1996 – Rebuilding wasn’t in the vocabulary of this team

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This article was published 13/05/2010 (5832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Having graduated four of their top six scorers plus their No.1 netminder, it would have surprised no one if the Brandon Wheat Kings took a step back the season after their 1995 Memorial Cup appearance.

Instead, they took a step forward, winning the club’s first Western Hockey League title since 1979 and advancing to the Memorial Cup for the second year in a row.

While stars like Marty Murray, Darren Ritchie and Bryan McCabe were gone,veterans such as Chris Dingman and Bobby Brown assumed the leadership role, with players such as Mike Leclerc and Peter Schaefer emerging as 100-point talents. And of course, fiery head coach Bob Lowes was still at the helm, along with respectedassistant Mark Johnston.

"Expectations were high," said Dingman, who served as captain that season. "We felt like we could win, expected to win."

The experience gained from a Memorial Cup season seemed to pay off throughout the lineup. The likes of Kelly Smart, Justin Kurtz and Sven Butenschon grew fromcomplementary players into leaders, while Wade Redden — a second-overall pick in the 1995 National Hockey League Entry draft — continued to evolve into an elite blue-liner.

"We had a good nucleus, obviously, but that team took on its own identity and became an even stronger team than the year previous," said Kelly McCrimmon, who was the general manager at the time and now has added the responsibilities of being head coach and owner of the team. "I think the step that that team took is really, by then, our organization knew how to win."

It didn’t hurt that the team landed forward Cory Cyrenne, who put up 97 points as a rookie after changing his mind aboutattending Colorado College.

During the season, the Wheat Kings’ lineup didn’t get as much tinkering as in 1994-95. There were some notable additions, however, with Jody Lehman coming over from the Moose Jaw Warriors to form aveteran 1-2 tandem in net with Brian Elder, while Dorian Anneck was picked up from the Tri-City Americans to bolster the depth up front.

On the blue-line, the club got yeoman’s efforts from 16-year-old rookies Burke Henry and Daniel Tetrault, both called on for regular duty after a knee injury to import Gerhard Unterluggauer forced the Wheat Kings to play the balance of the season with just six defencemen.

Come playoff time, the Wheat Kings left little doubt that they were the class of the WHL, rolling to a 16-3 record and sweeping their way through the first two rounds of playoffs. For the second straight season they battled through a tough series with the Prince Albert Raiders, winning in six games to get to the league final, where theydispatched the Spokane Chiefs four games to one.

"We won in Spokane," Dingman said. "… We had a pretty big reception at the Keystone Centre when we came back. When we got off the road after I think it was 18 hours on the bus, that was awesome, (to see) the fan support."

Once they got to the Memorial Cup in Peterborough, Ont., the Wheat Kings found that each of the other three teams had also been as dominant as they were. Nevertheless, the Wheat Kings started strongly, nipping the Guelph Storm 2-1 thanks to goals by Anneck and Darren Van Oene in their opening game, before slipping by the host Peterborough Petes 3-2 on Schaefer’s overtime goal.

That sent the Wheat Kings into their final round-robin game against the Granby Predateurs with the chance to advance straight to the final with a victory.

"It was a real emotional win (against the Petes)," McCrimmon said. "And we played Granby the very next night and we just didn’t recover emotionally."

The Predateurs won that game 3-1 to move straight into the final, while the Wheat Kings were pitted against the Petes in the semifinal.

The Wheat Kings took a 2-0 lead against the host team, but then ran into penalty trouble and the Petes scored four straight goals on their way to a 4-3 victory.

"It was really disappointing," said Dingman, who is done his playing career and living in Tampa Bay — his last NHL stop — where he does television and radio work for Lightning games. "I know it was hard for a lot of guys because you play your best and it’s kind of taken out of your hands a little bit. That was hard, I guess a tough pill to swallow."

The Predateurs went on to beat the Petes 4-0 in the championship game, leaving the Wheat Kings wondering for the second year in a row what might have been.

Even after 10 seasons in the National Hockey League, Schaefer said the Memorial Cup still leaves him with a mixture of good and bad memories.

"It was exciting. We had lots of family and friends, we had a big Brandon section. They had a great time at the tournament, as did the players," said Schaefer, who didn’t play this season but is training hard at home in Vancouver to try and earn a free agent contract next season. "But … it’s a bad feeling to know you’re that close and you lose the game in the semifinal and your season’s over. Obviously a lot of guys knew that they weren’t getting another shot at the Memorial Cup. For the younger guys, they probably don’t realize that it doesn’t come around that often to get the opportunity."

Dingman went on to win two Stanley Cups in the NHL and he said the foundation for his future success was formed with the Wheat Kings and their Memorial Cup runs in 1995 and 1996.

"The experience was great," Dingman said. "I think it taught me how hard it is to win and what it takes to win. … Right after that I got called up to Calgary’s farm club. I had to go to St. John’s (to play for the American Hockey League’s Flames) two days later. The really hard thing for me was being the captain and having to leave so quickly."

Schaefer played another year with the Wheat Kings, being named WHL player of the year in 1996-97, before beginning his pro career and said the time he spent here was unlike anything he would later experience.

"Definitely junior’s probably the greatest time in your career when your main focus is hockey," Schaefer said. "As you grow up and you get older and you move on through the leagues, you meet a girlfriend and wife and then you start a family and I think (hockey) becomes more of a business. And I think at that age (in junior), it’s purely hockey."