Changing the Game

by Stephen Laroche

  “The Nordiques just can’t keep up with Fitchner out of the lineup. He has done a fantastic job this season. He has got some goals, but his work on penalties has been the best I’ve seen in a long time. And when we have a crucial faceoff, Fitch comes up with it, anywhere, anytime. His value to the club cannot be replaced.”

  Appreciative of the praise he received, Fitchner commented on his former coach.

  “My recollection of Jacques is if you put your best effort forth, it went a long way.”

  Near the end of the season, he had a pair of goals in a 6–2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks. He missed only 10 games that first NHL season, but 1980–81 saw him fall out of favour in Quebec and he appeared in only eight contests before finishing the year in the minors. In all, he was very pleased by his NHL experience.

  “To play in those old rinks was a dream come true,” he said. “But it was also an opportunity to come in and play against the big lines.”

  Long-time teammate Curt Brackenbury also had a lot of praise for Fitchner.

  “He was a phenomenal faceoff guy and an excellent playmaker. We played more of an aggressive style with more forechecking. Fitchy was very tough. He could really fight and had very long arms.”

  Pierre Plante

  Plante went to the Stanley Cup Final with the New York Rangers in 1978–79, and although he had a 31-point effort during the regular season, he made only minor contributions in the playoff run. So with four new teams coming into the league, he became expendable. The Nordiques were happy to bring another francophone player into the lineup and took him with their eighth pick in the expansion draft.

  His ice time seemed reduced compared to the previous year, however, and his offensive totals plummeted. On October 28, 1979, he scored his first goal for Quebec on Bunny Larocque of the Montreal Canadiens, and on February 3, 1980, he fired in the winning goal while taking on his old club.

  Frustrated by his experience with the Nordiques, Plante lashed out at the organization at the end of the year and told the press that they were the worst that he had ever played with. In particular, he directed a lot of venom toward coach Jacques Demers, who was, in his opinion, “only good enough to coach a bunch of cheerleaders,” and said that assistant Andre Boudrias was “a man that you had to watch out for, because he was a hypocrite.”

  Needless to say, this outburst practically ensured that Plante never saw NHL action again.

  “Pierre had to shoulder a lot of responsibility,” said Curt Brackenbury. “Being a native of Quebec and playing in Quebec was a major responsibility. He came in from New York and playing in obscurity. He did not get that in Quebec. There was a lot more accountability there.”

  Wally Weir

  Big and intimidating, Weir was a rock on defence for the Nordiques during their last three seasons in the WHA and served as one of the team’s top policemen, protecting teammates from the opposition’s tough guys. Since no NHL team had drafted him, Quebec retained his rights when they joined the NHL. His presence on the ice was going to be needed in 1979–80.

  “On or off the ice, he was a pillar,” said Curt Brackenbury. “He lived in Greenfield Park, which is a tough place. He went in and established himself and gave people courage and a sense of security. He didn’t have to fight.”

  During the season opener, Weir took the first penalty in franchise history, and when the team met Atlanta again on November 2, 1979, he earned a pair of assists in the 4–4 tie. Just two nights later, he scored his first NHL goal on Detroit’s Rogie Vachon. While like many of his teammates he missed some action, he did thrill the crowds with nine fights that included two in the November 20 game with Boston’s Al Secord and Terry O’Reilly.

  “That was wild. I must have been trying to make room for some guys on my team. O’Reilly I fought many, many times. He was a big guy and a tough guy. We usually fought face-to-face, where Al would come in from behind.”

  “There was no tougher guy than him,” recalled Michel Dion. “Whenever you needed someone to shake things up, he was there. He never backed down from anybody and he hit clean. He didn’t look for fights and he was smart about knowing what to do at the right time.”

  Weir was proud of his hard work.

  “That was my dream come true to make it to the National Hockey League. I would show up in training camp already in shape and not a lot guys were doing that. They felt training camp was to get in shape. That was my edge.”

  Curt Brackenbury

  Brackenbury was one of the most feared players in the WHA and led the league with 365 penalty minutes in 1975–76. That season, he came over to the Nordiques when the Minnesota Fighting Saints folded, and in subsequent years, he was allowed to focus more on his offensive play because of the respect he had earned from the opposition.

  As Quebec prepared for admission into the NHL, Brackenbury fit into the club’s plans, but changes were on the horizon.

  “They told me that they wanted to play a different kind of style and not fight as much,” he said. “The mood in hockey was changing with players like the Stastnys coming in.”

  His time in the sin bin decreased by nearly 100 minutes and he also missed some time as a result of an arm injury. On November 4, 1979, he got his first two assists of the season against Detroit and then 18 days later scored his first NHL goal on Boston’s Gilles Gilbert. He was particularly up for games against Edmonton. He scored the game-winner against them on December 30, and less than two weeks later, he assisted on Rich Leduc’s winning tally when the Oilers went down again by a score of 3–2.

  Brackenbury truly enjoyed his experience in Quebec and made strides to adapt to the city’s culture.

  “I tried to speak French as much as I could and I think people appreciated it. I lived in an all-French neighbourhood when I was there… . I was very disappointed to leave Quebec City. The people there are very down to earth. They enjoyed life and enjoyed their team.”

  Michel Dion

  Dion was a promising prospect in both baseball and hockey, but he chose hockey in the early 1970s after having success in the WHA. He started with the Indianapolis Racers but spent the league’s final two seasons in a Cincinnati Stingers uniform sharing the crease with Mike Liut. After seeing him in action on a regular basis, the Nordiques chose him in the dispersal draft to take over as their number one goalie for their first NHL campaign.

  “My thought was that they wouldn’t look at the ex-World Hockey Association players as equals,” he said. “We almost felt like we had to prove to everybody that the other league was just as good. There was a lot of talent in the WHA and it wasn’t fair to judge it as inferior.”

  Dion sat out for the season opener with Atlanta, but he made his NHL debut on October 13, 1979.

  “I was told that I was being saved for the second game against the Montreal Canadiens. We had a great game. I played there in junior and I wondered if it was going to be different. It had been a few years, and everybody I had ever known seemed to be at that game and watching it on TV. Jacques Demers called me during the summer and really motivated me for that game. We ended up playing them twice in eight days and we beat them in front of our own fans and that kick-started the franchise.”

  The Nordiques also had a bit of a goaltending dilemma with three NHL-calibre starters vying for two positions. Ultimately, Dion got the majority of the work and recorded shutouts against Winnipeg and Pittsburgh.

  “We pushed each other hard, but we all knew that we were trying to push each other out of a job,” he said.

  EXPANSION YEAR RECORD: 20–49–11

  (51 points — fifth in Smythe Division)

  Coaches: Tom McVie and Bill Sutherland

  GENERAL MANAGER: John Ferguson

  FIRST GAME: October 10, 1979 —

  4–2 loss vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

  FIRST GOAL: October 10, 1979 by Morris Lukowich

  WINNIPEG

  JETS

  Without the Winnipeg Jets and their landmark signing of Bobby Hull, the Worl
d Hockey Association may not have lasted the seven seasons that it did. Their success on the ice and at the box office ensured that the three-time AVCO World Trophy champions were to be part of the merger with the NHL in 1979.

  In the early stages of the 1978–79 season, Winnipeg hired John Ferguson as their new general manager, and he brought in Tom McVie to serve as coach with fewer than 20 games to go in the regular schedule. The club had lost some of its high-octane offence with the departure of Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson to the New York Rangers and Hull’s retirement early in the year as well. To pick up the slack, they scooped up some talent from the Houston Aeros, including Morris Lukowich, who placed second in the league with 65 goals.

  Winnipeg finished third in the league and defeated the Quebec Nordiques in the semifinal round of the playoffs before facing Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers for the final AVCO Cup. They prevailed in six games, ending their WHA run on a high. The Jets and their fans probably weren’t expecting a total demolition of their club, however, and the feeling was that their first season in the NHL was going to be a disaster before it began.

  The losses for the Jets started with Terry Ruskowski and Rich Preston, who were reclaimed by the Chicago Black Hawks along with Hull. Other NHL clubs snatched back players like tough-guy Kim Clackson, defenceman Barry Long and budding scorer Kent Nilsson, and what the team got in return wasn’t nearly as good. They were able to get a promising blueliner in the WHA Dispersal Draft in Craig Norwich and their priority selections ended up being Lukowich, Scott Campbell and goalie Markus Mattsson.

  In the expansion draft, the pickings were a bit slim, but the highlights included getting Hull back from Chicago and acquiring Peter Marsh and Pierre Hamel. A couple of weeks later, they traded to pick up bruising Barry Melrose and later resigned free agent Willy Lindstrom. The 1979 NHL Entry Draft gave the club some prospects to look forward to when they made Jimmy Mann their first-round pick and also grabbed promising American Dave Christian.

  Before the season began, Ferguson and the Jets were crowing in the media about needing to determine exactly where Preston’s rights belonged. They wanted league president John Ziegler to take the matter to arbitration. His response to the matter was delivered to the press.

  “I’m of the opinion that the Jets knew well ahead of time that Preston had signed last September with the Black Hawks and also realize that they might have no claim to him. But, upon receipt of their request for a ruling, I will review the facts and make a decision based on those facts.”

  Ziegler didn’t end up taking that route, and Jets governor Barry Shenkarow responded accordingly in the press.

  “I think it’s just another case of being a new team in the league and the league is taking advantage of the situation and is jumping on us. I just don’t know how he [Ziegler] can say, unilaterally, that we are not entitled to arbitration. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  In the end, Preston stayed in Chicago for a few seasons, but there was at least some optimism with rumours that Hull was coming out of retirement. Coach Tom McVie took his ragtag group of players into training camp, realistic when asked if the team could challenge for a playoff spot.

  “I suppose that’s the number one goal for any expansion team, but it’s not mine,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, my job this season is to prepare my hockey club as well as I can 80 times. If we have something to show for it at the end, then that’s great. If I was to come out and say I expect so many wins, or so many goals, what happens when we get to a point in the season when we can’t get there? Do we pack all the equipment away?

  “There are going to be times when the players are going to say ‘What’s the use? Why bust my butt when it’s hopeless?’ But, we’re just going to have to go out and perform our best for 80 games… . It’s my job to keep the players enthused.”

  One forgotten footnote from this era is that equipment manufacturer Cooper Canada used Winnipeg’s rookie camp as a test run for some new concepts in hockey equipment. This included the much-maligned Cooperall pants that came into use in 1982–83, which were 40 percent lighter and 20 percent more protective than conventional equipment. Interestingly, the Cooper model jersey that the rookies wore was visually similar to the Reebok Edge Ice jerseys NHL teams began wearing in 2007–08.

  The Pittsburgh Penguins hosted the Jets for their first NHL game on October 11, 1979. Winnipeg was behind by three goals before Lukowich tallied for the first time at the 13:24 mark of the third period. Peter Sullivan got one less than three minutes later on the power play, but the team couldn’t rally and lost by a score of 4–2. Their road swing continued the next night and they were shut out by the Boston Bruins. In that game, rookie Raymond Bourque scored his first professional goal.

  Finally coming home on October 14, the Jets got their first NHL victory against the Colorado Rockies. During that first month they proved themselves one of the better new clubs with a 4–5–1 record. Some more good news was announced when after a long negotiation process Hull came to terms with the Jets on October 26, 1979.

  McVie also made national news in November when he was suspended for three games and fined $500 for an incident during a game against Atlanta. He attempted to scale the partition between the benches to get at Atlanta coach Al MacNeil, and after removing his coat and tie and unbuttoning his shirt, he removed his upper plate and put it in his pocket. He received a game misconduct for his actions and NHL executive VP Brian O’Neill was not pleased.

  “He has no explanation for his actions other than he became distraught at seeing his players involved in an altercation, which was taking place at the time. He expressed deep remorse for his conduct and vowed it would not happen again.”

  It was the second time McVie had been involved in such an incident that season and reportedly the first suspension ever handed down to an NHL coach.

  “I’ve disappointed myself and my family and I was disappointed in doing that in front of my team,” he said. “I’ve trained myself for 10 years to control myself and I have always told my teams to do the same. It was a mistake, but John Ziegler makes mistakes; Jimmy Carter makes mistakes… . I’ll never do anything like this again. Never. I’m too good a coach to be doing that sort of thing. I’ll tell you how strongly I feel about this. Don Cherry could punch me in the nose right now and his dog, Blue, could bite my son Denver in the leg and he wouldn’t get a reaction out of me.”

  One of the most memorable events for Jets fans in their first NHL season was the first time they hosted the Montreal Canadiens, on December 15. It was dubbed “Black Tie Night,” and fans were encouraged to show up to the game in tuxedos. Winnipeg got a big 6–2 win over the defending Stanley Cup champions in a nationally televised game. There was a big problem, though, as Hull showed up late and McVie told him that he was not playing that night. The aging superstar simply walked out and never played for the Jets again, as he was suspended by the team. Eventually, he was traded to the Hartford Whalers for future considerations.

  A little more than two weeks later, Winnipeg hosted the touring Moscow Dynamo club in an exhibition and were destroyed 7–0. There was at least some positive news at this time, as Lukowich was given the chance to play in the 1980 NHL All-Star Game and the Jets were also getting some tremendous play from Ron Wilson, a high-scoring rookie they had picked up before the season began.

  The Jets lost six straight in January, falling farther out of a playoff spot, and it just got worse later on when they did not taste victory during a 10-game stretch. It was around this time that they got an offensive boost with the arrival of Dave Christian following his gold medal win with the United States at the 1980 Winter Olympics, so they were at least able to play the role of spoilers in the last 10 games of the year as they went 5–5.

  With one NHL campaign under their belts, the Jets still weren’t ready to become contenders. In their second season they won only nine games and finished last overall. Their consolation prize, however, was the opportunity to take Dale Hawerchuk
with the first overall pick in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft. As the team rebuilt with tons of top young-talent, they put together one of the greatest single-season turnarounds in league history and made the playoffs for the first time in 1981–82. For the rest of the decade, they regularly made the playoffs but only made it to the second round twice.

  In the 1990s, Winnipeg remained competitive with talent like Keith Tkachuk, Alexei Zhamnov and Teemu Selanne carrying their fair share of the offensive load. But the team was having off-ice troubles that eventually forced them to relocate to Phoenix as the Coyotes. Fan support for the Jets was always high, yet factors like a weak Canadian dollar along with high operating costs and rising salaries were a deadly combination for the beloved team.

  The Coyotes have had a rough time playing in the desert of Arizona, and many times in recent years have been rumoured to be on the move. The team finally went into bankruptcy in 2009 and the NHL took over the reins until a suitable owner could be found. Several candidates expressed interest, but when none of them panned, relocation rumours regularly went into overdrive. The city of Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, battled back and forth with the league but the NHL eventually approved a 15-year lease agreement for new investors Renaissance Sports and Entertainment in 2013. There is a potential escape clause in place for the new owners, however, and they can move the club after five years or losing $50 million. Only time will tell if the Desert Dogs are to remain in Arizona.

  Morris Lukowich

  After he scored 65 goals and racked up 99 points with the Jets in 1978–79, Lukowich was on the radar of the Pittsburgh Penguins as the team headed into the NHL ice wars, because they had drafted him back in 1976. They put in their claim, but team management in Winnipeg sought to protect their star player and made him a priority selection.