FROM THE ARCHIVES — Macpherson steps down

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This article was published 28/10/2024 (459 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Al Macpherson, who served as a scout and later the director of player personnel for the Brandon Wheat Kings for nearly 30 years, died Saturday. Macpherson, who is from Lacadena, Sask., was with the club from 1986 until 2013.

Here’s a look back at one of the most influential people in team history in a story that ran in The Brandon Sun when Macpherson’s retirement was announced in July 2013.

It’s the end of an era behind the scenes for the Brandon Wheat Kings.

The WHL club is looking for a new head scout after longtime director of player personnel Al Macpherson stepped down Wednesday after 27 years with the organization.

One of the most respected and successful junior hockey scouts in Western Canada, Macpherson was the longest serving member of the organization, first joining the team in a part-time scouting capacity back in 1986.

He took over a full-time role as director of player personnel in 1998 and began overseeing a scouting staff and a 50-player protected list that has generally been one of the strongest in the league for decades.

Wheat Kings owner/general manager Kelly McCrimmon said Macpherson has been an integral member of the organization and will be missed.

“Well, it’s like losing your right arm,” McCrimmon said. “He’s been a member of the organization for many years and a guy that I’ve had a tremendous working relationship with and just working with someone that long, you become very familiar with how each guy is thinking and how you see players and how you evaluate what you look for. All those things become second nature when you work with a person that long …

“He would be the first to credit our staff as well, but he’s very respected in the scouting fraternity and he’s got a good eye, he’s very hard working and never takes one shortcut and is very professional at all times in terms of representing our organization. He’s a guy that always had a good rapport with families and players on our list and in our organization, that type of thing. I think that families always really trusted that their son was in good hands.”

Macpherson, who also runs a farm near Saskatoon, said he is looking forward to spending more time with his family.

“I guess it is something I have thought about for a while and I thought it was time maybe someone else did the job and I thought it was time that I did some of the things that I haven’t been able to do when you are doing that job,” Macpherson said. “I don’t see my grandsons play hockey often enough, all of those things that happen in the winter that you don’t have time to do …

“But I enjoyed every minute of it and I have no complaints. I just thought it was time to see how the other half of the world lives.”

Over the past two decades, the Wheat Kings have been one of the most successful franchises in the WHL, making the playoffs in 19 of the past 21 seasons.

Since Macpherson took over as director of player personnel in 1998, the Wheat Kings have advanced to two league finals, four Eastern Conference finals and made it to the final of the Memorial Cup in 2010. McCrimmon credits Macpherson with helping put in place the building blocks of the club’s success over the years.

“Any franchise, to have success, has to have good players and to have good players you have to have good scouting,” McCrimmon said. “And obviously development is another component to that, which happens when the players arrive here. But the one thing that we’ve been pretty consistently able to say is we’ve always had good players to work with.”

While Macpherson is retiring as a full-time member of the organization, he may continue to help out in an advisory role or a part-time scouting capacity.

“I may well do something like that, I just haven’t thought that far ahead in any great detail,” Macpherson said.

McCrimmon said he will look both within and outside the organization for a new head scout.

“We’ll look at all (options),”” he said, adding he doesn’t have a firm timeline on when he would like to hire a replacement. “It’s important and we’ll get on it, but we don’t have a deadline per se.”

» The Brandon Sun