1975-1976

The RMC Hockey team had an impressive season ending up with a rare winning record in the Ontario University Athletics Association (OUAA), including a surprising 5-2 win over cross-town rival Queens University. That victory prompted the Cmdt to issue a special Routine Order congratulating the team. We also won 12 of the exhibition games against 9 losses and 2 ties, primarily against the college and university teams from northern New York but also we beat one of the better junior A hockey teams. Impressively, Gordie Brown was later selected as an OUAA First Team All-Star and Dave Hall Second Team. The team also had a great game against West Point at the Memorial Center but despite being the better team on that day, ended up with a 4-4 tie after the Golden Knights took advantage of a couple of untimely penalties by RMC in the last five minutes and rallied back with a couple of power play goals.

We were aware that a winning record in a university league was rare but did not realize until much later how unusual that was. Certainly it has been the only time since the 1970s when RMC was a team in the QUAA, then the OUAA, or finally the OUA conference (see the historical records at the very bottom of this page). Prior to that, from the 1950s to 1970, RMC did have winning seasons when the team was part of the Ontario - St Lawrence Conference (OSLC) which included some small colleges like CMR, Loyola, MacDonald, and St Patricks and for short periods universities like Queens, Carleton and Ottawa, so difficult to do a comparison. It is also true that later RMC teams had very good albeit losing records those seasons, but did make the playoffs several times.

We also played the USAF Falcons every year, in Colorado when West Point came to Kingston and vice versa, so our first year we flew in the back of a Herc to their campus which was very impressive and ultra modern looking. The ice was unbelievable as well, probably the best surface we ever played on, partly because the US figure skating teams trained there because the site was about 6800 feet above sea level. Speaking of that, we quickly learned how significant the altitude change was. While all of us were in very good shape, we could barely stay out more than 30 seconds a shift, and never needed any convincing to come off! We were much better for the second game, and played the best game I recall ever playing against them, losing by just a goal. What was new and quite interesting to us was they did not use a center line at the time and also they were the first team I ever saw try the back pass play to the trailing defenceman, something you see all the time 40 odd years later in the NHL now, especially during a power play. The whole idea was that the defending team would be slowed to the speed of the offensive forwards prior to the puck being dropped back, allowing the offensive puck-carrying defenseman, who by then would be going at full speed, to catch the opponents flat-footed. Funny, I remember when we got back to RMC our coach tried some drills like that with our team, but we could never seem to get the hang of it.

Gord Brown was our Captain that year and also the center of an interesting story during one weekend when we played McMaster. Unbeknownst to us until we got there, the university was planning to televise our game. They were going to tape delay the broadcast until the following day, so fortunately we managed to find the Hamilton channel the next morning in Toronto prior to our Sunday afternoon game against Ryerson University. We were thrilled to see ourselves for the very first time ever on TV even though we were a little surprised at how slow the game seemed to be compared to the Hockey Night in Canada games. Nevertheless, we continued to watch and listen intently to the student announcers doing the play-by-play, of course hoping to see ourselves or hear our names. On one particular shift, during a power play, the announcer called the puck going from Istchenko to Wishloff to Trynchuk to Zelenka and then to Stecyk, and eventually to Brown, at which point there was a pause followed by a chuckle and then finally he exclaimed “Brown? Brown!? How’d he get in there!”

1976/77

Although second years by now, this was the first time we actually realized how fortunate we were to be getting not only the new recruits, but also the third years coming from CMR and RRMC for their final two years, especially with the addition of some really good players like Jim Baldaro and John Stacey from CMR and Mike Secord and Rick McLaughlin from Roads. In our first year, we did not realize that several of our players had come from those other colleges - to us, they were all new teammates While they were a great addition to our team, unfortunately we did end up losing one of our best forwards, Jimmy Wishloff, who decided after our first year that RMC was just not for him, and this notwithstanding the very best efforts one night on the part of Patty Clayton and a few recruit teammates. There might have even been a drink or two involved.

We actually had a pretty good team that year but unfortunately the results did not reflect that, either in the OUAA or against West Point. We never really played well in West Point, not just because they were the home team but also because they had some great players, including several All-Americans and probably their best player ever by many accounts, Dave Rost, who set the NCAA record with 330 points over his four years. In fact, even in the short time we were at RMC we could see from the many exhibition games we played in the States that the American university and college teams were also getting better and better. A lot of their top players had been Canadians on scholarships, but we could sense that proportion gradually changing. The one thing we loved though was the support they always got from their fans and booster clubs. Still remember one of the Oswego fans apologizing to us after a game for “only” having 1,500 or so fans out to the game - apparently because there was an Elton John concert on the campus that same night!

I should add that we were extremely fortunate to have Patty Clayton as our athletic therapist for the time that we did.  He later went on to be the head athletic therapist of the CFL’s Blue Bombers briefly and then the Calgary Stampeders for many years after that. He also served with Olympic and World Hockey teams and assisted during several other championships. He was subsequently selected to the Stampeders’ Wall of Fame and in 2022 to RMC’s Athletics Wall of Distinction as a builder. Patty was one of a kind and not only outstanding at what he did but also a good friend and a mentor.  The respect he garnered from everyone at the College helped him to protect the athletes and cadets alike, for example not only by getting RMC to understand the risk posed by the infamous “CF crippler” running shoes but also by convincing them to fund a state of the art therapy room that was well used by all of the hockey players at one time or another.  In fact, I remember one time that Al MacLeod had had a nagging injury so Patty decided to give him a “hockey-only” chit which seemed kind of odd at the time but in reality those chits were intended to protect the rep hockey team by ensuring the player did not exacerbate the injury participating in non-hockey activities.  And yes, that included parades! He was also amazing whenever it came to dealing with the invariable injuries that occurred during games, because we all had complete confidence that he knew what he was doing, especially since he always had that reassuring manner about him. I remember in a game against Ryerson, one of their players cut sharply to try to avoid my check, too sharply it turns out because he lost his balance and as he was falling, his forward momentum caused him to crash heavily against my shin guards. He was temporarily knocked out so Patty immediately jumped on the ice as did their much less experienced trainer, but he deferred to Patty who quickly and successfully took control of the situation. He always had a wonderful “bedside” manner, managing in this case to get their player to regain his senses after smiling and reminding him there were lot of cute female students watching him lying on the ice!

Both our coaches were great, although we learned to fear Sammy Cook because he got to do the grueling drills at the end of the practice and appeared to enjoy that responsibility way too much! I do not recall him ever taking it easy on us, including seemingly always doing his favourite drill, the one coincidentally we hated the most, when we were the most tired. For that drill, we would start at the goal line, skate to the blue line as fast as we could, stop, skate back to the goal line, stop and then repeat that for the center red line, the far blue line and the goal line at the other end. Then we would turn around and do it all over from that end. It was exhausting, so much so that it was not unusual for some of us to sit in the dressing room afterwards for ten or fifteen minutes and not even start to take off our gear. As it turns out, I inadvertently managed to get a measure of revenge. For some unknown reason, since neither of us had done this before, they asked me and Al MacLeod to ref one of the intersection games. Sammy had a reputation for being a bit of a scrapper, so sure enough, about ten minutes in to the game, he got upset at one of the other players and dropped his gloves and they got into it. Did I mention I had not refereed before? I was also was never in a fight, so I did not realize that the proper way to stop the fisticuffs was to wait for both refs to intervene at the same time. Instead I just instinctively grabbed Sammy by the arms, thus unintentionally allowing the other guy to give him a free pop! To say he was upset with me would have be an understatement, to the point where I thought I might get in my first fight, but cooler heads prevailed. I would like to say we shared a laugh later, but not sure that ever happened!

On a side note, the authorities decided to re-introduce Recruit Boxing, after a hiatus during our year, apparently because of concerns by the medical community. Interestingly, but perhaps not all that surprising, I seem to recall that all our recruit hockey players won their weight divisions!

We had the odd unusual game, including one against the Brock University Badgers. Prior to the game the coach was very worried about the recent addition of Paul Sheehan to Brock, noteworthy because he had just recently been cut by the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. He was concerned enough to decide that he would try match Sheehan’s line against our checking line, which I think included Al MacLeod, Rick McLaughlin and myself. I do not know if it was our “spirited” checking or the fact that Sheehan was still dealing with the disappointment of being cut, but he was not really doing that much. So, half way through the second period, the coach decided to drop that strategy and just let whatever line was up next to keep an eye on him. Unfortunately, that did not work particularly well as he ended with a hat trick along with a couple of assists for a five point night in a period and a half! The headline writer was likewise red hot as he wrote in the next day’s paper “Sabre Reject sinks Redmen”!

1977/78

The OUAA season itself was not a particularly memorable one, with another losing season, but of course all that changed with the West Point game at the Memorial Center. Prior to that game, we had had a pretty lengthy losing streak in league and exhibition play, but then had just followed that with two wins against Trent University. Even though our Manager Rob Reilander was joking when he said to the Whig-Standard sports reporter - “When we get back to Kingston, we expect the streets to be lined with people” - in fact those two games really seemed to change the trajectory of our season, as we ended up winning four of the next five games, including our stunning 7-6 comeback win over West Point, scoring three unanswered goals in the final minutes of the game. (https://www.tdv79ers.ca/sports/hockey-the-thrill-of-victory).

I think we started wearing the full face mask/cage this season, on what we understood was a trial basis for the CF. While no one really liked having to wear them, in fact Dave Mason was a poster boy for them. He previously had suffered a very serious eye injury against USAFA during a face-off when the USAFA player tried to lift his stick and missed, instead hitting him directly on the eye. It was a very scary incident, requiring numerous stitches, but fortunately he was eventually able to recover. While we started to get used to the cage, the unfortunate part was that no other team in the OUAA was likewise required to wear them. It seemed to us that the referees sub-consciously seemed to give the other teams the benefit of the doubt when it came to calling penalties for things like cross-checks or high sticks, so it sometimes felt like it was open season on our players and there was absolutely nothing we could do about that.

The great thing about the Rep teams was that you were not a first, second, third, or fourth year but rather a teammate first and foremost That was certainly true on the ice, but also sometimes off as well. When I was the Wing Duty Cadet, just before heading to bed after midnight, I noticed just the one pass card left on the rack on the far wall so I knew I would have to give that unlucky first year a few Drill Squads, but figured I would sort that out in the morning and went to bed. I had barely laid my head down on the pillow when I heard a rather timid knock on the Duty Room door. It was a First Year cadet nervously standing at attention, all 5’5” or so of him. He hesitantly said “Hi, my name is Rob Morrow and I am here to pick up my Pass card.” I tried to muffle a laugh, because Rob was probably at least 6’4”! I wearily said “Yah, right! I play on the hockey team with Rob, so just tell him to come see me first thing in the morning”. When I heard another knock five or six hours later, I opened the door and saw what was suddenly an extremely relieved-looking Rob Morrow standing at attention, all 6’4” of him this time. I shook my head, and then smiled and handed him his pass card at which point, not wanting to push his luck, he did a hasty about turn and quickly left.

1978/79

After the previous two losing seasons, where the team had only won three games in total in the OUAA, the authorities at RMC decided to withdraw from the OUAA and only play exhibition games. It was unfortunate, as was the fact that we only got a couple of rookies and no players from RRMC and only one from CMR. That said, we still had some really good hockey players, maybe just not the hoped-for depth. Mind you, we still had eight or nine victories in those exhibition games, including the three games we needed to win the Geneseo hockey tournament in northern New York and a hard fought 6-5 win over CFB Ottawa, the reigning Canadian Forces champions. We had some other high points, including a 10-9 win over Brockport where John Forrington had 3 goals and 4 assists and Dave Mason 3 goals and 3 assists. Al MacLeod as usual was in on a lot of the scoring. He always had this uncanny knack of getting a break away or two almost every game - no idea why but of course we never complained. Jacques Lemay, Chrys Forest and Kim Fitzsimmons likewise were top performers as were Jeff Switzer and Rob Morrow on defence. Unfortunately, our biggest disappointment of course was the lopsided loss to the Golden Knights in West Point. The only good thing about that loss, coming on the heels of a similar one in 76/77, was that it certainly seemed to help focus much more energy on the team, to the extent that RMC ended up winning four of the next five games against Army in the early 1980s.

Not sure if it was this year or the previous one, but they started using video cameras during the practices, with some unintended consequences. I think it was Mike Riley, our goalie, who was spared the rigorous goalie drills on one particular day after he assured the coach he had a really sore knee from a weekend game. However, when we retired to the video room later to watch that day’s recording, low and behold we all saw Mike in full goalie gear doing a perfect pirouette as he hammed it up for the camera! I cannot recall but pretty sure he ended up doing more than his fair share of those rigorous drills the next day and beyond!

Like most sports teams, we had nicknames, but pretty much the usual, i.e., a simple shortening of the guy’s name to a single syllable, if it was not already only one, and mostly just to make communication on the ice easier. My favourite though was “Crash” Audette and not for the usual reason. During one particular practice, the coach had us running break out drills from both ends to maximize our time on the ice, so of course we all knew to stop before we got to center ice. However, when the coach finally blew the whistle to end the drill, one line wanted to finish their break out, as did the guys at the other end. Unfortunately, neither line realized this, so Ron in one end and Dan Ferland in the other ended up skating out at full speed, with both looking back for the breakout pass and consequently smashed in to one another with a sickening thud. Both went down in a heap but even though Dan was quite a bit smaller than Ron, Ron actually got the worst of the collision and with that, he also got the new nickname. I have seen a lot of hits in hockey, but that was by far the worst, so very lucky it was not more serious.

Speaking of nicknames, the Buffalo Sabres in the 1970s had one of the most famous forward lines in hockey, the “French Connection” with Gilbert Perrault, Richard Martin and Rene Robert. It was such a perfect name, a reference both to fact they were all from Quebec and also to the very popular Oscar-winning 1971 cop movie of the same name. Usually those nicknames are coined by a sports writer or broadcaster, but in our case, we actually came up with our own. Our center Al MacLeod joking decided to call our line the “Penguin” line, meaning no Wings but not to be outdone Rob and I, the two wingers, felt an even better nickname would be the “Donut” line, meaning no Center!

RMC Hockey - from 1950 to 2022 (from icehockey.fandom.com)