Believe – It’s déjà vu to 2011 as Raiders enter post-season

Blades RW Egor Sidorov battles past Raiders LW Sloan Stanick.

When the Prince Albert Raiders were seemingly the biggest of underdogs, Bruce Vance and his team in the club’s business office might have done their most memorable work.

Back in March of 2011, the Raiders entered the WHL Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference with a 31-36-2-3 record after having missed the post-season in the three previous campaigns. They would face their archrivals in the Saskatoon Blades in a best-of-seven first round series.

The Blades put up their best regular season in team history going 56-13-1-2 to finish first overall in the WHL standings. With all-world centre Brayden Schenn being the big trade deadline acquisition for Saskatoon, it was a foregone conclusion that the Blades were going to sweep the series.

Vance and the Raiders business office came up with the simple playoff slogan, “Believe.” The slogan was introduced with a clip of the United States 4-3 upset victory over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.

The video went to a graphic showing the first round matchup between the Raiders and Blades and asked the question, “Do you believe?”

This column of mine appeared in the Prince Albert Daily Herald. To read the full article, feel free to click right here.