The Battle of Alberta

by Mark Spector

  “Glen said, ‘Well, you know we have a pretty good goalie [in Moog]?’ And I said, ‘Well, now we’ve got two,’ ” Fraser remembers. “That was about the extent of the conversation we had. He never bothered me in that respect at all.”

  Trust.

  Of course, nobody knew back then that Fraser had, in his first three NHL drafts, collected the guts of one of the all-time great teams. Not even Sather. All he knew was, he was going with a young, young core, and he had to surround them with the right types of veterans. Fraser had provided some mighty good groceries, but Sather needed to find the right recipe to spice the dish the right way.

  Meanwhile, he couldn’t take his eye off the stove. So he laid down some rules, and rule number one was that if you got into any trouble, call Sather.

  “That’s the rule we had,” Sather said. “I told ’em, ‘There isn’t anyone who is going to help you. Your parents aren’t here. Your agents will run from you. You come to me and I’ll be able to help.’ I just knew that I had enough friends around town that if they had a problem, I could help solve it for them.”

  During Sather’s time in Edmonton, the Oilers used Floyd Whitney, the father to 1,300-game NHLer Ray Whitney, exclusively as their practice goalie. More importantly for Sather’s purposes, however, Floyd was a senior member of the Edmonton Police Service (EPS). That made him an avenue of warning or intelligence on things like bars or restaurants that the EPS suspected of being inhabited by the wrong types of people, or an inroad into any possible troubles with the law that an Oilers player or employee might stumble into. Floyd was part of Sather’s network, his way of warding off problems before they happened.

  There was also a fixture in the coach’s office, a man named (Bullet) Bob Freeman, who was listed on the Oilers ledgers as a scout. But really he was more like Sather’s “fixer.”

  Bullet was one of the true characters of the game in the 1980s. And he had some scouting chops, having dug Semenko out of the Brandon Wheat Kings in the mid-1970s. A man of few words, Bullet quietly listened to everything that was going on, and never missed a practice or game. He was just … around all the time. No one was completely positive what it was that Bullet did once he’d come off the scouting trail.

  “I remember one time,” said the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson, whose father, Jack, was a renowned sports writer in Winnipeg, “my dad had written something about a boxing card in Winnipeg, that it had been a waste of time or something. Not a very good event. And he got a call from the promoter, who wasn’t a real savoury guy. He told my dad, ‘You shouldn’t have written that. You’re going to regret it.’

  “Well, I mentioned this to Bob, who had roots in Winnipeg. He said, ‘I’ll look into that for you.’ About a week later, Bob stopped me and said, ‘Tell your dad it’s taken care of. That promoter won’t be a problem again.’ ”

  In a small city like Edmonton, those were the kinds of valuable connections that Sather knew would come in handy. It was just another piece in the puzzle of parenting the young Oilers until they could figure things out for themselves.

  “That’s part of the job. You have to watch out for them, and at the same time you have to let them grow. Allow them to become young men. They have to make mistakes. They have to learn to be responsible,” Sather said. “Mark [Messier], he was a young stallion. Two things I did with Mark: one, I found out that he had a motorcycle. I told him to get rid of the motorcycle. He got rid of the motorcycle. The time before that, he was late for a plane, I sent him to Houston for four games. Look what he is today? All those guys, they all had some warts on them, but they all grew into tremendous players.”

  Grant Fuhr was as erratic off the ice as anyone. He admitted to cocaine use and was suspended by the NHL. Was he the only one? Sather had done his level best to keep Fuhr’s revelation under wraps, but even his efforts failed. Despite media reports, no other Oilers player was ever officially linked to drug use.

  “We were all eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old,” Fuhr said. “We needed a little parenting, for sure. Slats probably had one of the harder jobs. One, we were having success, and along with success comes a lot of options. Options to probably, how would you say … not stay out of trouble?”

  Even the media were subject to Sather’s lessons. I recall leaving a rink in Denver after a morning skate one lunch hour as Sather was stepping into a cab—to the hotel, I assumed. “Hop in,” he said to me, and I did. Once we were en route, he mentioned, “We just have to make one stop.”

  He was heading for a gun shop, as it turns out. Sather was quite an outdoorsman, and on this day, he’d drag a young writer along while he handled several long guns and talked ammunition with the local storekeep at the Denver gun shop. The assumption, of course, was that he might buy them all. He surely could afford to, though I never knew if Sather bought any of them that day.

  “Ever shoot one of these?” he asked me. I had not. “Well, hold it against your shoulder like this, and lean your cheek in here …”

  The most dangerous weapon I had ever held was a Marriott pen after a 10–2 loss by the team I was covering, but here I was in a Denver gun shop, getting a lesson on how to shoot a very expensive rifle. It mattered not that I did not hunt, and to this day I have never had the urge to shoot a rifle of that heavy gauge. When you were with Sather, he would show you a thing or two. That was his way.

  “He had a lot of passion for life away from hockey,” said former Oilers centreman Craig MacTavish. “That did a lot in terms of building the camaraderie among the group. We’d go on hunting trips. We’d go snowmobiling. You’d never do that today, but he was an outdoorsman and a real active guy. A big kid.”

  Sather held all the cards in the Oilers organization: head coach, general manager, president. He was the centre of power, and there was not a single person, from the lowliest “Radio Johnny” to the president of major sponsor Molson Breweries, who didn’t know exactly who was in charge.

  Behind the bench, Sather owned a steady hand and a smart hockey mind. His general manager duties would take him away at times from both practices and the odd game, and while Sather was one of the best at motivation, pushing the right buttons, and getting the most out of his players, he needed a right-hand man who could match wits with the Bob Johnsons of the world when it came to Xs and Os.

  John Muckler would be that man, joining the Oilers as an assistant coach in 1981. He was promoted to co-coach in 1985 and would become the Oilers’ head coach when Sather went upstairs for good in 1989. Muckler, trusted implicitly by Sather, would guide Edmonton to its final Stanley Cup in 1990.

  “It was a perfect mix of a coaching staff,” MacTavish recalls. “Glen was the manager, and he was fully in charge. Muck was the tactician. Very capable. He had a head-coaching persona, so when Glen was away doing managerial stuff, Muck took over, and there was no drop off in authority. Everyone had a very high regard for Muck.

  “It was back in an era where it was a much more dictatorial relationship than what coaching and managing is today, where it’s more of a cooperative collaboration between manager, coach, and player than it ever was then. Back in those days, Glen told you what to do and you did it. Today, you tell them what to do, and why to do it. Then you try to convince them that it’s their idea so they’ll execute it better.”

  When the young Oilers were at the rink, Sather’s word was gospel. Nobody disrespected Sather inside the Northlands Coliseum—not in front of his face or behind his back. Honestly, there wasn’t a popcorn salesman or floor sweeper who would have spoken ill of Sather in the mid-1980s around Northlands. He was unilaterally respected and feared by anyone within arm’s reach of the Oilers organization. He was The Boss—period.

  But as they say, heavy is the head that wears the crown. Sather had this wonderful crop of high-pedigree players, yet he drove to the rink every morning trying to figure out what lesson it was that they would need most that day.

  “It’s is one thing to have talent. It’s another to allow yoursel
f to be developed into the kind of players they all became,” Sather says. “They have to have the attitude and desire to get there. There were a lot of things we did to make sure that they did develop.

  “One of the things I always said was, we practised hard. But you never sat on the ice, you never kneeled on the ice, and if you were hurt, you got off the ice. We were in the [’88 Cup final] against Boston, in triple overtime. I looked down from the press box and all the Bruins guys were sitting on the boards, sitting on the ice … There wasn’t one Oiler sitting down. That’s one piece of the training that they learned. They weren’t going to give up. They weren’t going to show the other team that they’re soft. They’re ready to win.”

  Of course, the lessons that were borne out in those later Cup victories were learned the hard way, often against Calgary. Sather—like Fuhr, Messier, Calgary native Mike Vernon, and equipment man Sparky Kulchisky—had all grown up with the Battle of Alberta. It was in their DNA that their team was supposed to kick the crap out of the provincial rival any chance it got. So many of Sather’s lessons that would apply in Cup finals against the New York Islanders, Boston, or Philadelphia were Battle-tested against Calgary.

  “They were both ferocious teams, and they really hated each other. At the same time they respected each other—but they wanted to win,” Sather said of the rivalry. “I remember the night that [Calgary’s Jamie] Macoun cheap-shotted Messier. Mark was back just two games from a separated shoulder, and he knocks Macoun out with one punch. That was it. You get even. You kill the penalty off, that’s it. It’s over.”

  Well, except for that ten-game suspension Messier received for sucker-punching Macoun. Though clearly, Sather didn’t see it that way.

  As we spoke, Sather looked down at the Rexall ice after a tame affair in which Sather’s Rangers had won 2–0. There had been three minor penalties assessed in the game—all for hooking. The stats crew counted twenty-three hits for Edmonton, seventeen for the Rangers, but like so many games, asked to recall any of those “hits” post-game, a fan would have been hard-pressed to recollect more than two or three decent bodychecks thrown all evening.

  “Look at the game tonight,” Sather said afterwards, disdain in his voice despite having reaped the two points. “Nobody wants to hit anybody and that’s the way the rules are today. Move the puck, skate, dump it in, dump it out, and wait for a break. It’s all it is.”

  The removal of the red line has played a big part, he said, because under the old system the puck had to be carried through the neutral zone. That meant that a Calgary player would stand up an Edmonton player before that red line far more often than he would today, and that physical confrontation led to all kinds of different shenanigans. Today, on so many occasions, a defenceman rifles a pass along the boards that is simply deflected at high speed by a winger and it serves as a dump-in. No one had the puck long enough to get rocked, so nobody got upset. The game may have more skill today, and it definitely has more speed. But it cannot be argued that today’s NHL does not also lack the emotion it did during the days of the Battle.

  Today, you’d rather have a great “first-pass” defenceman on your team than a guy who punishes opposing forwards in his own end. Corsi numbers have exposed the stay-at-home defenceman as a guy who plays in his own end so much because he lacks the puck skills to get the puck out.

  Clearly, replacing the Paul Baxters and Don Jacksons for today’s Justin Schultzes or T.J. Brodies has sped up the game. That is indisputable. But it also robs from the physical brand of hockey that used to add a great deal of value to the entertainment dollar.

  Attend a game in the Battle and you might leave the rink talking about the fantastic goal Doug Gilmour or Kent Nilsson scored for Calgary. You might marvel at Paul Coffey’s skating ability or something Gretzky did that you’d never seen before. But on the rare night that the defenders won the day, that meant big hits, certainly a couple of fights, maybe a cheap shot or two, and an overall heightened energy level. Blood would be spilled, and who knew what might happen after that?

  Basically, if the Hakan Loobs and Jari Kurris didn’t entertain on a given night, the Dave Semenkos and Tim Hunters did. So often today, when a game lacks offence like that Rangers–Oilers game did, there is no facet to replace that entertainment value for fans. Unless, for your $150 ticket, you are happy with a load of blocked shots and some “smart dumps,” you go home like everybody did that night in Edmonton, with little to tell the boys at work about the next morning.

  “There’s not as much playing between the two blue lines,” Sather said. “Now the puck is passed from the goal line to the far blue line, they tip it in, the other guy gets it, they chip it back out. In the game you saw in the 1980s, you had to control the puck. And you had to move it to the right people.”

  Of course, Sather’s strong suit was finding those right people and surrounding himself with them. He had a great nose for talent and an uncanny ability to judge character.

  “Sather knew they were better, and they were,” said Calgary journalist George Johnson. “And there’s nothing that ticks you off more than the truth. Like Muhammad Ali said, ‘It ain’t bragging if you can back it up.’ And they could back it up.’ ”

  The headlines will always revolve around the greatest players, but hockey isn’t basketball. In a rivalry as heated as the Battle, sometimes the fifteenth, sixteenth, or seventeenth man on the roster became the difference-maker. That’s where Sather’s instincts took over. Once Fraser had furnished him with his top eight or nine players, a group that was superior to the top eight or nine of any team in the NHL, Sather—who had spent a career on the bottom half of an NHL roster—knew the right people to place in support roles.

  “They had great players, yes,” said long-time Flames winger Colin Patterson. “But it was their supporting cast. Guys who would come through when you least expected it. Dave Lumley. Dave Hunter. Pat Price. Esa Tikkanen was a great player. Sather was so good at resurrecting guys’ careers and bringing players in that maybe other players didn’t want anymore. MacTavish. Keith Acton had a great career there. [Ken] Linseman. The list goes on and on. Kent Nilsson came back and played with the Oilers [after his career with Calgary had closed].”

  It was equal parts star power and role player that made Sather’s team so consistently formidable. Like the night—February 3, 1984—when I arrived at Northlands for the sixth installment of the Battle, a nineteen-year-old and his late, great father, Milt, settling into a nice pair of seats about thirteen rows up in the corner. Then came the announcement that, though seldom heard, was every fan’s worst nightmare: “Not in the Oilers lineup tonight, number 99, Wayne Gretzky.”

  There weren’t many nights in the 1980s when a guy didn’t get his money’s worth at the Northlands Coliseum, but on the rare occasion that neither team had any jump, Plan B was always there. You could simply watch Gretzky, from the time he hopped the boards to the moment he went back in the gate. Watch seven or eight Gretzky shifts in a row and I defy you not to come away with something to try on the outdoor rink the next Saturday afternoon.

  On this night, however, there would be no Gretzky. Instead, a journeyman winger named Pat Hughes—who had come in a trade with Pittsburgh a few years previous for a defenceman named Pat Price—would score five goals in a 10–5 win over Calgary. A five-goal performance at Northlands. And not only was Gretzky not scoring the goals, he wasn’t even setting them up!

  Hughes averaged twenty-five goals a year and won two Cups in Edmonton but resided far down the list when it comes to the average hockey fan’s recall of those Oilers teams. He would move on to Buffalo for the 1985–86 season, the kind of small tweak Sather always made to keep his lineup fresh.

  “Glen always changed a spare part,” marvelled Al Coates, the director of public relations for Calgary. “Whether it was a sixth or seventh defenceman, or a fourth-line centreman or winger, just to bring in someone different. That came from the Eskimos. The Edmonton Eskimos won five Grey Cups in a row,
and they changed a couple of pieces on an annual basis. Just to get someone new in there who was fresh and hungry.”

  Sather had built a lineup that, on the top half, was untouchable. A bunch of young stallions growing into their roles as elite NHL players, dominating the Canada Cup rosters, and winning Stanley Cups. Gretzky became the quiet leader by example. Messier’s more overt style was louder and more physically intimidating but every bit as easy to follow once the puck dropped. There was enough toughness, plenty on defence, and between Fuhr and Moog, goaltending that other general managers would kill for.

  The only thing that could hurt the Oilers now was chemistry, or commitment to the cause. Sather had studied this closely on his lengthy tour through various NHL dressing rooms as a player. He’d played for coaches who got too involved, and he’d seen what happens when the coach wasn’t involved enough.

  “You can leave them alone,” he said of his players, “but you’ve got to be really careful you don’t leave them alone so much that they think they run the team. You’ve still got to be the boss. There is only one leader, and you can’t have it any other way. The players who are your leaders still have to respect you enough to follow your direction. You can’t turn it over to them and say, ‘Run the team.’ You’re looking for chaos.”

  In the end, Sather worked that balance almost to perfection. There were some slip-ups along the way—no doubt far more than were ever made public thanks to Freeman, Whitney, and the rest of Sather’s network—but by and large, Sather was spared of having to make too many difficult decisions.

  Asked for one, he replied, “I didn’t want to trade Semenko, but I had to trade him.” Sather wouldn’t say why, remaining ever loyal to a player who had always shown great loyalty to him. It is well known, however, that Semenko’s lifestyle had spun out of control in Edmonton. For Semenko’s own good, and the good of the team, Sather had chosen to trade Semenko to Hartford. Another well-known secret was that Sather had gone to great lengths to help Semenko through his troubled years, ultimately helping him to get healthy again. Sather hired Semenko back as a pro scout, and to the day of this writing Semenko works for the Oilers as a pro scout, a happy, healthy former Oiler still working in the game.