Eventually, the National Junior A Hockey Championship, the Royal Bank Cup, had to find its way to Yorkton.
The province of Saskatchewan and the city of Yorkton are proud torch-bearers for Junior hockey in Canada, and
have been for years. Saskatchewan has produced six Junior A Champions, and three runners-up. As for the
Terriers, they have been Yorkton's team for 27 years.
The Royal Bank Cup, known before 1996 as the Centennial Cup, saw the light of day a year before the
Yorkton Terriers, in 1971. The Red Deer Rustlers of the Alberta Junior Hockey League defeated the
Charlottetown Islanders that year in Prince Edward Island to claim the inaugural Canadian Junior A
Championship.
Back in 1971, a long time before an all-sports television network existed in Canada, the first Junior A
Championship, then called the Centennial Cup, was decided in league playoffs that led to a seven-game series
between the nation's top two teams. (This format was maintained through 1978 to determine Canada's top Junior
A team. From 1979 to 1981, the format changed to a round-robin tournament, then went back to a seven-game
series from 1982 to 1984. It has been a round robin since 1985.)
And even back in the beginning, the Islanders vs. Rustlers series was the hottest ticket in
Charlottetown.
"Their fans were literally hanging from the rafters!" recalls Perry Pearn, who played on that Red Deer team.
He couldn't believe his eyes, a 19 year old kid at the time.
"I remember all these kids almost hanging from the roof," says Pearn, who is now an Assistant Coach with the
Ottawa Senators. "[The Charlottetown Gardens] was an old wooden building. There were so many people, there
was absolutely no place for [the spare players] to sit. They had to stand around the boards where the Zamboni
came out."
Despite the outstanding play of Islanders star Al MacAdam, who also coached the St. Thomas University Tommies
of the AUAA, the Rustlers stole the Cup from the host team in six games.
"I remember MacAdam for Charlottetown. The story was that he'd be out on the fishing boat with his dad all
day, and then come to the rink and play."
MacAdam, who went on to play 12 NHL seasons, actually was an apprentice fisherman at the time. "It wasn't
tough," MacAdam says from his Fredericton office. "It's just what you had to do back then."
The road to the championship was as memorable for Pearn as the national title series.
In a rough-and-tumble quarter-final series against the Penticton Broncos, the Rustlers lost the first two
games but eventually won the series in seven.
Then the Rustlers hit the rails and traveled by train to Winnipeg, where they swept the St. Boniface Saints
in four straight to win the western championship.
"I think it's the last time in hockey that a team traveled by train," says Pearn, who 22 years later went on
to coach the Canadian National Junior Team to a world championship in 1993.
"The contacts I made off that team have had a major impact on my hockey career," says Pearn.
Twenty years later, during the 1991 championship game in Sudbury, the general manager and owner of the Vernon
Lakers was locked in his team's dressing room from the first intermission until after the final buzzer.
Lakers GM Mel Lis ran to his team's dressing room during the intermission in the championship game in Sudbury
to answer a call of nature.
"I was in there using the can," Lis explains, "and when I tried to get out, the door was locked. Our trainer
had locked it with a padlock on the outside."
Lis banged on the door and screamed at the top of his lungs, but his noise went unheard. The crowd in the
arena had created a din that virtually silenced Lis's pleas for help.
But a strange thing happened while he was imprisoned. The Lakers, who were down by a goal after the first
period, rallied to score two unanswered goals in the second.
When the padlock was unlocked during the second intermission, Lis was rescued.
But he decided to stay put.
"The guys were down a goal when I went in there and got locked in, so I decided not to change things. They
were doing better when I was out of the picture."
So Lis stayed in the dressing room during the third period, only to emerge at the end of the game for the
Lakers' celebration of their 8-4 win over the host Sudbury Cubs. It was their second straight Centennial Cup
with coach Ed Johnstone, a former NHLer with the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings.
The year before, the Lakers had beaten the heavily favored New Westminster Royals in overtime in front of a
home crowd.
"The second win was nice, but the first was by far the best," says Lis, whose team made four straight trips
to the championship from 1989 to 1992. "TSN broadcast the game [live] across Canada and somebody said it was
the best junior game ever on TV."
Over the years, the Cup has always featured players whose names are easily recognized by NHL fans.
Bryan Murray, now General Manager of the Florida Panthers, coached the Rockland (Ontario) Nationals to the
championship in 1976.
Terry Simpson, a former Head Coach with the Winnipeg Jets, guided the Prince Albert Raiders to three
Centennial Cups -- in 1977, 1979 and 1981. "They were good times," says Simpson. "They helped me in my
coaching career."
Three of the famous Sutter brothers -- Brent, Rich and Ron -- helped the Red Deer Rustlers win a second Cup
in 1980. A teammate was defenceman Randy Moller, who played for the Québec Nordiques, Rangers and last season
for the Buffalo Sabres. Moller teamed up with brother Mike in 1982 to win gold at the World Junior
Championship, the first year Canada sent a true national team.
Joe Murphy, the first pick in the 1986 NHL draft, was the top scorer in the 1985 tournament, when his
Penticton team was runner-up to the Orillia Travelways.
In 1988, the famed Notre Dame Hounds from Saskatchewan took the Cup with help from Rod Brind'Amour, now a
star with the Philadelphia Flyers, and goalie Curtis Joseph of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Nanaimo, British Columbia, hosted the 1998 Royal Bank Cup. The South Surrey Eagles avenged their 1997 loss in
the final by overtaking the Weyburn Red Wings in the final.
The 1999 Royal Bank Cup will crown a new champion as South Surrey lost in the BCHL's Coastal Conference
finals. Further proof on how tough it is to become Canadian champions in Junior A hockey.
