My love for hockey started with a game that a friend took me to in 1979; Portland Winterhawks vs New Westminster Bruins at Memorial Coliseum in Portland. The game was fast, exciting and violent. Those days, the Bruins were the hated, hated, hated rivals of the 'Hawks and on that particular night, the game digressed into a melee on the ice, leaving both teams without enough players to finish the match with :07 left on the clock. I was hooked.
The next season, my buddy and I bought season tickets and held on to those tickets through high school and the first years of college (until economics of living on our own made it unaffordable anymore).
I continued to follow the team from a distance and catch an occaisional game now and then. I witnessed the 83 Memorial Cup and I listened to the 98 Memorial Cup final on a scratchy dial up connection in China...and most recently I watched a match last season while in town on business.
I associate the team with success...Wayne and David Babych, Tony Currie, Cam Neely, Ray Ferraro, Clint Malarchuk, Adam Deadmarsh, Brendan Morrow, Marian Hossa...those are the heroes of the 'Hawks. The last two years have been brutal in that respect. Reading about a team that cannot score goals...gets pounded night after night has just not been fun for someone that remembers seasons like this.
The team's ownership for the past few years have been shaky at best and the result has been a franchise that was one of the mose sought after by players, to one in which players don't want anything to do with...
"It's more of a bigger picture than at the coaching level," Johnston says, before explaining that the proverbial ball (or puck) had been dropped in scouting, drafting, recruiting and signing players; many high-end players have chosen not play for the Winter Hawks. He says the Winter Hawks' list remains thin with players born in the 1988-91 years, or current players ages 17 to 20.
"It starts at the top, both with a financial and (overall) commitment to make sure everything from education to billets to medical ... everything's taken care of," he says. "When those fell by the wayside, it hurt recruitment and it wasn't an attraction to come here. In this league, everything's about drafting, recruiting, getting good players."
And so, my favorite hometown hockey team will start to move on. Will the moves be the same old promises that we have heard in the past, or will it be concrete changes that can re-build pride in a franchise that has sported the Indian head for over 30 years in Portland?
I plan on attending a game during an upcoming business trip and I am hopeful of the signs of a team and management that care. I would hate for the ghosts of Jim Dobson and Boris Fistric to be bored in the rafters of the old MC...let's give them something to fight about!
