SPORTS FLASHBACK 1988: Huskies recall trip to Allan Cup finals

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2024 (427 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For six weeks in 1979, everyone in Steinbach was a hockey fan, and those who couldn’t get into an arena filled to capacity, listened to the Huskies games on radio. During the senior hockey playoffs that year, the Steinbach Huskies played their way into a national final and hockey news shared the front page with stories on the Red River Valley flood.

The Steinbach Huskies got together Saturday to relive a little of that magic, as they took on the current team in an exhibition game at the Steinbach Arena.

Later, there was time to renew old friendships and reminisce about the 1978-79 hockey season at a banquet across the street at the Steinbach Curling Club.

Fifteen members of the 1978-79 squad were on hand for the reunion and more than one hockey fan was prompted to suggest that with a couple of practises, they could still ice a pretty good hockey club.

Most have retired from competitive hockey, but many still play the game and a few like Ken Krentz, Hal Haight and Marlin Vanrobaeys still make major contributions to the intermediate teams they play on.

Art Coulombe and Larry Stoesz have been lending their talents to HTHL teams of late, but both say they are now retiring. Fans have heard that before.

Team captain Ralph Krentz, after the Allan Cup season went on to a lengthy hockey career in Europe, before coming back to spend time at his other job as a bricklayer.

Krentz told an appreciative audience one of the highlights for him was when Peter Young went on television to say the Huskies didn’t have a chance. The Huskies then beat the Trail Smoke Eaters.

“I was kind of happy about that.”

Krentz told his former teammates it had been a great year and he was sorry to leave, but he had made a decision earlier that he would go to Europe after the 1978-79 season.

Ken Krentz, who currently works for Manitoba Hydro and plays for the HTHL Huskies, was instrumental in organizing Saturday’s reunion. He said the 1978-79 season was a great year that nobody involved would soon forget.

It was a Krentz goal in overtime that won the Western Allan Cup final and sent Steinbach into the Allan Cup finals against Petrolia. That goal will probably rank as the most important of his hockey career. For the Huskies’ rookie it was certainly more important than any of the 177 he scored as a junior hockey star with the Selkirk Steelers.

Bruce Johnson, now part owner of the Rorie Street Marble Club in Winnipeg and co-publisher of the Uptown Gazette, talked about the mix of players on the team.

“There were superstars and muckers. It was probably the smallest senior team to compete in the Allan Cup finals in history.”

Having played hockey all over Canada and in the United States, Johnson always enjoyed playing for the crowd. In Steinbach that year, there was no shortage of fans for a showboat like him, he noted.

After the 1978-79 season Andy Stoesz had a brief stint in Europe and then returned to play senior hockey in Manitoba for a few more years. Stoesz has two Allan Cup rings earned as a goaltender with Thunder Bay in the national final.

These days, Stoesz is content to leave the pads hung up and coach a bantam team in Mitchell. His players know just how famous their coach is, even though most of them were just starting school when Stoesz was standing on his head to send Steinbach to Sarnia.

The 1978-79 Huskies were the first Manitoba team to make it to the Allan Cup finals since 1973. To find an Allan Cup champion, you have to go all the way back to 1964, when the Winnipeg Maroons won it all.

If Steinbach never makes it to the national finals again, it doesn’t matter. Never is when those who were part of the 1978-79 season will forget the most exciting hockey season Steinbach fans have ever seen.

But just in case memories begin to fade, they agree they should plan to get together again 10 years down the road.