Wheat Kings room flooded, restored

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This article was published 09/09/2023 (937 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sometimes twice is every bit as nice.

The Brandon Wheat Kings dressing room was completed updated after the Western Hockey League team was sold by Kelly McCrimmon to Jared Jacobson and ready for the 2020-21 season, which was eventually played in the Regina hub.

They spent two years in their shiny new digs prior to disaster striking on May 8 when a pipe burst in the ceiling. The restoration was finally completed during training camp and is once again as good as new.

“It was like a monsoon in there,” Jacobson said. “It wasn’t a good scene. It wrecked a bunch of the flooring and different equipment in there so we’ve been working on renovating again all summer and bringing it back to where it was before it happened.

“It’s been interesting but we got’er done.”

THE FLOOD

It all started shortly after exit interviews were held with players following last season after the team failed to make the playoffs. Equipment manager Scott Hlady and athletic therapist Zach Hartwick began chipping away at their to-do list, which included a vexing drip on the ceiling above one of the ceiling panels on the Wheat Kings logo.

They passed along their concerns to the Keystone staff, who wanted to replace the pipe above it. Two weeks later, they shut the water off in the entire facility and replaced a section of pipe.

“I wasn’t around when it blew but I was told it was like a hurricane of water spraying through the room,” Hlady said of the whole section of pipe coming off. “One of the women who works with the Keystone was in monitoring what started as a slow drip, and when it blew, it knocked her off her feet. That’s an idea of how much pressure there is. It didn’t take long.”

Hlady’s office is on the south side of the room, closest to the ice surface, and it proved to be the low spot with five or six inches of water quickly accumulating.

It was immediately all hands on deck dealing with the fallout, with the water quickly turned off again in the Keystone Centre. More than a dozen people moved water out of the dressing room and down the stairs toward the Westoba Place ice surface. Hlady notes that if it had happened on a weekend, it could have been a much bigger problem. The initial problem was solved when a larger piece of pipe was taken out and replaced — this time it held — but the franchise had to start all over again with its dressing room, especially on things like flooring.

Veteran Wheat Kings forward Brett Hyland said it was upsetting to hear the room had suffered major damage in the spring and needed to be fixed up.

“It’s our room, man, and we take pride in it,” Hyland said. “We don’t want anything to go wrong with it. It was tough. We couldn’t go in there for a little while but it seems like it’s coming along now and we’re looking forward to getting back in. “We love hanging out there.”

AFTER THE SALE

Jacobson said everybody always has changes they want to make when they buy something, and the former junior hockey player pinpointed the dressing room. Along with the obvious benefits for current players, it would provide a side benefit in helping persuade prospects to commit to the program when they are also being courted by American college teams.

“There was nothing wrong with the dressing room we had as a team,” Jacobson said. “I just wanted to create a new image and a new brand and a new feel for the players coming back and the new ones coming in. It was really important not only for the team and the culture, but the recruitment and the future of the Wheat Kings.

“The more amenities you have and the more resources and tools you have and top-notch spaces you have, the easier that process is in convincing players to come play here and sign.”

Hlady has known Jacobson for a while, and on day one after the sale, the new owner gave the staff some sense of his game plan. But Hlady said the staff’s understanding was the room would receive a light makeover.

“We were asking for new doors and paint and some stuff to be updated,” Hlady said.

RENO 1.0

While no walls were knocked down, a number of big changes were made.

Since Jacobson and his group of companies are in the construction business, he had a lot of talent to draw on when it came time to make the changes. But a lot of the final product was his vision — with the input of Wheat Kings staff such as Hlady — after he did a lot of research on what National Hockey League and American college dressing rooms look like and how they incorporate team history.

With the assistance of an extended family member who works in that field, the changes were mapped out piece and piece and then executed by J&G staff.

One of the central changes was putting the logo in the ceiling instead of in the middle of the room on the floor, where people were forbidden to step on it. (That’s a punishable offence in many sports.)

“That was an easy one,” Jacobson said. “We went on a tour of the Oilers dressing room when (his son and Wheat Kings prospect) Jaxon was playing in the Brick and I saw it in the ceiling. I thought it was a great move so that you don’t have that issue of people stepping on the logo and everybody getting mad, or even people walking through who might not know stepping on it. “I thought it looked classy and really stood out with how it was illuminated too so I thought it was a great way to add that bulkhead feature.”

Jacobson also put a concerted effort into honouring the long history of the team, with alumni pictures on the wall of fame and also prominently displayed in the dressing room.

“I think it matched the reason why I bought the Wheat Kings,” Jacobson said. “Kelly had it for quite a few years, and Bob Cornell and the other ownership groups also had it, … It’s the history of Brandon and how big the Wheat Kings are for the community and southwestern Manitoba and Manitoba to keep them here driving the economy.

“That was a big part of it, just to show all the history and all the years they’ve been here through the good and the bad.”

In a business in which the focus is entirely on the next game, it’s easy for last season to feel like a decade ago and 40 years ago to feel like 1,000. As well, in a long-term business, fans inevitably leave eventually and new ones arrive.

“I think it’s important for everybody to understand,” Jabobson said of the Wheat Kings history. “It’s easy for the older people who have been through all the stages and all the decades, but the young people who haven’t known about it, we want to keep that tradition alive.

“We want to create a culture if you’re walking from arena to arena or just around the whole facility just to make it the home of the Wheat Kings.”

There is one tiny spot in the dressing room that was never changed, and it’s unlikely to ever be significantly altered. After the 1978-79 season, forward Brian Propp wrote “125 pts, try to beat that!” on the wall.

“I was 100 per cent not changing that,” Jacobson said. “I had to figure out a way to keep that brick the way it was. It’s the staple brick with the hand signature. I would love Brian to come back and sign that for us again to freshen it up with his pen. That would be awesome.

“A lot of guys like that when they come in and see it. They want to match or beat that record.”

The focus on the older players resonated with Hlady, who played 44 regular season and playoff games with the Wheat Kings between 1992 and 1994.

“Being an alumni and seeing those faces, a lot of whom I played with on that wall and even their names on the boards outside the dressing rooms, it’s pretty rewarding to know how successful our program has been,” Hlady said. “… It’s pretty cool to see the Propps, the McCrimmons, the Allisons, the Derlagos, all those guys, and for our guys to understand how good those guys were.”

THE LAYOUT

All the facilities are north of the Westoba Place ice surface.

If someone was looking across the rink from the middle of the U-shaped concourse at the stage, the Zamboni comes out on the left side.

The visitor’s dressing room, which was once on the stage, is located behind where the ice resurfacing machine comes out, near where buses drive in on the west side of the building. That dressing room once served as the team gym but was added for visitors in time for the 2010 Memorial Cup.

The Brandon dressing room is located up a flight of stairs on the right, a short walk from the visitors dressing room through the hitching ring.

The Wheat Kings room was essentially doubled in size after the Memorial Cup when the old public dressing room number five was incorporated to add the dry room, washrooms and an area for shoes and mailboxes.

The Brandon dressing room is a rectangle split into two narrower rectangles, with Hartwick’s office just inside the exterior entrance from the hitching ring. Hlady used to have to walk through Hartwick’s office to his own cramped space — incredibly, that tiny room also had the washer and dryer and skate sharpener decades ago — but that changed with the renovation.

The medical room for doctors and dentists used to be off the hitching ring, but it moved into Hlady’s old office. If the other team needs medical help, there is also a private area in the visitors dressing room. In the event of a more serious injury, the player is probably headed to the hospital anyway.

Hartwick’s first season with the team was their first year in the new room, so it’s all he’s known.

“Compared to other places I’ve been, it’s unbelievable,” Hartwick said. “The resources and everything we have here, and it looks incredible when you walk in. For myself, having this space in my office with lots of room for a table and we have our docs’ room as well for game days, so they have their own private spot for doing stitches or the dentist can go in there.

“Space-wise, it’s great.”

Hartwick said the fact his office and the medical facilities are separated by a door also makes a lot of sense.

“In between periods, if I’ve sent a guy to come get stitches or anything like that, I come into the room and they’re right here,” Hartwick said. “I don’t have to go into another room. I can check on our guys who are still on the room as well. It’s not too far.”

The showers and two jet tubs across the hall from Hartwick’s office can be used for hot and cold baths.

The main changing area is directly south, with Hlady’s office tucked into the southwest corner in what once served as a storage area. “I asked for my office to be moved closer to the players,” Hlady said. “I wanted to be as close as I can to them. My old office was out of the way and I never really knew what was going on.”

The main door to get out of the room is on the south side, with a hallway that continues to the dry room, which is essentially the players’ lounge. The exit, where they store their shoes and have their mailboxes, is in the northeast corner.

“I look at it from when I played and I thought it was a great room,” Hlady said. “When I started here (on staff) almost 12 years, we had a fabulous room that Kelly had renovated a couple of times. Now, it’s probably one of the nicer rooms in the league. There are obviously rooms that are bigger and nicer in newer facilities but this building was built in 1973.

“We’re doing a heckuva job here to have this facility for our guys.”

That’s exactly what Jacobson was aiming for.

“We wanted to make it a clubhouse for the players basically so having the extra dry room and the players lounge and the coaches room and everyone having their own space — and Scott having this own space and Zach having his room — we moved a lot of rooms around too just for efficiencies,” Jacobson said.

The gym, which was added when McCrimmon was in charge, is a short walk across the ramp for the main Keystone Centre hallway

“The gym is unbelievable,” Hartwick said. “There is lots of room for all of our guys to work out there and at the same time we don’t have to break it up too much. They can kind of stay together.”

The laundry facilities can be found with equipment storage off the hallway heading to the north rinks, across from the wall of fame. The laundry used to be in the Exhibition Hall, which was a long hike, especially when you’re wheeling a giant container of aromatic hockey gear and towels.

“The Keystone has been accommodating,” Hlady said. “They’ve done whatever they can to make things better for us. It’s a working relationship and we all get along and treat other with respect so it’s great.”

THE REACTION

While it’s nice for things to be more efficient, the renovations were done to trigger a more visceral reaction.

Hlady said people are always blown away, something he noticed when the prospects visited the room during training camp.

“When the young guys pull their phones out and are asking if they can make pictures of the room, you know we’ve made an impression or they weren’t expecting to see what they saw,” Hlady said. “That says a lot. I’ve seen other rooms. Edmonton has a beautiful room, Kamloops has a nice room. In Brandon we’ve had to do things to help recruiting. That’s what you do.”

Hyland is one of a handful of players on the team who saw the old room when he attended camps at age 15 and 16, although he made his debut in the Regina hub so he never spent much time in it. He was suitably impressed by the upgrade when he first walked in.

“It was pretty much disbelief,” Hyland said. “Everything, from where it came before, they really put a lot of work in, from our dry room where we can just hang out — now it’s just a nice spot where we can make shakes and mingle and eat our food — and the whole vibe of the room is very good.

“Compared to the one before, it’s 100 times better.”

The team’s owner has heard a lot of similar comments, and is pleased with the final result both times. Now, for the fourth time in team history, he’s hoping to add some shiny silver as a decoration.

“I’m really happy with it and I think the staff are happy with it and the players seem to enjoy it,” Jacobson said. “We’ll just keep it up and keep it maintained and keep adding to it history-wise. Hopefully we can have a model trophy in there someday. That would be the goal.”

That’s something Hlady said not many people understand. He said Jacobson is just as invested in Wheat Kings success as McCrimmon was in the past.

“I think what our fanbase and the people of Brandon need to see is that he’s 110 per cent into helping this program get to that next step again,” Hlady said. “I think that’s the most important part. He’s in it to win and as a staff member, that’s what we want to see. That’s how Kelly treated it, that’s how Jared treats it and that’s how we all treat it as staff.”

And that’s another reason why the remodelling is a success. If there’s truth in the old suggestion that looking good makes you feel good, then the Wheat Kings have a lot to smile about.

Hartwick has seen it first hand.

“I know the guys who come in who don’t know what the other teams have around the league definitely appreciate what we have, but when we trade for a guy and they come in from a different team, there’s a wow factor the first time they get here,” Hartwick said. “I remember when we traded for Landon Roberts, when he first came into the room, it was ‘Wow, this is what you guys have here?’”

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