B00ADOAFYO EBOK (13 page)

By the time the Broncos left on their West Coast road swing at the end of January, they had all but clinched the East Division regular-season title. At the all-star break, they held a nineteen-point lead. Still, the Broncos didn’t want to rest on their laurels.

“The biggest thing in these coast trips are the first couple of games,” Frey stated. “From all past experiences, teams that have gotten off to good starts go on to have good road trips. If you struggle early, it

Bob Wilkie, a 1989 WHL East Division all-star.
Courtesy of Bob Wilkie.

seems to snowball the other way. But I think our guys are so confident in their ability that if that should happen they still have the talent to turn it around.”

The trip began in Lethbridge on January 27, just three days after the All-Star Game. Then it was on to Kamloops; Victoria; Portland; Seattle; Kennewick, Washington, the home of the Tri-City Americans; and Spokane. By the time it was over, the Broncos would have played seven games in ten days.

Things weren’t entirely pleasant, either. The Broncos got whipped 9–2 in Kamloops. Prior to the start of the third period, James sent Lambert, Tisdale, Kennedy, Kasowski, and Wilkie to the showers.

While the Broncos finished with a 55–16–1 record, they won only two of the six games in the West Division. Wilkie missed most of those games with a shoulder injury that would cost him seven games.

As often happens to teams after long road trips, the Broncos struggled early upon their return. In fact, Prince Albert went into Swift Current and won 3–0 on February 12. It was the first time the Broncos, the highest-scoring team in the league, were shut out that season. James was so unhappy that he didn’t speak to the players or the media after the game.

On February 24, the Broncos beat the visiting Portland Winter Hawks 7–4, clinching first place overall and home-ice advantage through the championship final, should they get that far.

The Broncos ended the regular season with one of the best records in WHL history: 55–16–1. They went 33–2–1 on home ice, establishing a WHL record for most victories at home, one that would be tied the next season by Kamloops and the Seattle Thunderbirds.

The Broncos had scored a WHL-high 447 goals, and five players finished with at least one hundred points: Tisdale (139), Kasowski (131), Kennedy (106), Lambert (102), and Brian Sakic (100). Darren Kruger and Wilkie, both defencemen like Lambert, finished with ninety-seven and eighty-five points, respectively. Trevor Kruger was among the top goaltenders with a 4.01 GAA and a 47–8–0 record.

The Broncos also were a hit at the box office. By season’s end, they were drawing upwards of three thousand fans per game. In a community of slightly more than sixteen thousand people, they were drawing about one of every six Swift Current residents to games. To put that into perspective, that would be like the Toronto Maple Leafs, who play in a city of three million people, selling five hundred thousand tickets to every game.

With the playoffs approaching, those loyal fans were even more eager. On the day that playoff tickets went on sale, people started lining

.

Swift Current fans wait at the airport gate for the Broncos after the 1989 WHL championship series victory over the Portland Winter Hawks.
Courtesy of Bob Wilkie.

up at 4:30 a.m. The Broncos rewarded those fans by sweeping three best-of-seven series. That’s right. They won twelve straight playoff games — sweeping Moose Jaw, Saskatoon, and Portland — to qualify for the Memorial Cup tournament, which was to take place in Saskatoon.

The Broncos wrapped up the WHL championship by beating the Winter Hawks 4–1 in Portland, and when their plane arrived back in Swift Current, they were greeted by hundreds of cheering, towel-waving fans. Parents, relatives, girlfriends, friends, and fans greeted them as they departed the TimeAir charter flight, hoisting the Msgr. Athol Murray Memorial Trophy.

But there still was this matter of the Memorial Cup.

With the tournament being held in Saskatoon, it meant that the Blades would be the host team. The Peterborough Petes were the Ontario Hockey League champions and the Laval Titans had won the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League championship.

Most teams, in this instance the Lethbridge Hurricanes, went to great lengths to stop Sheldon Kennedy (12).
Rod Steensland.

Because the Broncos had taken only four games to oust Portland, they had a full week off. That allowed the Broncos to heal some bumps and bruises, and also to get settled down and focus on the task at hand.

“Since we had finished with the best record in the Canadian Hockey League,” Wilkie says, “we weren’t too worried about any of the other teams. We went into the tournament more concerned with our own play.”

Their concerns were warranted, as they got off to something of a shaky start.

They had to come from behind to beat Peterborough 6–4 before 8,794 fans. Wilkie remembers that Kennedy “took a lot of abuse from the Petes — he obviously was a big part of their game plan, as they hit him at every opportunity. They really checked him hard and had him frustrated. On one occasion, he gave away the puck as he fanned on a clearance deep in our end, and it resulted in a goal by Peterborough’s Tie Domi.”

In the end, though, Kennedy scored two third-period goals to spark the comeback.

“I made a couple of mistakes I didn’t know I could get back from. I just did my best to cover those mistakes up in the third period,” Kennedy said.

In their second game, the Broncos again had to come from behind, this time to beat Laval 6–5 before 8,733 screaming fans. The
Sun
reported that the Broncos had played their “worst hockey in the playoffs” in that victory.

“This is the most relieved I have been in my three years in this league,” James said. “Their goaltender [Ghislain Lefebvre] made some big saves throughout the game and I didn’t think we were going to win.”

The Broncos now had won fourteen straight post-season games and were looking at two days off before facing the Blades, a team they had swept from the second round of the WHL playoffs. The Broncos were feeling on edge, so they held a team meeting, the aim of which was to get everyone to relax.

“We also knew that a victory over the Blades would put us into the Memorial Cup final,” Wilkie says.

Soberlak put it all in perspective when he told the
Sun
, “There has been a lot of pressure on us all year. We’re used to it and we just take it all in stride. We all know we are going to have to play a lot better and make a better effort if we are going to beat Saskatoon. They have been playing well and we just have to dig deeper and do things that got us here.

“I’m looking forward to these next couple of games because they will likely be my last games in a Swift Current uniform. Hopefully, I can finish with a strong tournament and show the Edmonton Oilers brass who are here that I am capable of playing and, hopefully, they will make me a member of their club next season.”

Tim Tisdale (13) of the Swift Current Broncos scored the overtime goal that won the 1989 Memorial Cup in Saskatoon.
Bryan Schlosser/Regina Leader-Post. Reprinted by permission.

On May 10, there were about one thousand Broncos fans scattered among the SaskPlace crowd of 8,763. They proudly displayed their Swift Current pride by wearing Broncos sweaters, hats, pins, and anything else that was blue and green.

The Broncos disappointed their fans by losing 5–4, a decision that sent the Blades into the final and put Swift Current into a semifinal game against Peterborough, which had beaten Laval 5–4 in a tiebreaker. Finally finding their game, the Broncos beat the Petes 6–2 before 8,378 fans.

That set up the final. It would be played May 13, and would be on national television and in front of 9,078 frenzied fans.

“We weren’t distracted,” Wilkie says. “We knew this was our moment. The core guys who had been there from the beginning — Peter, Tim, Trevor, Sheldon, Danny, and myself — had no doubt we would win.”

While they may not have had any doubts, the outcome was in doubt until the end. It turned out to be a classic junior hockey game, with the teams tied 3–3 after three periods.

The Broncos retreated to their dressing room after the third period and were awaiting the start of sudden-death overtime when Tisdale, their oh-so-silent leader, suddenly stood up and declared, “I got it, boys.”

“Yeah,” Wilkie says, “Tizzy was talking about the winning goal.”

Both teams came out fired up for the overtime, and there were close calls on both sides. The Blades had their chances, with Broncos goaltender Trevor Kruger forced to make five straight stops at one point.

But then, with the OT period slightly more than three minutes old, the puck came to Wilkie at the Blades’ blue line. He made a series of moves that took him in behind the Saskatoon net.

“I was filled with so much energy and emotion that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion,” he says. “Taking a look, I clearly saw my defence partner, Darren Kruger, standing all alone at the point. Without hesitation, I made a perfectly executed pass to him and Darren blasted the puck at goaltender Mike Greenlay.

“Tim Tisdale — who else? — was standing in front of the net for the screen, and he magically tipped the puck past Greenlay.”

At 3:25 of the first sudden-death overtime period, the Swift Current Broncos became Memorial Cup champions.

“I was just standing there and it hit my stick,” Tisdale said. “I still don’t know how it went in.”

The building was in a state of pandemonium. The Broncos threw sticks, equipment, and clothing everywhere.

Talk about a hometown hero.

Tim Tisdale had been born in Shaunavon, a farming community 108 kilometres southwest of Swift Current. However, he grew up in Swift Current and played minor hockey there. In 1986–87, he was a third-line centre who put up forty-nine points, including twenty-nine goals, in sixty-six games. The next season, he was limited to thirty-two games — and twenty-six points — by injuries.

So who could have seen the season he would have in 1988–89 when he finished with 139 points, including fifty-seven goals, in sixty-eight games? He continued that frenetic offensive pace in the playoffs, with thirty-two points, seventeen of them goals, in only twelve games. Then, of course, came the Memorial Cup–winning goal in overtime.