1978-79 BWK Series — Day 2 — Same league, very different way of doing business

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/07/2021 (1779 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Newer Brandon Wheat Kings will have a lot of questions about some of the odd things that went on in the 1978-79 season, and even fans from that period might find some of the decisions a little peculiar.

Firstly, the overwhelming majority of players in that league were between 17 and 19. Very few 16-year-olds were in the league, and each team could have one overager but Brandon never brought one in.

At one point, Brandon was linked to former Regina Pats star Gerry Minor, an overager who failed to make the Vancouver Canucks, but the organization said it was a rumour and that they never contacted Regina head coach and general manager GM Gregg Pilling about a deal. Minor was subsequently sent to the International Hockey League’s Fort Wayne Komets.

“We’re not even sure if we want one or need one,” Brandon GM Jack Brockest told the Brandon Sun on Oct. 2, 1978. “First, we have to play against some better opposition to find out if we even need one.”

Secondly, the roster was kept to just 21 players, with 13 forwards, six defencemen and two goalies. The team called up players from the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Brandon Travellers when injuries mounted — for instance Travellers captain Lavern Popple played four games with the Wheat Kings — but they played with fewer than 18 skaters at times and didn’t have to make a lot of healthy scratches with the 19th skater.

Thirdly, the Wheat Kings made just four deals that season. They dispatched 18-year-old forward Mike Moskalyk to the Edmonton Oil Kings on Oct. 11 for future considerations. The biggest departure came on Dec. 4, 1978 when 17-year-old defenceman John McPhee was sent to the Seattle Breakers on loan. The six-foot-one, 211-pound McPhee played 25 games with Brandon, posting a goal, two assists and 46 penalty minutes.

The Wheat Kings acquired depth forward Dean Rebeck from the Saskatoon Blades in mid-October, but he spent all but one game with the Travellers.

Brandon only brought in one player who stuck with the team via trade, depth forward Larry Roberts, who it picked up on Oct. 18, 1978 from the Billings Bighorns. The American team had acquired Roberts, who scored 20 goals as a rookie, in the summer as part of a multiplayer deal with the Calgary Wranglers.

To land Roberts, the Wheat Kings traded the rights to 17-year-old Regina product Darren Babyck to the Pats, with Regina shipping 18-year-old John Eger to the Bighorns.

So why did a championship team make so few moves?

A big part of the reasoning was likely related to the fact that they got incredibly lucky three times in a month.

The story actually began early in the 1977-78 season when they sent Scott MacLeod, Rod Danchuk and Randy Markewich to the Calgary Wranglers for the rights to a pair of prospects from Winnipeg who had made the decision to go to college instead of playing in the WHL, Dave McDonald and Stephen Patrick.

McDonald was playing at the University of Minnesota Duluth when he decided his destiny lay closer to his Winnipeg home, so he joined the Wheat Kings, making his debut on Nov. 9.

Patrick’s debut came two nights later on Nov. 11, with both the Winnipeggers scoring. Patrick, who was skating with the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s St. James Canadians, went home to make his decision on where his long-term interest lay, because at the time a game in the WHL wasn’t an automatic disqualifier of his college rights like it is now.

He ultimately joined the Wheat Kings for good on Nov. 22.

The third shoe dropped when defenceman Kelly Elcombe left the University of Wisconsin to join the Wheat Kings. He debuted on Dec. 3, 1978, and played well enough that McPhee was sent to Seattle a day later.

Gregg Drinnan was on the WHL beat for the Brandon Sun at the time, and said those three additions made a profound impact on a team that already had excellent chemistry.

“I think it’s fair to say that with the addition of those three players, that there didn’t have to be any trades,” Drinnan said. “You didn’t have any disruptions. In the WHL, in the way we’ve been going the last few years, I could see somebody with that Wheat Kings team trading three guys off the bottom of the roster to get a high-end scorer or a (number) one or two defenceman.

“That Wheat King team didn’t need it because McDonald, Patrick and Elcombe came in, and once they got comfortable, they slotted right in and really fit in well.”

Defenceman Tim Lockridge agreed.

“We knew we were going to have a good team,” Lockridge said. “When you added in the three guys from Winnipeg that we didn’t know were coming, not realizing how good a player Steve (Patrick) was going to be and how good a player Abby (Dave McDonald) was going to be to start with and how Kelly (Elcombe) just fit in …”

It was a good thing the new players arrived, because early season sensation Walt Poddubny left in mid-November due to homesickness after 20 games. The 18-year-old forward was missed, because he posted 11 goals and 11 assists in that time.

Poddubny also went home after training camp, but returned to give it another try. He went on to play 468 regular season games in the NHL, and died of a heart attack in 2009 at age 49.

How players arrived in Brandon at that time was also very different.

The WHL draft wouldn’t be introduced for a dozen more years, in 1990, so players were listed, invited to camp and signed, making it a very different development and recruiting process.

Fourth, who was the captain?

The answer is that nobody served as captain that season, but Brad McCrimmon, Tim Lockridge and Ray Allison were all alternate captains. Sun sports writer Ken Coleman asked Dunc McCallum about it on Oct. 5, 1978, and the veteran coach explained his reasoning.

“I’ve never been a believer in C’s, it’s too much for one guy, especially if he’s in his final year,” McCallum said.

He added that if the league follows through with a suggestion that it be mandatory for one person to wear a C, he’ll rotate it every game. They didn’t, so he didn’t.

Fifth, the league did not play overtime, something that wasn’t introduced until the 1999-2000 season. If a game was tied after 60 minutes, it was tied. You have to wonder how many of high-flying Brandon’s nine ties would have been victories with the current three-man overtime and shootout.

Sixth, the team had very little staff. Dunc McCallum didn’t have any assistant coaches, so when he was unavailable for two games, general manager Jack Brockest stepped behind the bench. In addition, trainer Jack (Smokey) Stouffer handled physical therapy and equipment.

“There was no assistant coach,” Drinnan said. “When you look at today’s teams, that looks a little bizarre but that’s where Dunc relied especially on Brad McCrimmon. I think of the players on the roster, Brad was the more vocal assistant coach type. I think Tim Lockridge was also in that role, but Brad was seen far and wide as the leader on that team.”

Seventh, the best junior team in Canada had no NHL-drafted players, which seems odd by current standards. At the time, players weren’t eligible to be selected until they after they graduated from junior hockey following their 19-year-olds seasons.

The NHL subsequently made 18-year-old players eligible as well, and the Wheat Kings had 10 players selected in the double cohort draft in August 1979.

Eighth, the great team almost never happened because the World Hockey Association twice came calling.

Brian Propp and Ray Allison were offered contracts in the outlaw pro league in early November by Indianapolis Racers owner Nelson Skalbania, who had just sold a young player named Wayne Gretzky to the Edmonton Oilers. The Wheat Kings were offered $80,000 — more than $300,000 in today’s money — to renounce their rights to the trio.

The Racers vowed to sign 10 junior-aged players before the NHL drafted them, but they came away empty-handed with the Wheat Kings after Brandon’s board declined the offer at an emergency meeting.

In the summer, the Birmingham Bulls had made a similar attempt on Propp and Brad McCrimmon, which was also rebuffed.

“Brad, myself and Ray could have gone to the World Hockey Association but we decided to play another year in Brandon together, which made a difference,” Propp said. “I was really naive, so I think an extra year for me made a big difference.

“A guy like Brad McCrimmon could have fit in a little more in the World Hockey Association and Ray the same, but for me, I was happy the guys stayed with us the last year because we had such a great season with five losses the whole year and a chance to win the Memorial Cup.

“For me, it was better to stay another year and not think about the World Hockey Association.”

Finally, what’s the deal with that goofy playoff format?

Good question. It will be answered later in the series.

» Tomorrow’s Sun: The things that made them tick.

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @PerryBergson