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| The Blades try to corner Pats C Connor Bedard (#98). |
After dropping Game 1 of their best-of-seven first round WHL playoff series 6-1 to the Regina Pats on Friday at the SaskTel Centre, it would very much help the Blades cause to win Game 2, which is set for 4 p.m. on Sunday at the SaskTel Centre. If the Blades aren’t able to get Game 2, the series could snowball to a quick post-season exit for “The Bridge City Bunch.”
The Regina Pats are an institution in “The Queen City.” If Pats fans feel like the 2023 post-season can turn into something special for their team, they can make the Brandt Centre one of the toughest buildings to play in all of the WHL. The series switches to Regina for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.
Of course, the Pats have the best junior aged hockey player in the whole world on their roster in 17-year-old phenom centre Connor Bedard. He is a generational talent that makes most superstars at the junior level look ordinary.
His brand took a big jump upward after he set numerous Canadian team records at this past world juniors held in Halifax, N.S., and Moncton, N.B., Canada won gold taking the gold medal final 3-2 in overtime over Czechia this past January 5 in Halifax. Since returning to the Pats, Bedard has been packing rinks across the WHL taking the regular season scoring title with 143 points coming off 71 goals and 72 assists to go with a plus-39 rating in the plus-minus department in 57 games.
While the presence of Bedard is enough for Pats fans to get excited about their team, you don’t have to look too far into the past to see how excited and passionate fans in Regina can get over the Pats.
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| Connor Bedard is the world’s best junior aged hockey player. |
As the world’s oldest major junior hockey team, the Pats have appeared in the Memorial Cup championship series and later tournament 13 times and won the Memorial Cup on three occasions in 1925, 1930 and 1974.
They once had links to the NHL’s storied Montreal Canadiens as the big club’s junior hockey affiliate for a time in the 1950s and 1960s. This was in an era that pre-dated the current NHL Entry Draft. Since the Pats were born, around 163 of their grads have gone on to play in the NHL.
With that pre-existing history, you just need some sparks in Regina and the fans there will rally around that team in a big way, even if a long span of time had elapsed with the team’s last long playoff run. This sparks transformed into a passionate flame in the 2016-17 campaign.
That Pats team finished first overall in the WHL with a 52-17-7-1 mark and advanced to the WHL Championship Series falling to the Seattle Thunderbirds in six games. During that campaign, the Pats sold out the Brandt Centre 23 times between the regular season and playoffs with capacity capped at 6,484 spectators.
During that entire campaign, the Pats Regiment cheered for a group of players that seemed to be almost superhero like in WHL MVP Sam Steel, charismatic captain Adam Brooks, standout offensive-defenceman Connor Hobbs, clutch overager Dawson Leedahl, skilled rookie Nick Henry, speedy Austin Wagner, steady rearguard Josh Mahura and gutsy goalie Tyler Brown.
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| The 2016-17 Pats salute their fans at the Brandt Centre. |
The core of that group had been together for three seasons, and people in Regina saw them play with their hearts on the sleeves. Under the watchful eye of head coach and general manager John Paddock, who was named the WHL’s coach of the year and executive of the year in 2016-17, Regina fans watched that group grow into good young men.
On top of that, the fans could tell it meant a lot to the players to play for the city and the team, and they respected the Pats history. With the snap of the fingers, the fans were there in droves. They stayed there in droves when the Pats fell behind the Swift Current Broncos 3-1 in a best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series.
After the Pats took Game 5 of that series in a 3-2 playoff classic at the Brandt Centre, Pats fans flooded into the Dewdney Avenue strip after that contest. When you walked on to the strip, one would have thought the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders won the West final to advance to the Grey Cup.
Instead, people were decked out in red, white and blue yelling “Go Pats!”
A few alcoholic beverages were being drunk in the streets and the parties at the nightclubs went well into the early hours of the morning. That Pats hadn’t even won that series yet.
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| Pats fans cheer their team in the 2017 WHL Playoffs. |
If you happen to be on the ice right after that Game 7 win, you looked up and saw this incredible celebration in the stands and the first thought that comes to mind was, “Holy (explanative)!”
From that Game 7 series win onwards, Pats playoff tickets sold out within 10 minutes upon going on sale. Dealing with scalpers became an issue as tickets that were sold for $25 a seat were being sold second hand for $125 per seat.
The current Pats are nowhere near as deep as that 2016-17 squad. During the 2022-23 campaign, the Pats posted a 34-30-3-1 record to make the WHL Playoffs finishing sixth overall in the Eastern Conference.
While Bedard is a generational player, he has heart, and it is obvious he cares about his junior team. When there were speculators saying Pats management should convince Bedard he needed to be traded to get a windfall of draft selections and players, the North Vancouver, B.C., product said he wanted to be with the Pats.
Bedard has shown by his play on the ice those words weren’t just lip service. The Pats are a young team and they do have some skilled players that care about club Tanner Howe, Alexander Suzdalev and Stanislav Svozil to go along with a cast of grinders. They have enough character there that the people of Regina will rally around that team.
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| Adam Brooks was the Pats charismatic captain in 2016-17. |
Unlike the Pats in Regina, the Blades, who began play in 1964, aren’t an institution in Saskatoon. If the Blades win a playoff series, there won’t be any street parties on 8th Street or in the pub district in downtown Saskatoon on 2nd Avenue and 21st Street.
If feels like there is an element of the fan base in Saskatoon that can’t get over some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder from the fact the Blades made it to the WHL Championship Series five times in their history and lost each of those series in 1973, 1975, 1976, 1992 and 1994.
In 1975, 1992 and 1994, the Blades were in position to claim the WHL title in a series deciding Game 7 with a win, but fell in each of those contests. For the fans that don’t get over those results, it feels like they don’t realize how hard it is or how impressive the journey is to get to that point.
The 1992 and 1994 losses came to the dynasty Kamloops Blazers, who advanced to win the Memorial Cup as CHL champions in both those years along with 1995.
Add in the Blades hosted the Memorial Cup tournament twice in 1989 and 2013 and didn’t capture major junior hockey’s biggest prize on either occasion to increase the heartbreak. They made it to the event’s title game in 1989 and lost 4-3 in overtime to the Broncos on Tim Tisdale’s winner.
The vocal critic fans have dubbed the Blades as traditionally, “The great regular season team that can’t get it done in the playoffs.”
There are a lot of times when that tag is an unfair one.
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| Sam Steel was the WHL MVP in 2016-17. |
With all that said, the Blades do have a loyal and core ultra-passionate fan base.
When you go to games on a frequent basis during the regular season, you will see those fans in the building game after game, and they are as good as the best fans in the rest of the WHL. It would be nice if there were more of them in the building.
They respect the honest efforts that the team’s builders put in over the decades in the late Jim Piggott, the late Jackie McLeod, the Brodsky family, Daryl Lubiniecki and Lorne Molleken to capture the WHL title and the Memorial Cup.
They respect the honest efforts put in by the Priestner family now, which includes seeing Colin Priestner grow into a fantastic general manager.
When the Blades honoured Molleken for his work as the team’s all-time great head coach and general manager, 5,609 spectators turned out at the SaskTel Centre on April 15, 2022 before the Blades downed the Brandon Wheat Kings 2-1.
Many of the Molleken’s former players turned out that night along with lifetime best friends in Lubiniecki and Jack Brodsky. Molleken very much deserved that night and to have his name added to the Blades Builders banner.
The Blades are the example of how unfair sports can be. They are the example that you can have all these great seasons, do everything right and in a classy manner but still don’t win the top championships you pursue.
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| Aidan De La Gorgendiere has invested a tonne in the Blades. |
Still, the Blades in 2022-23 finished fourth overall in the WHL regular season standings with a 48-15-4-1 record and were rated 10th in the final CHL Top 10 Rankings. For just the fifth time in team history, they recorded 100-or-more points in the standings.
Under head coach Brennan Sonne, they have put together a talented group that is a tight one too. Over the course of the campaign, they have done various team building things which ultimately should great that special will and desperation that you need to win in the post-season.
Teams do team building activities over the course of the season to create that family feeling and attachment which is the intangible that gives you the drive to get through the tough times in the post-season.
The current Blades including captain Aidan De La Gorgendiere, who has put a lot of emotional investment in the team, Trevor Wong, Egor Sidorov and the rest of the roster want to help this year’s team accomplish more special milestones.
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| The Pats and Blades will square off in Game 2 on Sunday. |
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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