Raiders versus Tigers – a collision of legacy franchises

Storied clubs to battle for WHL Eastern Conference title

Mike Modano and Trevor Linden hockey cards.

PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. - So who is the better player – Mike Modano or Trevor Linden?

If you remember this question or debate and you live in Prince Albert or Medicine Hat, you are – like me I hate to say it – old or getting older. The question does show that the paths of the Prince Albert Raiders and the Medicine Hat Tigers have been intertwined in the past.

The Raiders and Tigers - they are two of Canada’s legacy junior hockey franchises.

The Raiders were born in 1971 as a junior A team. They won the Centennial Cup as national junior A champions in 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1982. After the second Centennial Cup win, Raiders legendary head coach and general manager Terry Simpson foresaw the day was coming soon that he thought the community owned franchise in “Hockey Town North” needed a bigger challenge.

While Simpson will downplay and say he had a small role in the Raiders moving from junior A to the major junior ranks, you will admit when sitting and talking to him about those times he envisioned the great things that came for the Raiders at that time in history. The Raiders jumped to the WHL, which is one of the CHL’s three major junior circuits, for the start of the 1982-83 campaign.

They won the WHL title and the Memorial Cup as CHL champions at the end of their third season in major junior in 1984-85. Those championships happened because Simpson believed that Dan Hodgson, Dave Pasin, Emanuel Viveiros, Dale McFee, Ken Morrison and netminder Ward Komonosky would be the guys that would win those titles for the Raiders when the team was getting hammered in that first major junior campaign in 1982-83.

The Raiders would add another WHL title in 2019 with Curtis Hunt as general manager and Marc Habscheid as head coach. Dante Hannoun scored the overtime winner in Game 7 of the WHL Championship Series against the Vancouver Giants at the storied and historic Art Hauser Centre. Throughout their history, the Raiders have delivered numerous memorable moments for their fans.

The Tigers were born one year before the Raiders, and the Medicine Hat franchise joined the WHL in 1970 founded by the trio of George Maser, Joe Fisher and Rod Carry. Hockey in the 1970s was colourful to say the least, and Maser, Fisher and Carry had their share of colour. It was safe to say there were times they were kings of “The Gas City.”

In just their third season in 1972-73, the Tigers won their first WHL championship with stars Tom Lysiak, Lanny McDonald and Boyd Anderson. They played at the Memorial Cup championship tournament held that year at the fabled Montreal Forum. Going 1-1 in round robin play, the Tigers didn’t have the edge in standings tiebreakers and didn’t qualify for the tournament final.

Maser took sole ownership of the team in 1979. Before the start of the 1982-83 campaign, Maser brought in Russ Farwell to be the team’s general manager, and it would be Farwell who got the Tigers on the road to the elusive Memorial Cup.

Farwell’s Tigers collided with Simpson’s Raiders in 1985 in what is now the WHL Eastern Conference Championship Series. The Raiders claimed victory in five games in the best-of-seven series on their way to winning the WHL title and Memorial Cup.

Farwells’ Tigers met Simpson’s Raiders again in the 1986 Eastern Conference final. It was the heaviest of heavyweight showdowns with the Tigers topping the WHL at 54-17-1 and the Raiders were right on their tail at 52-17-3. The series went to a deciding Game 7 where the Tigers prevailed 4-1 in their storied and historic first home rink in The Arena.

After beating the Raiders, the Tigers at that time felt they had won the Memorial Cup. They had a hangover after that series win and fell to the Kamloops Blazers in the WHL final in five games. Linden was a young associate player call-up centre in his 15-year-old season and was with the Tigers when they fell to the Blazers.

He was born and raised in Medicine Hat and grew up idolizing the Tigers and listening to their iconic play-by-play voice in Bob Ridley on radio. Linden, whose home became a frequent team hang out, was determined that ending wouldn’t happen again.

The returnees and core players from that Tigers team showed they learned their lessons well. The Tigers won WHL and Memorial Cup titles in both 1987 and again in 1988. The first Memorial Cup title came under the guidance of colourful head coach Bryan Maxwell and the second under equally colourful head coach Barry Melrose, who had a unique new school style way of thinking.

George Maser passed away on November 29, 1990 due to a heart attack, which brought some uncertainty to the Tigers franchise in Medicine Hat. Sons Darrell and Brent Maser took over the team.

Unlike their father, Darrell and Brent developed a style where they like to stay behind the scenes and let good hockey guys run the team. They don’t get enough credit for this, but they are good community guys too.

It is common for donations to show up quietly for a charity, cause or sport organization, but they try to avoid taking any credit for that. Actually, Darrell and Brent do more nice things for people behind the scenes than most know, but they are good with staying anonymous.

They also like to win, and there was frustration when the Tigers missed the playoffs for five straight seasons from 1998 to 2002. After bringing in a string of old school head coaches, the Masers allowed then general manager Rick Carriere to make an outside the box hire for that position.

In came the classy Willie Desjardins, who was as new school as they get. Desjardins was the ultimate players’ coach with a master’s in social work. Players realized Desjardins cared and understood them, and they took off. The Tigers won their fourth WHL title in Desjardins second season with the team in 2003-04.

He took on the role of general manager to go along with head coach before the 2005-06 campaign started. The Tigers won their fifth WHL title in 2007 with Brennan Bosch scoring the double overtime winner in Game 7 of the WHL Championship Series against the Giants at The Arena.

After going off to coach in the professional ranks following the 2009-10 campaign, Desjardins was brought back to the team as head coach and general manager before the 2019-20 campaign started. Another WHL title followed in the 2024-25 campaign with star 20-year-old captain and career Tigers member Oasiz Wiesblatt and superstar left-winger Gavin McKenna supplying the heroics.

The Tigers were powered by lots of emotion playing for star 20-year-old netminder Harrison Meneghin, whose father, Derek, passed attending the team’s final regular season contest of the 2024-25 campaign.

Meneghin was playing for his father, and the Tigers were playing for him. They rode that to the team’s sixth WHL championship and a berth in the Memorial Cup tournament’s title game, where they fell 4-1 in the CHL championship contest to the London Knights on June 1, 2025 in Rimouski, Que.

Desjardins is the best coach in the WHL when it comes to handling something totally unexpected like a player’s parent passing away right before the post-season. While those extremely rare situations are the toughest thing a junior hockey player can encounter in a career, players find out in those times how much Desjardins cares and how special of a person he is.

Now at age 69, Desjardins is still as good as ever.

The Tigers finished third overall in the WHL regular season, second overall in the Eastern Conference and first in the Central Division at 50-10-5-3. Medicine Hat put together a team record 19-game winning streak that was stopped on January 17 due to an 8-5 setback against the visiting Raiders at Co-op Place.

The Raiders, who are still overseen by Hunt as general manager, had their own special season in 2025-26 after having been swept 4-0 in an Eastern Conference Semifinal Series in the 2025 WHL Playoffs at the hands of the Tigers. In the 2025-26 season, the Raiders finished second overall in the WHL, first in the Eastern Conference and first in the East Division at 52-10-5-1.

The Raiders are guided by a youthful 38-year-old head coach in Ryan McDonald, who was born and raised in “Hockey Town North,” and played centre for his hometown WHL team.

The Raiders were rated fourth in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings, while the Tigers are rated fifth in those rankings.

The two sides are set to collide in a best-of-seven WHL Eastern Conference Championship Series for the first time since 1986. Game 1 of that series is set for Friday at 7 p.m. at the Art Hauser Centre.

Depth is the name of the game in this series.

The Raiders had nine players who scored 20-or-more goals in the regular season. They include Max Heise (29), Daxon Rudolph (28), Aiden Oiring (28), Brandon Gorzynski (27), Braeden Cootes (24), Jonah Sivertson (24), Brayden Dube (24), Alisher Sarkenov (21) and Maddix McCagherty (20).

Raiders captain Justice Christensen just missed out on being the 10^th player to score 20 goals finishing at 18 markers for the campaign. Christensen also missed the Raiders first four games this season after attending the training camp of the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings.

The Tigers had eight players who scored 20-or-more goals in the regular season. They included Liam Ruck (45), Bryce Pickford (45), Noah Davidson (30), Jonas Woo (29), Luke Cozens (25), Kade Stengrim (25), Markus Ruck (21) and Kadon McCann (21).

Tigers star 20-year-old left-winger Andrew Basha just missed hitting the 20-goal mark finishing with 18 tallies. He also spent the first half of the 2025-26 campaign with the Calgary Wranglers of the AHL, before their parent club in the NHL’s Calgary Flames reassigned Basha to the Tigers. Basha proceeded to put up 18 goals and 50 points in 32 regular season games with the Tigers since his return.

There is also another interesting side plot to the series.

The players on both respective teams really and truly believe they have the best fans in the WHL. Both fan bases are passionate, and in a players’ poll earlier this season, the Hauser was voted as the toughest road rink in the WHL to play in. This could be a series where the club that loses at home first is in trouble.

Oh, back to the Modano versus Linden debate. That was huge leading up to the 1988 NHL Entry Draft when Modano starred for the Raiders and Linden became one of the Tigers best local products ever. Modano did have the better NHL career putting up more than 500 points than Linden did to go with a Stanley Cup title win.

In junior, Modano had more than double the regular season points than Linden did, but Linden has two WHL and Memorial Cup titles to his credit. Modano went first overall in the 1988 NHL Entry Draft to the then Minnesota North Stars, and Linden was picked second overall in that same draft to the Vancouver Canucks.

If they met up today, maybe they could have a Maverick and Iceman moment from the movie “Top Gun: Maverick.” For those that remember and lived through those old days, you can smile, because they happened and hold on to fond memories.

It is time for the Raiders and Tigers teams of the current day to let their stories play out.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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The return of the Tigers

Medicine Hat poised to turn heads in WHL again

The Tigers have picked up some big wins this season.

Are Medicine Hat Tigers ready to mix it up with the WHL’s elite once again?

Last season, the Tigers found life tough in the first full campaign back after the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons were cut short and didn’t have any post-season play due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has gripped the world. In 2021-22, they thumped down to last place in the entire WHL with an 11-53-3-1 record.

For the storied Tigers, the 11 wins was the lowest total for a season since the birth of the modern version of the franchise in 1970-71. That win total was even surpassed during the severely shortened bubble season of 2020-21, when the Tigers posted a 14-8-0-1 record.

The thud the Tigers experienced in the 2021-22 campaign was totally unexpected by anyone who had been associated with or has followed the team. Way back in the 2002-03 season, the Tigers made the WHL Playoffs with a record of 29 wins, 34 losses, two ties and seven overtime losses to end drought of having missed the post-season for five straight years.

In the 2003 WHL Playoffs, the Tigers advanced to the second round where they fell to the Red Deer Rebels in a tough seven-game series. From that season, the Tigers shot out to a run where they were consistently one of the WHL’s top teams and were still in the playoffs often winning a round in reloading years.

WHL Championships came in 2004 and 2007 along with Eastern Conference final appearances in 2006, 2011 and 2014. You always had to be aware of the Tigers, who are a franchise that has was five WHL crowns and two Memorial Cup titles as CHL champions in its history.

The Tigers have sent countless players to the NHL ranks including Tom Lysiak, Lanny McDonald, Morris Lukowich, Pete Peeters, Kelly Hrudey, Murray Craven, Trevor Linden, Chris Osgood, Rob Niedermayer, Josh Green, Jason Chimera, Jay Bouwmeester, Joffrey Lupul, Clarke MacArthur, Cam Barker, Kris Russell, Darren Helm, Derek Dorsett, Tyler Ennis, Emerson Etem, Mads Sogaard and Cole Sillinger.

It did seem strange to see the Tigers bottom out in 2021-22 and finish in the basement of the WHL first time since posting a record of 15 wins, 53 losses and three draws in the 1998-99 campaign. It is not usual to see the Tigers go through total rebuilds that are experienced at one time by all major junior clubs often in a cyclical nature.

Andrew Basha had four goals for the Tigers on Saturday.

The best part for the Tigers is the fact they are owned by brothers Darrell and Brent Maser, and their family has been part of Tigers ownership dating back to the team’s first season. They’ve seen the waves come and go and aren’t going to panic.

You can expect they would be more than understandable about the unique circumstances the team let alone the world have faced since March of 2020. They follow what they’ve always done in having good hockey people run the team and allowing them to run the team.

The team’s legendary head coach and general manager Willie Desjardins is still there, and if you let Desjardins do his thing, you can see the Tigers rise to prominence once again. 

This season with a young roster, the Tigers are getting to a point where other WHL teams have to look over their shoulders and be aware what is happening in Medicine Hat. If opposing WHL clubs underestimate the Tigers, they do so at their own peril.

On Saturday, a Co-op Place record attendance of 6,405 spectators turned out to see the host Tigers face 17-year-old phenom centre Connor Bedard and the Regina Pats. The Tigers rolled to a 7-0 victory in a banner night.

Sophomore 17-year-old left-winger Andrew Basha scored four goals for the Tigers, which is career high for most goals in a game. Beckett Langkow, who is an 18-year-old netminder, made 17 saves for his first career WHL shutout.

Gavin McKenna, who is a 15-year-old associate player call up, scored his first career WHL goal and picked up an assist. The Tigers took McKenna with the first overall pick in the 2022 WHL Prospects Draft, and he has put up 37 goals and 38 assists in 26 games with the Southern Alberta Hockey Academy’s under-18 Prep team.

Oasiz Wiesblatt leads the Tigers in scoring with 57 points.

Since that academy team is located in the Medicine Hat area, McKenna has played in 12 games this season with the Tigers collecting one goal and nine assists to go with a plus-three rating in the plus-minus department.

Rhett Parsons and Tomas Mrsic hand singles for the Tigers. Bogdans Hodass had three assists for Medicine Hat, while Oasiz Wiesblatt and Brendan Lee each had a pair of assists. Wiesblatt leads the Tigers in scoring with 57 points coming off 24 goals and 33 assists.

Drew Sim went the distance in goal for the Pats making 33 saves in a tough night for his squad. Bedard was held to three shots on goal and posted a minus-two rating.

With the win, the Tigers improved to 27-26-8-1 to sit seventh in the WHL’s Eastern Conference and three points behind the sixth place 31-27-3-1 Pats. At the moment, Medicine Hat still isn’t a lock to make the WHL Playoffs.

The Swift Current Broncos (28-29-1-3), Calgary Hitmen (26-27-5-3) and Brandon Wheat Kings (26-28-8) all sit tied for eighth in the Eastern Conference and the conference’s final playoff berth just three standings points back of the Tigers.

The Tigers have wins over the Winnipeg Ice (51-9-1), Kamloops Blazers (44-11-4-2) and Red Deer Rebels (41-17-3-3) who sit first, third and fifth respectively in the WHL’s overall standings at the conclusion of play Saturday. Medicine Hat has absorbed some drubbings too, which is standard for young teams to experience.

If they hold on to their playoff position, you can bet the Tigers are one team the WHL’s top clubs do not want to see. It would be surprising for the Tigers to have a long post-season run in 2023, but they are capable of producing a first round upset.

Beckett Langkow made 17 saves for his first career WHL shutout.

We might already be witnessing “the return of the Tigers.”

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Desjardins still a perfect fit in Tigers’ saddle

Willie Desjardins is back behind the Tigers bench as HC and GM.

    The empathy poured out of Willie Desjardins for a fallen opponent, because he too has been on the wrong side of a blowout score.

    The legendary head coach and general manager of the Medicine Hat Tigers saw his squad bomb the host Saskatoon Blades 11-3 in a WHL regular season clash before 2,632 spectators at the SaskTel Centre on Tuesday. The win allowed Desjardins’ Tigers to improve to 21-8-1, while the Blades fell to 14-14-1-2.

    While Desjardins’ Tigers are known for their high-flying, skilled and exciting offensive style, the 62-year-old veteran bench boss thought things just snowballed on the opposition.

    “Everything we shot went in,” said Desjardins. “If you look at the chances, they were probably pretty even tonight.

Cyle McNabb had a hat trick and an assist for the Tigers.

    “We wouldn’t be dominating them. They went out and they would work hard and they would get scored on. It gets pretty deflating after a period of time.

    “They have a good organization. They have some really quality players. This was a tough night for them.”

    With that said, Desjardins is happy to be back behind the bench of the Tigers after being away from the club for nine seasons. The Tigers owners and brothers, Darrell and Brent Maser, brought Desjardins back into his old roles this past May as the club was set to embark on its 50^th anniversary season.

Cole Sillinger had three assists for the Tigers on Tuesday.

    During his first run with the team from 2002-2010, Desjardins cemented himself as “the” Tigers head coach and took on the general manager’s role before the start of the 2005-06 campaign. Under Desjardins guidance over that stretch, the Tigers posted a 323-176-60 regular season record and won WHL titles in 2004 and 2007.

    He departed the team to take on coaching stints in the NHL, AHL and one season with Canada’s senior national team, which won bronze at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Last season, Desjardins was the interim head coach of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings before making his homecoming to the Alberta centre with a population around 62,000 people and the Tigers.

    “Medicine Hat is a great city,” said Desjardins. “I like the franchise a lot.

    “For me, it is always great when you can be part of this franchise. More than that, I have a really good group of guys and a great staff. It has been nice for me to come into something like that.”

Garin Bjorklund made 20 saves in goal for the Tigers on Tuesday.

    Desjardins said Medicine Hat has always been great to him, his wife, Rhonda Carlson, their sons, Brayden and Jayce and daughter Sheehan. While the family was away, they always ensured to maintain roots in “the Gas City.”

    “We always kept our house, so we were always there in the summers,” said Desjardins. “It wasn’t like we had ever left.

    “It wasn’t like we had ever been gone from Medicine Hat. We were there every year back for the summers, so we were always part of it.”

    Desjardins took over a Tigers team that posted a 35-27-4-2 record last season and fell 4-2 to the Edmonton Oil Kings in a best-of-seven first round playoff series. The Tigers were reloading for what they hoped would be another breakout season, and Desjardins said he walked into a good situation.

Bryan Lockner scored a pair of goals for the Tigers on Tuesday.

    “I think we have a good group of guys,” said Desjardins. “I think we have good structure.

    “I think we have a good staff here. I think (assistant coaches) Joey (Frazer) and Ryan (Smith) do a great job with them. I think they’ve brought a lot of structure from last year that I was able to walk into, and that is important.

    “I think people are probably surprised at how many goals we scored. Our ‘D’ weren’t noted for being offensive ‘D.’ They were known for being pretty defensive, but they’ve found a way to contribute offensively this year.”

    Desjardins also inherited 16-year-old standout rookie left-winger Cole Sillinger. Sillinger had three assists in Tuesday’s win and has piled up 11 goals, 17 assists and a plus-11 rating in the plus-minus department in 25 regular season games in the current campaign.

Tigers HC and GM Willie Desjardins give instructions to his players.

    Sillinger played for Team Canada White at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge that ran Nov. 2 to 9 in Medicine Hat and Swift Current, Sask.

    “The thing I say about Sillinger and the biggest compliment is you don’t even treat him as a 16-year-old,” said Desjardins. “He plays heavy, a heavy game.

    “He plays like an 18-year-old the way he plays. I think he has been good. He has missed some games for the under-17s, but when he has been here, he has been very good for us.”

    While Desjardins saw that he had a good hand coming back to the Tigers, he didn’t expect the season to start out as well as it has.

    “It surprised me a little bit, and I think the thing for us is it is just one game at a time,” said Desjardins. “We’ve been beaten badly by some teams, so it is not like we haven’t had our share of games like this.

Tigers captain James Hamblin had five assists on Tuesday.

    “We lost 5-0 at home (to the Everett Silvertips on Saturday). We lost 4-0 at home (to the Brandon Wheat Kings on Nov. 19). Those are big losses at home as well, so it was a tough one for the Blades, but we’ve had that in our rink.

    “We have a long ways to go to be a top team.”

    As for Tuesday’s game itself, the Tigers stormed out to a 5-0 lead in the first period.

    The surge chased Blades starter Nolan Maier from the Saskatoon goal. He stopped 7-of-12 shots sent his way.

    Koen MacInnes started the second period for Saskatoon and played the rest of the way in relief. He turned away 20 of 26 shots sent in his direction.

The Tigers celebrate a goal from Lukas Svejkovsky (#20).

    The Tigers held an 8-2 edge after the second period and cruised to their 11-3 victory from there.

    Right-winger Cyle McNabb, who was traded to the Tigers by the Blades on Nov. 26, had a hat trick and an assist for the Medicine Hat side. Lukas Svejkovsky and Bryan Lockner each had two-goal nights for the Tigers, while Brett Kemp, Ryan Chyzowski, Elijah Brown and Daniel Baker all had singles.

    Tigers captain James Hamblin picked up five assists in the romp.

    The Tigers played their fourth line of left-winger Nick McCarry, centre Baxter Anderson and right-winger Noah Danielson a tonne in the third period.

    Captain Chase Wouters had a pair of goals for the Blades, while 16-year-old rookie Jayden Wiens netted a single.

    Garin Bjorklund stopped 20-of-23 shots to pick up the win in goal for the Tigers. Associate player call up Evan Fradette was inserted in net at the media break with 9:05 remaining in the third period and stopped two shots in his relief appearance.

Daniel Baker scored a goal for the Tigers on Tuesday.

    The Tigers travel to Prince Albert on Wednesday to face the defending WHL champion Raiders (7 p.m., Art Hauser Centre).

    The Blades are back in action on Friday when they host the Kamloops Blazers at 7 p.m. at the SaskTel Centre.

    As the Tigers march through their 50^th season, Desjardins said he isn’t one to look too far ahead. With that noted, he is looking forward to Bob Ridley potentially reaching 4,000 games called near the end of the regular season.

    Tuesday’s game marked the 3,965^th game Ridley has call as the Tigers play-by-play voice in the regular season, one standings tiebreaking game, the WHL playoffs and the Memorial Cup tournament. Ridley has been the team’s only play-by-play voice, and he has only missed one game.

Overager D Parker Gavlas patrols the Tigers back end.

    In 1972, Ridley was assigned by the CHAT radio and television outlet in Medicine Hat to go to Saskatoon to cover the national women’s curling championships. A Medicine Hat rink was the Alberta champion representative, and that squad was skipped by Polly Beaton.

    The foursome had a lead named Terry Kope, who was the wife of the station’s general manager.

    Due to that connection, Ridley was dispatched to Saskatoon and had to miss calling one Tigers regular season game. Ridley drove the Tigers team bus for most of his career too.

    “I think it is a real accomplishment for Bob Ridley,” said Desjardins “What he has done in this game is incredible.

    “How does anybody go 3,900 and some games and only miss one game? Like surely he can be sick sometime along the line or whatever, but never. He wasn’t sick.

Tigers RW Cyle McNabb is stopped on this backhand attempt.

    “He is a big part of the 50 years.”

    Desjardins credited the Maser family for being a big part of the Tigers success as the team owners. Darrell and Brent inherited the team from their late father, George.

    George was part of the ownership group that founded the Tigers in 1970 with Rod Carry and Joe Fisher. George became the sole owner in 1979, and the Tigers have remained owned by the Maser family since that time.

    “The Masers are a great family,” said Desjardins, who was the captain of the 1982-83 U Sports national champion University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s hockey team. “They’ve had the franchise the whole time.

The Tigers celebrate their win on Tuesday night.

    “I can’t say enough about them and what they’ve brought to Medicine Hat.”

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.

It just feels right – Tigers, Desjardins together again

Willie Desjardins pictured in the 2007 Memorial Cup game program.

    Would the Lethbridge Hurricanes ever try to get a Tim Hortons built next to the Canalta Centre in an attempt to make Willie Desjardins late for a practice or a game?

    The Hurricanes might not have put in that type of work to disrupt a rival, because the Tim Hortons pitfall is naturally present due to the lay of the land.

    A Tim Hortons sits on the east side of the Canalta Centre in the northern tip of Medicine Hat in the community of Crescent Heights. You can’t miss it when driving to the rink via that route.

    If you approach the Canalta Centre from the west via Redcliff, there is a Tim Hortons in your path. The famed donut and coffee chain has Desjardins boxed in.

    All joking aside, the Medicine Hat Tigers officially announced on Friday that Desjardins has returned to the team to become the club’s head coach and general manager once again.

    The Tigers parted ways with their former long time head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston on Thursday.
    Desjardins was the Tigers head coach from 2002 to 2010 and also held the role of general manager from 2005 to 2010. During that time, he compiled a 323-176-60 regular season record as Tigers head coach, and he guided the club to WHL titles in 2004 and 2007.

    When you saw the video of Desjardins during his introductory press conference on Friday, it felt right. It feels like Medicine Hat is the place he is meant to be in, and the Tigers are the team he is supposed to lead.

Pictures from the Tigers glory times under Willie Desjardins.

    The Tim Hortons joke actually comes from an episode during the 2005-06 season. The Tigers were in preparations leading up to a key regular season game with the Calgary Hitmen. The two clubs were battling for first place in the overall WHL standings.

    During a practice session at The Arena, Desjardins called a special team meeting for 2 p.m. the next day regarding this important game. No one knew about this meeting until Desjardins announced it.

    At the time, the Tigers usually arrived at The Arena for practice between 2:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. At 2:45 p.m. they would have a meeting that lasted about 15 minutes and the team hits the ice at 3 p.m.

    Anyways, the Tigers players and coaches arrive for this 2 p.m. meeting, and Desjardins is missing. Around 2:15 p.m., overage forward Tommy Maxwell calls Desjardins on his cell phone.
    Desjardins picks up right away and the two have a chat for 45 seconds. Maxwell asks Desjardins what he was up to.

    Desjardins said he was in line at the Tim Hortons located two blocks from The Arena buying a sandwich. Desjardins asked Maxwell what he was up to.

    Maxwell said he was in the Tigers dressing room with the team, and they were ready for this special 2 p.m. meeting and that everyone was waiting for him.

    A moment of silence passes. Desjardins lets loose with an explanative and said he would be right there.

    The Tigers team that season was full of great players who were characters that had character in captain Kris Russell, Derek Dorsett, Maxwell, Cam Barker, Matt Keetley, Jerrid Sauer, Kevin Undershute, Kieran Block, Daine Todd, Roman Psurny, Brett Robertson, David Schlemko, Gord Baldwin, Brennan Bosch and Tyler Ennis to name a few. For the next two weeks, you can envision them giving Desjardins the gears saying it was important to be on time in a humourous way.

Picture of another highlight from Willie Desjardins time with the Tigers.

    Anytime Desjardins would walk into a room, you could almost hear, “Hey, coach is late. That’s a fine.”

    Darren Helm of today’s age would engage in those jabs too, but he was more of a quiet type back then.

    Anyways, that episode with the Tim Hortons near The Arena seems to grow into a taller tale as the years pass. Desjardins was late for a special team meeting he called, because he made a Tim Hortons stop.

    Desjardins will dispute the amount of minutes he was actually late, but I think the union is there to agree it was at least 15 minutes. It is possible other details from that episode get exaggerated as time passes.
    Even in that small humourous spot in time, it was easy to see some of the factors that made Desjardins so successful.

    One is the fact the 62-year-old product of Climax, Sask., is able to get information across to his players. They did realize it was important to be on time for meetings or on the ice to be in spots at the right time when plays develop.

    Another thing it shows is Desjardins has humility. He recognizes he makes mistakes too, and all you can do is correct them and move forward.

    Desjardins knows when to allow the players to be themselves and when it is time to focus on work. He was comfortable enough to let players give him some light-hearted jabs and create some fun around the facility.

    He wasn’t one of those coaches that took himself so seriously that something like this wouldn’t be allowed.

    Still when it was time to focus on the task at hand, he was able to get that message across and everyone went to work.

A picture of another Tigers memory of Willie Desjardins’ era with the team.

    Above all, he always tried to ensure the rink was the best place to be. That atmosphere was one of the reasons everyone was on time for that special meeting but him. It just slipped his mind that day.
    The Tigers won a lot during Desjardins first run with the team.
    What made the journey so special during those years was the fact it was filled with so many of those fun stories. Everyone enjoyed the journey, and if they could have lived at The Arena, they would have.

    During that run, he became revered as the greatest coach the Tigers ever had. Desjardins was a great coach, but he was even a better human.

    He is a first rate person who had compassion and could help people in their toughest circumstances. Back in the 2009-10 season, the Tigers acquired power forward Cole Grbavac in a trade with the Kamloops Blazers.

    Grbavac was going through some troubles, and he needed to spend time away from the team. When he rejoined the club, he went forward at full speed.

    Grbavac never said what he was going through but said he was thankful Desjardins was present at that point in his life and he owed him so much. Grbavac would be the Tigers captain in his final season of major junior eligibility in 2011-12.

    In July of 2010, Desjardins left the Tigers to be an associate coach with the NHL’s Dallas Stars. A lot of thought went into the decision including the notion of staying with the Tigers and possibly having the longevity Brian Kilrea had in coaching the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s.

    Desjardins knew there was great value to remaining in junior and making a positive impact on players aged 16 to 20 making their way in life.

    It was these types of things that made Desjardins enduring to the community of Medicine Hat.

    It was those things that made people miss him and always created this longing that he would return.

Willie Desjardins pictured in the Medicine Hat News.

    When I was last in Medicine Hat in late March, it caught me off guard how many of my friends were out of work due to the energy sector economy being down. When you talked hockey, you could tell people there wanted him to come back and be the head coach and general manager of the Tigers.

    It was like Desjardins return would be this beacon of light and hope that better days were coming. People remembered that genuine and special type of humanity Desjardins possessed that most don’t have.

    It is easy to see on social media lines the fans in Medicine Hat received what they wanted. Desjardins is back.

    By the sounds of it, people who are just scraping by are now going to do what they can to put together money to buy tickets for Tigers games. Last season, the Tigers averaged 3,121 fans at the Canalta Centre, which seats 6,016 spectators.
    For many years, the Tigers soldout their old home rink The Arena at 4,006 spectators.

    As the Tigers enter their 50^th season, Desjardins return provides hope. The dreams of brighter days and endless possibilities have returned to Medicine Hat.

Clouston had great run with Tigers facing difficult odds

Shaun Clouston is the Tigers all time leader in coaching victories.

    I still chuckle at the humours jabs sent my way from media colleagues on the WHL trail that I hired Shaun Clouston as the Medicine Hat Tigers head coach.

    The same goes for Brad McEwen, when he was hired to be the team’s general manager. Just to be clear, team owners Darrell and Brent Maser did in fact make those hires.

    In July of 2010, Willie Desjardins stepped down from holding both of those positions to become an associate coach with the NHL’s Dallas Stars.

    I thought back to those days, when Clouston parted ways with the Tigers on Thursday leaving behind the roles of head coach and general manager. McEwen left the team back in August of 2014.

    On Friday, Desjardins returned to the Tigers to be the team’s head coach and general manager once again.

    Desjardins vaulted to legendary status in Medicine Hat having guided the Tigers to WHL titles in 2004 and 2007. With the success Desjardins had back then, you always wondered when a sound opportunity would arise that he would make the jump to the NHL.

    When that day came, the Tigers were in position to fill the void. Clouston had joined the team before the start of the 2003-04 campaign as an assistant coach, and he was promoted to associate coach before the start of the 2005-06 season.

    He was set to take on the head coaching duties.
    McEwen was a Tigers head scout and had a successful track record as a WHL general manager. He was ready to fill that spot.

    After Desjardins stepped down, Clouston and McEwen took on the respective roles of head coach and general manager about three days later. I had known both for a lengthy stretch of time before they assumed those positions.
    At the time, I was the beat writer for the Medicine Hat News who covered the Tigers. Many media colleagues covering the WHL would joke saying I made those hires so I wouldn’t have to get used to someone new holding those roles that might not be media friendly.
    My media colleagues also joked that I wanted to ensure I kept covering playoff action in April. The presence of Clouston and McEwen would ensure the Tigers kept winning.

Shaun Clouston explains a point on the Tigers bench.

    Both were great guys, and I admit I wanted them to succeed. Good feelings aside, I was aware they were stepping into a tough situation following Desjardins.

    While it is a tough job to take a struggling team and make that club a winner, I believe it is even tougher to take over a winning program and keep the success coming.

    When you take over a winner, fans have a built in expectation that they want to see success now. In order to come out on even footing, Clouston and McEwen would have to guide the Tigers to a WHL championship and a Memorial Cup title.

    Anything short of that would be viewed as a disappointment.

    In following Desjardins, their position was similar to that of Steve Young when he had to succeed Joe Montana as quarterback of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, or Danny White when he had to follow Roger Staubach as quarterback of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.
    The expectations for the successors in all cases were always going to be unfair to some degree.

    In August of 2012, Clouston added the duties as general manager to go with his duties as head coach. McEwen moved to the role of assistant general manager and took on duties as the club’s head scout. In August of 2014, McEwen left the Tigers to become a scout with the NHL’s Calgary Flames.

    Looking back to July of 2010, I was aware of what Clouston and McEwen could be in for. From my end, I wanted to ensure they received a fair chance.

    I wanted to make note of the noise when things didn’t go right but try not to let it affect how I graded the team’s performance.

    Of course, Clouston held the head coach role for nine seasons and was also the general manager for the last seven of those campaigns. In the NFL analogy, he mirrored what White did with the Cowboys by winning but not winning enough.

    White quarterbacked the Cowboys to three straight appearances in the NFC title game from 1980 to 1982, but the Cowboys were unable to advance to the Super Bowl negating any chance to win it.

    Clouston became the all-time leader in regular season head coaching wins with the Tigers. The 51-year-old product of Viking, Alta., put together a stellar 375-241-46 regular season coaching record.

Shaun Clouston tracks play in the defensive zone.

    Under his guidance, the Tigers advanced to the WHL’s Eastern Conference Championship series in 2011 and 2014, but the squad wasn’t able to earn a berth in the WHL final.

    I thought the Tigers had a great shot to potentially win the WHL title and advance to the Memorial Cup in 2010-11, which was the first campaign after Desjardins departed.

    The Tigers were plagued by injuries that season. In the 20 seasons I’ve covered the WHL, I had never seen a team deal with as many injuries as the Tigers did in 2010-11.
    I believe there were only three occasions, when they hit the ice with everyone on the roster being available to play. Some days it felt like Clouston came to the rink, asked Tigers athletic therapist Mikki Lanuk who was healthy and proceeded to make out the lines for that day.

    That campaign was one of Clouston’s best coaching performances as the Tigers managed to post the fifth best record in the WHL’s regular season at 46-18-4-4 despite all the injuries. Medicine Hat advanced to the Eastern Conference Championship series before being swept by the Kootenay Ice.

    The Tigers were in a great position to contend for the WHL title again in the 2016-17 campaign, when the club posted the second best regular season record in the league at 51-20-1.

    In the second round of the playoffs, the Tigers fell in a series-deciding Game 7 to their archrivals the Lethbridge Hurricanes 5-4 in overtime. Hurricanes captain Tyler Wong scoring the winner in extra time.

    Had the Tigers won that game, it might have given them a momentum shot to ultimately win the league title.

    As the years progressed, the vocal critics of Clouston came out of the woodworks in Medicine Hat because the Tigers didn’t win enough. With that said, there are a lot of teams in the WHL that wish they had the record the Tigers did with Clouston as head coach.

    It seemed the critics would harp heavily any time a player came up with a trade request for not getting enough ice time. Clouston handled all of those situations honestly saying exactly how they came up.
    The critics were silent when a large host of former players and current players congratulated Clouston when he became the Tigers all-time leader in regular season coaching victories. The number of players passing on congrats made the number of players looking for a trade look really small.

Shaun Clouston tracks play in the centre ice zone.

    Even when Clouston parted ways with the Tigers on Thursday, he received well wishes over social media lines from a number of former players.
    He cared about the players he coached and hoped he could help them become better people. I remember how tough it was when he traded Boston Leier in his overage year in 2013-14, which was the correct move to make at the time regarding roster composition.

    Leier was a favourite in the dressing room and amongst the team coaches and staffers, and I recall Clouston saying he didn’t feel good making that deal.

    Away from the rink, Clouston is a star father to his children. He cherishes time he could spend with them.

    If you couldn’t call him in the evenings due to his mobile phone being off, he was ensuring he set a boundary so he could focus on being dad.

    Clouston is a great hockey coach. The concept of being a unit of five in all three zones is something that is stuck in my head, because it was something he always went over with his players. A lot of his former players will recall various success factors or goals the team aimed to achieve game in and game out to pile up wins.

    He is also one of the most genuine persons I’ve come across in this world. We had some real good visits at Starbucks talking about all sorts of things in life.

    As for a bonus point, he was the head coach of the Tri-City Americans when they brought Shannon Szabados to training camp before the start of the 2002-03 campaign. I think it would be safe to say most WHL head coaches at that time would view bringing a female player to training camp as unthinkable.

    Szabados was in camp because she deserved to be there. Clouston was able to joke he was doing pretty good in goal one game due to the fact Carey Price and Szabados were his netminders.

    When the Tigers staffing changes were made during Desjardins departure in 2010, McEwen told me how coaches and managers do have expiry dates with teams even when they are successful.
    The Tigers put up a solid 35-27-4-2 record last season despite suffering some key injuries down the stretch. They fell 4-2 in a best-of-seven first round playoff series to the Edmonton Oil Kings.

Shaun Clouston, middle, oversees the Tigers bench in the 2017 playoffs.

    Desjardins was a left a good hand to take the Tigers into their 50^th anniversary season.

    After 16 seasons with the Tigers, Clouston hit his expiry date with the club. In this day and age in sports, to stay with one team for 16 seasons is an eternity.

    This door closed for Clouston, but you can bet others will open. He is too good of a coach and a person to stay out of the sport for long.

    If he wants to continue working in hockey, you can be sure something will materialize for him.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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“The bag skate” belongs in the dinosaur age

Winning the Tigers’ way should be the way of the present and the future 

Trevor Cox celebrates a goal with his Tigers teammates

            Every hockey player dreads “the bag skate.”
            For the non-hockey people out there, “the bag skate” is basically a punishment style practice a coach puts a team through, when the players aren’t performing well. In a lot of hockey circles, it is viewed as a necessary evil to make a team win and is said to be used as a last resort.
            A bag skate practice involves the players on a team skating hard for a lengthy period of time as hard as they can, and the overall sessions can last for two hours. During these types of practices, a puck never touches the ice.
            In the 1987 “The Boys on the Bus” documentary on the Wayne Gretzky-era Edmonton Oilers, cameras filmed the Oilers participating in a bag skate during a slump in the 1986-87 season. Some players were vomiting including “The Great One” himself. This often happens in a bag skate.
            After that two hour punishment practice, the ice was resurfaced and the Oilers went on to hold a real practice.
            When I explain “the bag skate” concept to someone who has never been involved with the sport, I often receive a disgusted reaction.
            For the longest time, I thought it was a fair game thing to do in hockey. As I travel around various hockey circles, it seems that line of thinking is still there.            

Netminder Marek Langhamer protects the Tigers goal.

           My views on “the bag skate” changed in the 2004-05 campaign, which was my first of 10 straight seasons covering the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers. During a losing streak in mid-season, I asked head coach Willie Desjardins, who is now the head coach of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, if he would utilize “the bag skate.”
            He replied, “So Darren, tell me how is this going to help my players play better?”
            Desjardins explained all that type of practice would do is make the players hate the coach and want to rebel. He said the coaches have keep focusing on teaching to help the players correct their mistakes or overcome any mental obstacles they may be facing, so that they will perform better.
            As fate would have it, the Tigers would proceed to roll off a big winning streak right after that interview.
            The problem with “the bag skate” revolves around the respect card. The theory of “the bag skate” is if you subject the players to one of those types of practices they will in turn play well enough to avoid future punishment.
            Unfortunately, coaches that use that technique often accompany it with an “I am going to fix those bums” kind of attitude. Often this is expressed to the assistant coaches.
             In turn, “the bag skate” is damaging on two fronts. First, if the coach isn’t showing respect for the players, the players won’t show respect for the coach.
             Second, if the tactic is used as a way to force the players to play better so they won’t go through that again, that is a negative motivator. That is another thing that can help kill morale for a team, because you are not playing the game for positive reasons.
             Desjardins always believed one of the best ways to help a player is to show a player respect. During one-on-one meetings, he will get to know the player, and proceed to show genuine concern for all aspects of that player’s life.           

Tyler Lewington moves the puck up ice for the Tigers.

           Once the player understands the coach is legitimately going to be there for you, the player will play their butt off for the coach. I saw that for years with the Tigers when Desjardins was coaching them, and it continues to this day under the team’s current coaching staff under head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston.
            Other things the Tigers always try to push are the ideas that hockey is a great game and the rink is the best place to be. Various ways the Tigers would up the atmosphere would be utilizing sometimes goofy after practice games that still seemed to develop skills, watching events like world junior games in the dressing room or lounge area at The Arena or barbecues that are put on by owners Darrell and Brent Maser. The barbecues are a usual fixture that occurs before the team embarks on each playoff round.
            The tactics work. Even after a loss, the Tigers players may arrive at practice the next day feeling down, but they were never disappointed to be at the rink.
            When the Tigers hold practice, they ensure that all the drills are done for a reason. A lot of the drills the Tigers do are aimed at perfecting their transition game. When they are working on aspects like the power play, no small detail is ever overlooked, which includes pointing out how the slightest change of position around the net will create a better scoring chance.
            There are moments when the competitive part of practice is still cranked up. One of the best drills the Tigers coaches use for that is playing two-on-two games with the nets situated opposite each other on an offensive zone faceoff circle.
            During this drill, the players are often battling each other on the boards for the puck and the competitive juices do flow. Those who are not in the drill cheer those that are participating in the drill on. This drill helps the Tigers players in situations where they have to battle for the puck in tight areas in games.

Cole Sanford celebrates a goal for the Tigers.

Last season, Clouston used an idea from football and utilized a walk-through practice. When the team was in a busy stretch in playoffs, a walk through practice was held to implement new strategies and make adjustments that would be used for the upcoming game on the power play.
            Another thing the Tigers do to improve play is watch video and lots of it. Desjardins was big in watching video, and Clouston takes that aspect to a captain video extreme at times. When the team wasn’t on the ice, a laptop was usually glued in Clouston’s hands.
            It could be in one-on-one sessions or in team meetings, the Tigers coaches use video as a big tool to allow a player to see where they can correct aspects in their play. Video is also used to reinforce good habits.
           The Tigers bench bosses always ensure they show players video of things they are doing well. This is usually a big hit in team video sessions where all the players get an opportunity to applaud good play.
           Through those sessions, players do realize the coaches do know what they are talking about.
           Another big trait the Tigers coaches have had since Desjardins’ days with the team is patience. Desjardins said one big difference between the junior ranks and the professional ranks is the fact errors have a tendency to reoccur again after being corrected more quickly in junior than professionally. That characteristic has a lot more to do with the fact the players in junior are younger than those in the pros.        

Anthony Ast takes a draw for the Tigers.

             As you go down the levels in minor hockey, the patience level has to increase that much more.
            The Tigers coaches were never afraid to go over things again to correct mistakes, if they start occurring again. Other coaches should feel free to follow that lead.
            During the 10 seasons I covered the Tigers, they made the playoff every year, advanced to the second round nine times, the conference finals four times and won the 2007 WHL title. After seeing how the Tigers did things, I know why “the bag skate” is still around in hockey. 
             It is time for a lot more hockey coaches to step into the future.

 If you have any feedback on this blog, feel free to email comments to stankssports@gmail.com.