having a beer,” Charron said after practice on Wednesday. “We were doing the same jobs.”
Charron had a lot of thoughts flashing through his mind yesterday. After all, there was a time when he came close to coaching in that neck of the woods. As well, Dave King, the former head coach of Canada’s national team, is a long-time friend who did some time as the head coach of the KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
King, with The Globe and Mail’s Eric Duhatschek, would later write a wonderful book — King of Russia: A Year in the Russian Super League — in which he touched on air travel. Suffice it to say, King was not thrilled with many of the travel arrangements.
“My wife was referring to that,” Charron said, adding that Glen Sather once approached him to see if he had any interest in taking over Belarus’s national team.
“Things didn’t work out,” Charron said, but he had considered it “even though I wasn’t all that keen about it.”
At the time, Charron and King had conversations about coaching there.
“David said to me, ‘Things are never guaranteed,’ ” Charron said. “Wayne Fleming (another Hockey Canada coach) went there and he didn’t have the best of experiences either. And I had been there a number of times so I wasn’t all that crazy about going back.”
McCrimmon went there simply to become a head coach. He had worked as an NHL assistant coach with four different franchises. He had been offered one head-coaching job — by the Atlanta Thrashers — but turned it down because he felt more of the money should have been guaranteed.
He was a farmer’s son from Plenty, Sask., and he knew that you had nothing without principles and credibility.
During his days with the Brandon Wheat Kings, McCrimmon was as good as any defenceman ever to have played in the WHL. He was the best player on the 1978-79 Wheat Kings, a team that lost only five games all season and went on to lose the Memorial Cup championship game in overtime.
Why did they lose?
Because McCrimmon ran out of gas. Legend has it that McCrimmon played every minute of that game, other than when he was serving a couple of penalties. In truth, McCrimmon didn’t play every minute of the game — the Peterborough Petes won it 2-1, getting the winner at 2:38 of OT — but he likely was on the ice for 50 minutes.
“Just think how good he would be if he played a regular shift instead of 50 minutes a game,” Dunc McCallum, the Wheat Kings’ head coach, had said prior to the championship game. “He'll play 45 minutes a game with no problem. His composure is great and he's got super upper-body strength. He never comes to the bench and says he's tired.”
The Wheat Kings had lost defenceman Mike Perovich to a broken arm late in the season. As a result, McCrimmon’s workload increased markedly.
In overtime, the Petes iced the puck. McCrimmon, who was labouring by now, was the first player back. But the linesmen waved off the icing, ruling that McCrimmon hadn’t tried hard enough to play the puck.
The Petes recovered it, moved it out front and scoring the winning goal.
"Everyone on this team showed guts, desire, pride and class,” McCrimmon said when it was over. "We might not have won it, but we proved ourselves. We wanted to win it so bad. We came back after losing our first two games — the guys kept working and working — and we ended up one goal away.”
Left-winger Brian Propp, having overheard McCrimmon, chimed in: "Brad showed more of those attributes than anyone else on this team. If every player was like Brad . . .”
Gary Green, then the Peterborough head coach, admitted later that he was quite aware of McCrimmon's predicament. Green just didn’t know if the Petes would ever be able to take advantage of it.
"I thought, near the end, their defence was finally starting to tire,” Green said. "I felt Brad McCrimmon was finally starting to have a tough time.
"He's an incredible defenceman, he's got an amazing amount of stamina . . . he played really well.”
That was Brad McCrimmon. He was all about hard work and team play. Suck it up and don’t complain. He lived life that way. He coached that way. It was the only way he knew.
McCrimmon was selected by the Boston Bruins with the 15th overall pick of the 1979 NHL draft. That, you may recall, was THE draft. The Bruins also held the eighth overall pick, with which they grabbed defenceman Ray Bourque.
McCrimmon had put up 98 points, including 24 goals, in 66 games with Brandon in 1978-79, while Bourque drew 93 points, 22 of them goals, in 63 games with the Verdun Black Hawks.
In Boston, Bourque would be the offensive guy. McCrimmon, then, would have to re-invent himself. And he did. He became a guy who would make the first pass and then stay at home.
He turned himself into a solid NHL defenceman. More importantly, he earned the respect of every teammate he ever had. Later, in Philadelphia, he and Mark Howe formed as strong a defensive pairing as the NHL has seen. McCrimmon also tutored the likes of Chris Pronger, Gary Suter and Niklas Lidstrom.
“He was my partner every game my first year,” Lidstrom told reporters yesterday. “He was that steady defenceman who stayed home all the time. He protected me in certain situations too when things got a little too heated. He was a great partner to have.”
———
Charron, his mind full of memories of Rachunek and McCrimmon yesterday, will be remembering another acquaintance as this week wears on. Ace Bailey, the Los Angeles Kings’ director of pro scouting, was on United Airlines Flight 175 when it crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre on Sept. 11, 2001.
“When you hear that it’s sad,” Charron said of Wednesday’s plane crash in Russia. “It was the same thing when Ace Bailey was part of . . . 9/11.
“He was my linemate with the (Washington) Capitals.”

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
     
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