Annual hockey tournament starts Friday
For many, the local hockey season may have ended Sunday when the Everett Silvertips eliminated the Spokane Chiefs in the Western Hockey League playoffs.
But this Easter weekend, 40 teams with some 600 of the top Northwest hockey players will beg to differ. For the 26th straight year, it’s Northwest Classic time at Eagles Ice-A-Rena.
The classic is an open competition in which teams recruit the best skaters they can find. The serious teams are trying to win one of the most-coveted amateur hockey championships on the West Coast.
Need proof? Just ask teams that have come from as far as Southern California in past years to vie to have their names placed on the classic’s honor roll.
The classic is a “higher caliber than other adult tournaments,” tournament co-founder and rink co-owner Tim Everson said. “It has a life of its own. It creates its own buzz every year.”
Games will start Friday at 10:15 a.m. and continue until about midnight. Saturday’s first games will begin at 6:30 a.m. and run again until midnight. Sunday’s championship will start at 3:45 p.m.
Even though no money or other prizes are awarded, teams go all out to win – so much so that the defending champion Spokane Grinders tried to make Spokane Chiefs player Derek Ryan an offer he couldn’t refuse to bolster the team’s chances of repeating.
Teams come in with skaters who, according to Everson, are “in the best shape of their skating season.”
This year’s teams include a group from Redwood Meadows, Alberta, near Calgary, one of nine Canadian entries. Teams are coming from Billings and Great Falls, plus a host of clubs are expected from the Puget Sound region.
In all, 22 of the 40 teams are from outside Spokane, providing another shot of unsung positive economic impact from the hockey community. The Spokane Oldtimers just put on a tournament that drew some 700 visitors.
The Northwest Classic had its beginnings in 1981 as a challenge between then-owner of the Ice Arena Sports Shop, Jeff Blackwell, and Everson, the new manager of the Eagles Ice-A-Rena.
“Jeff told me we have youth hockey tournaments here, but it was my turn to do something for the adults,” Everson said.
Blackwell had just promoted a Thanksgiving youth hockey tournament. It was a huge success, drawing 36 teams and filling the ice on a weekend that traditionally had been very slow.
Blackwell said that if it could be done with kids on Thanksgiving weekend, the rink could be filled on Easter weekend with an adult tournament.
Blackwell suggested a name: the Northwest Classic. The name stuck and a rush to organize the tournament drew just eight teams, not a huge success but a start.
One thing Everson realized after the first tournament was that he needed help. Two teammates from his recreation league team, Barry Kilburn and Craig Butz, were recruited to help over the next few years. Kilburn is still at it.
By the spring of 1987, the tournament had grown to a record 48 teams. In addition, tournament organizers worked with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation to convince a Hollywood celebrity team to play a game and stage an auction. Some of the more recognizable players who made the trip to Spokane included Alan Thicke; a young future “Friends” star, Matthew Perry; and Olympic hockey gold medalist Eric Strobel. They played a group of Spokane Oldtimers.
The game ended with the charity as the big winner, with the game raising more than $10,000.
The past several years have been a little more manageable with the tournament drawing 30 to 32 teams.
“Half the teams come prepared to win it, the others to have a good time,” Everson said. “We know of six or seven real strong teams that should be in the hunt to make it to the finals.”