1978-79 BWK Series — Day 6 — First losses stung proud team

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This article was published 30/07/2021 (1770 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon Wheat Kings learned an odd lesson on Dec. 12, 1978.

Don’t schedule an exhibition game at home against a powerful Russian opponent the night before you have to be in Alberta for a Western Hockey League game. The Wheat Kings lost both, ending one of the most remarkable streaks in league history. 

The Moscow Selects beat Brandon 9-3 on Dec. 12, and one day later the Wheat Kings had to be in Edmonton to face the Oil Kings. The Wheat Kings lost 9-4 that night, ending their league record 29-game unbeaten streak.

Brandon’s unbeaten streak didn’t go quietly into that good night. They took 20 of 31 minor penalties, with the teams splitting 14 majors, 10 game misconducts, two gross misconducts. A match penalty was also assessed after a giant brawl.

Before the Russians came to Brandon, however, Mike Perovich, Brad McCrimmon, Brian Propp, Ray Allison and Laurie Boschman were picked up by the Regina Pats to fortify their roster, so they had a sense of what was coming after the Russians won 7-5.

MIKE PEROVICH: “On the way back to Brandon, we went off the road. I think Propp’s sister was driving — we were all in one car — and we hit a patch of ice on the No. 1 and slid right into a farmer’s field. I can’t remember how we got out it, but that was scary. We didn’t roll, we just went right into the field.”

MIKE PEROVICH: “We came out of that game thinking we can beat these guys. That’s how confident we were. That’s how confident the team was. I think they knew they were going to play one of the best junior teams in Canada because playing them in Regina and then playing them in the Keystone Centre, it was just another level. It was unbelievable. They played like soccer. You saw it up close. It was a clinic. They schooled us.”

BRIAN PROPP: “It was special because it had the Russian players. They couldn’t get drafted at that time so they were playing for their country so it was sort of like a Team Canada where we hated to lose.” 

WES COULSON: “They never gave the puck up. I don’t remember them dumping the puck in very often. They just hung onto it, and they wouldn’t shoot the puck. It was ‘What the hell are you doing over there?’ They would hang into it until they got a tap-in on the side of the net. It would drive you insane.”

RICK KNICKLE: “We had never seen anything like that. You’re playing Russians and we just couldn’t comprehend what they were doing. Of course we wanted to kill them, and the more they scored, the more we wanted to kill them. Myself, I was trying to challenge all the time, and remember goals where they would just shoot it by the net and bank it off the other side where a guy is waiting for it with an open net. We were the best junior team in Canada and we got our butts kicked.”

RAY ALLISON: “The (Russians) were a pretty good team. I think they were a little older than us.”

DAVE STEWART: “I remember that game because I scored a goal. It was the first time I ever saw it. They would play a lot behind the red-line passing it around. They would basically do circles so if you played their game, you were basically running around chasing them, which you shouldn’t be. We weren’t prepared for them. They had a different style. They were a team that had been playing together forever. We got our butts kicked.”

STEPHEN PATRICK: “I can remember hammering a couple of guys with their heads down coming across the blue-line. When (his son) Nolan was playing in Brandon, I met a guy there at a game and he said ‘I remember that game when you played against the Russians and you just destroyed one of the Russians coming across the blue-line.’ I was backchecking and I turned into him.”

KELLY McCRIMMON: “This is so many years ago that it was very uncommon. Their style of game was significantly different than our style of game, which of course today isn’t the case. They beat us. They were a very good team.”

TIM LOCKRIDGE: “We got our asses kicked that night. They came in and their warmup was different, and back then it was all about puck control, there was no dump and chase with them. You have to remember they also had some old guys, they weren’t all junior hockey players. If I remember right, there were guys who were 22, 23 years old … We were chasing the puck all night with those guys.”

WES COULSON: “I remember it was a nightmare on defence. The Russians didn’t play the game the way we played it. They would come up to the blue-line, and if they didn’t like what they saw, they would circle back into their own end and you’re thinking ‘Where the hell are all these guys?’ and then all of a sudden there was a guy who would come shooting past through the middle and they would give him the puck and he was gone. ‘Where the hell did he come from?’ It was totally different hockey, and they were fast and skilled. They gave us a spanking.”

GREGG DRINNAN (Brandon Sun): “I remember thinking after the game if Dunc and Jack had it to do over again if they would schedule this game. Maybe in November or maybe in January but it was too close to Christmas so players were thinking of going home, players were going to the world juniors … They were overmatched from the get-go, they had a tough schedule up until then and would have been much better served by a night off. I don’t want to say they were embarrassed but it knocked them down a notch. I just thought it was the waste of a night and a waste of a scheduled game. I don’t know if it was a case of somebody thought it was a chance to make some money.”

TIM LOCKRIDGE: “That must have been a Jack Brockest thing to play (the Russians) that night, just for the gate.” (laughs)

 

ANOTHER LONG NIGHT

A night later, the Wheat Kings lost again, this time to the Oil Kings. But this time it counted in the standings, and ended their incredible streak, which stood at 24-0-5 to start the regular season.

Incredibly, Edmonton scored all nine of their goals on the power play as they finally beat Brandon in their eighth meeting of the season. The Oil Kings, who were 7-16-8 and trailed the Wheat Kings by 31 points, had managed a single tie in the first seven games, and had been outscored 42-12 in the season series.

The Wheat Kings certainly didn’t take the loss in stride, igniting a brawl early in the third period.

TIM LOCKRIDGE: “I’m sure we would have been dog tired, laying on that old bus with broken-down seats. It wasn’t a comfortable bus to ride in to start with.”

KELLY McCRIMMON: “What I remember is the refereeing being so bad. Bob Hall was the referee, who went on to referee in the NHL … We were trailing badly after two periods and I remember Dunc coming in and really having an issue with the fact, not so much that we were losing, but that Edmonton were taking liberties with some of our top players. Then the third period started and I think we fought for 25 minutes.”

GREGG DRINNAN: “If they had travelled without having to play that game — chances are they would have driven overnight to Edmonton anyway just to save money on the hotel, that’s the way they operated back in those days — but you wouldn’t have had that wear and tear on your body from that game. You’re playing the Russians so that’s a high stress situation. It’s not like you were playing the Regina Pats and getting on the bus and going to Edmonton.”

WES COULSON: “We just played bad. We played the night before and it wasn’t like we flew on a plane and got into Edmonton at 2 in the morning like the NHL. No, we climbed on the old bus and hoofed her to Edmonton and we got in at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. You’re cooped up on that bus and we played really poorly. You have to give them credit, they played pretty well. I can remember Dunc just losing it after we lost. I remember thinking ‘Holy, that’s the first game we’ve lost all year. Did you not think we were ever going to lose a game?’ It was just the way we played. We might have been tired but it was just a bad game.”

RAY ALLISON: “I think the pressure got relieved during the brawl (laughing). I don’t think we went too quietly. I remember we lost our cool and composure and they paid the price for winning. I don’t think it relieved any pressure we had on ourselves. The boys were pretty upset.”

RICK KNICKLE: “Somebody did something in the crease and Scotty (Olson) went a little nuts and was hacking guys so we have a bench-clearing brawl and everyone was out on the ice … We had six or seven guys kicked out and more fights … It was a s—show. We had power play after power play against us.”

BRANT KIESSIG: “I was pissed. I probably would have been able to take it a little better if it was a team like the (Portland) Winter Hawks that year. Edmonton? Come on. They were brutal and to lose to them? I don’t want to use excuses but because of the game before and travelling, we were just sacked out. That’s why we had the big brawl at the end of that game, it was because we were pissed.”

GREGG DRINNAN: “I remember Dunc calling and me saying ‘What?’ I wasn’t that surprised they lost but I was surprised they lost by five. And then he said they scored them all on the power play and I said ‘What?’ They would be out of sorts and tired, and once things started to go wrong for them in that situation, the next thing you know you’re blaming the referee and hacking and slashing more than you were before and now you’re in the penalty box.”

BRIAN PROPP: “It was so weird, and then we had to play on back-to-back nights and lost. It gave us a chance to say ‘Hey, let’s keep winning again.’ We made sure that we didn’t lose two in a row (after the Edmonton loss.)”

DAVE STEWART: “I think we probably lost when we shouldn’t have. It was Edmonton. That was just the schedule. We had a grind.”

KELLY McCRIMMON: “My mom and dad and grandma and grandpa were there. My grandma talked about how Edmonton started all the fights. Meanwhile, I had come off the bench and ended up getting suspended for eight games, which in that era was almost unheard of, but my grandma, at least, was in my corner.”

RICK KNICKLE: “We came into that game and out of the corner of our eye there’s Wayne Gretzky, Paul Shmyr and Eddie Mio, who are playing for the Edmonton Oilers, so they knew about our team. I know this because Wayne told me this when I played with him (in the NHL with the Los Angeles Kings). He remembered the game. I said ‘How the hell do you remember that game?’ and he said ‘That was the brawl game.’”

 

WHAT’S NEXT?

Players remember their personal reaction to their first loss differently. Their emotions ranged from anger to disgust to a sort of relief the streak was over.

KELLY ELCOMBE: “We were shocked when we lost the first one. Literally the mindset with the team we had was that we could not lose a game all year. It was more of an expectation rather than the run itself. ‘Oh, we won 25 games and 26 and 27,’ there was none of that. We expected to win every game and it wasn’t a surprise when we kept doing it. The surprise was when we finally lost one.”

BRANT KIESSIG: “I didn’t think of it as a winning streak or anything like that. I just thought it was our job. We’re going out there, and we’re going to win every night, every game. That was right from training camp. We are all business and were going to win every game. When we lost that game, I felt like we didn’t take care of business tonight, and I’m pissed off about it.”

DAVE McDONALD: “Nobody wanted to lose any games. It was a team that was successful and we were very confident, and to lose a game was ‘Well, what happened?’ It was kind of like ‘That will be the last time that happens.’”

STEPHEN PATRICK: “In some sense, it was a bit of a relief and you could exhale and go ‘OK, it’s going to happen obviously.’ We only lost the five. I’m sure there were some games we won we probably shouldn’t have won … It was probably just time to lose.”

MIKE PEROVICH: “It was business as usual. You’re not going to win every game. It was kind of a relief actually. It was ‘OK, let’s pick up where we left off, guys. Let’s go.’ That was the attitude of that team. There was a job to do, and that was the focus.”

DON GILLEN: “Having a loss in the regular season wasn’t everything to me, I always viewed the playoffs. Maybe the team we lost to was the perfect team to lose to. They were a decent team, and I would have rather lost to them than say, Saskatoon.”

WES COULSON: “I think every once in a while you need a spanking to wake you up and I think that game in Edmonton was the spanking we needed to bring us back to reality a little bit.”

BRANT KIESSIG: “I think there was a smirk on Dunc’s face. He knew because we brawled at the end of that game after losing that, you know what, these guys hate losing. That’s when he found that out. He knew that he had a team that hated to lose, hated it.”

 

» Tomorrow’s Sun: The forwards, part one.

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