1979 Offseason

1979 WCLH Draft

Portage la Prairie Magic goes local as their 1st pick is Matthew Atlas, a scoring forward who has been under the radar by many teams, but the Magic got to him before anyone else. Swift Current made goalie Reggie Mason from Calgary AB, a Battalion after their top goalie Ivan Easton chose to go pro and accept an entry contract with the Pittsburgh Pro Hockey Club. The 3rd pick made by Billings Trains is Frank Colton from Vancouver, B.C., a forward who is a scoring machine that made 37 goals, 61 points for the Vancouver Minor Junior Club would give Trains some scoring improvement.

1979 OMJHA Draft

1st pick the Oakville Oaks select from Brampton Keith Dunn, an all-around forward who can play both offence and defence, with his 70 points (25 G 45 A) performance could be what the Oaks needs after a poor 1978-79 season. Milton Micmacs picked Jesper Nelson. He plays defence very well and could show how rugged an Aurora defenceman is. Forward Nick Ryan from Peterborough got selected by the Braves, who believes that a homegrown talent could be the key to the team’s success in the future.

1979 AQHL Draft

Christian Gaudreau had been under every team’s radar, but the Shawinigan Voltage made the Hull Quebec forward their 1st pick, with his 80 points (29 G, 51 A) he made with his hometown Jr.B team went on named MVP in both season and championship. Manchester Americans decide to add some Quebec flavour to the roster, and goalie Alex Beauvillier is just what they need. Portland Clippers selected Jack Alexander, a forward from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who gave the team an excellent impression to the Clippers liking. His leadership for the Halifax Jr.C hockey club could help the Clippers get the best chance of having some good winning seasons down the road.

News

CIHA

CIHA President Joseph McGeorge announced that next season will be his last year as his contract will end that year. Joseph chooses not to renew his contract as he would let someone else take over his job since 1972. Questions were up in the air of who would take the job as the CIHA President. Some names had been floating around, but Franklin Name is not on the list as his OMJHA contract will expire after the 1981-82 season, and he plans to retire. James Name has no interest in that job as he is okay with his position as the WCLH President, and Paul Name just signed an extension to be the President of the AQHL until 1985. There were talks that Randy Howard, who was head marketing for the Toronto Pro Hockey club, had excellent knowledge of the CIHA and followed it very well and hoped that being the President of the CIHA could be his future job.

During the off-season, the CIHA made one of the best deals ever with “KI-LO,” an equipment manufacture company established in 1940 ran by founder Kirk Lowden. The company thrives with pro hockey league teams wearing equipment with the company’s name on it. The company has expanded in manufacturing hockey jerseys after Kirk sold the company to his two sons Keith Lowden and Trever “Trev” Lowden. With such news, all the teams will have new jerseys to be made and ready to show them off to their fans for as early as the 1980-81 season.

With the 1980 Valor Cup host already named, the question now is who will host the 1981 tournament? So far, the three best candidates to host are Barrie, Burlington, and Waterloo. They will announce it during the 1980 Valor Cup Tournament.

WCLH

With losing some players to the Pros, colleges, and even European leagues, the Nanaimo Sharks made some moves by trading their 1st, and 4th round picks for the 1981 draft to the Fargo Owls for forward Gene Petersons and backup goalie Oscar Williams. The Sharks signed another international player, this time from Finland, forward Juuso Heinola, who caught many eyes from many teams, but Juuso chose Nanaimo because it reminds him of his hometown in Helsinki.

Brandon Buffalos fans were hoping for good news, including finally getting rid of Luke James and Paul Cole. However, it did not happen as they are still on the team, and with forward Pat Clark, the team’s captain, choosing to go to college, everyone believes it will be a nightmare. Still, the Buffalos coaching staff already got a new captain name, and that player is forward Jeremy Mitchell, who became the first black player in WCLH history to be a captain for any team. Many fans fear that it will be worse than good, but Tim Woods believes it will be alright in the 1979-80 season.

Even after the James Name interview explaining the division alignment issue, many cannot accept it, but it could end soon as the WCLH is shopping locations for expansion teams. There are talks that there are two locations in B.C. what cities are going to be is unknown at this time, but it is safe to say that there are good numbers of cities hungry for a WCLH team. With that news, chances are that the Moose Jaw Wings will move to the East division.

The 1979 Jade trophy champion Kenora Pioneers lost Zack Mick to the Minnesota Pro Hockey Club and Pat Colts as he commented to the University of North Dakota. “We lost two players, but we still got many on our roster that are hungry for a second title.” Said Pioneers head coach Leo Newton.

OMJHA

The Herbco family is happy to hear that John Herbco has finally got drafted into the Pro Hockey League. 3rd overall by the Detroit Pro Hockey team, the club believes that John Herbco will lead Detroit to big things. While it is good news for John but bad news for the Legionnaires as they try to find a way to rebuild after losing so many good players, including John Herbco.

The Oakville Oaks hired Leon Cowern as their new head coach. Leon was an OMJHA alumnus who also was part of the 1964 Waterloo Maroons Smyth Cup run. He played only 5 seasons in the pros with no success. But when Leon took the job as an assistant coach for the Long Island minor pro club, his success skyrocketed to the top. But due to ownerships changing hands, the new guard chose not to promote him as head coach, so he went to look for a new job and right off the bat, the Oaks took him in and hoped to turn the team around.

The Oshawa Diamonds owner Patrick Tobin announced that he is in talks about selling the team to a company called “Prime Motors” that manufactures Pickup Trucks and SUVs. They have high interest in the squad after losing the bid in buying the Toronto Pro Hockey Club last year. They hope to make the purchase within two years.

The OMJHA has plans to expand again, this time going downtown Toronto as two well-established businessmen want to put together their own teams. First is Herb Pickard, the CEO of “Hornet,” a sports car manufactory company that used to co-own the Toronto International Pro Hockey Club with “Ham-Tech Radio” from Hamilton. When the merge happened, Ham-Tech bought the rest of the stock from Pickard and moved the team to Hamilton in a brand new Hamilton Ice Centre ready for a long run, meanwhile Herb and his company decided to start over with a downtown Toronto junior hockey team to bring back it’s glory days as they will house the team at the Toronto McKeough Arena that was home of the Toronto International Pro Hockey Club. Second is Chris Warner, a prominent businessman who runs “Glow City,” a neon light company that manufactures neon light signs that sells like hotcakes. Chris bought himself the old King George arena that used to be a practice facility for the Toronto Pro Hockey Club. Chris said the arena will get a well-earned makeover. Both teams will be ready for the 1980-81 season.

AQHL

Paul Name and the owners had meetings in addressing some issues that needed to resolve during the off-season, one of them was making the expansion draft more strict after the Manchester Americans chose to trade away their expansion picks for late draft picks, no one didn’t expect them to go down that path at all. But it happened, and many thought that they should be punished for the moves, but according to the rules “an expansion team can trade their expansion picks for draft picks, but it can’t receive higher than the third round,” meaning if they received the first or second-round picks, they would be charged $10,000 and a loss the future first and second-round draft picks for two years.

Another issue that needed to be addressed was the 1979 Bronz Cup Champions, the Cape Breton Warriors. The team’s owner, Will Rollins, wants to give the Warrior Arena a makeover. The problem is that the team must play their home games across the river to Westmount, their arena has a capacity of 1200, but a tight schedule limited the numbers of home games there. But luckily, the Warriors can play their home games in Membertou. Will Rollins hopes the arena upgrade gets done within a year and soon pushes a bid to host the Valor Cup.

1979 Valor Cup Tournament

 

Story

At Ottawa’s Royal Banquet Hall, CIHA President Joseph McGeorge made two announcements. The first one is naming the host for the 1980 Valor Cup Tournament, after meetings within the league presidents, the owners, and GMs made their vote, the result is the tournament will be held at Nanaimo BC, home of the Nanaimo Sharks where their arena got approved by the city to give it an upgrade from 2000 seats to 3500 seat capacity arena which it’s a significant benefit for both the Sharks and the city of Nanaimo. The second announcement is that there will be a showcase tournament that will feature junior stars of the WCLH, OMJHA, AQHL, and a mix of rookies and 2nd-year junior players from all 3 leagues. The tournament will be called the “Valor Star.” The event will be at the Ottawa Civic Forum in the Summer of 1980.

The Kitchener Legionnaires dominated this year's tournament and finished the round-robin with four wins and zero losses. John Herbco scored 10 goals, 15 assists, and 25 points within 4 games.

The Kenora Pioneers and Cape Breton Warriors lost twice to the Legionnaires in a blowout result. Both shared victories, but the Pioneers finished 2nd over the Warriors by goals.

Valor Cup Semi-Finals Kenora Pioneers vs. Cape Breton Warriors

The Pioneers may have 2nd place over the Warriors, but in the first period, they did not look good as the Warriors scored two big impact goals followed by two more in the second period. The Pioneers scored two goals in the third period, but it was not enough as the clock turned to zero, and the Cape Breton Warriors are going to the Valor Cup finals with a 4-2 win.

 1979 Valor Cup Championship Kitchener Legionnaires vs. Cape Breton Warriors

As the puck was dropped to start the first period, shots were made from end to end, the goalies were brick walls, and the defences held the offences until the first-period end. The second period was the same until 3:25 left the Warriors' Luke Davis scored a goal to give them the lead over the Legionnaires 1-0 as the second period ended. John Herbco scored two straight goals for the Legionnaires in the third period. 1:10 left, and the Warriors pulled their goalie, hoping that an extra player would turn the tide in their favour. It didn’t work as John Herbco took control of the puck and lobbed it down all the way to the empty net to seal the deal, as the clock hit zero with the final score of 3-1 and the Legionnaires celebrate winning the Valor Cup. At the same time, John Herbco is named the Valor Cup MVP for the second time in his career.