Nostalgia, Fiddlesticks: Swing The Ball

The clock on the clubhouse wall - well, for most of the past hockey season, the clock didn’t work.

It was that kind of clubhouse.

Now all the seats have been unbolted and sold off - the Spokane Coliseum’s ultimate sellout. And the stopped clock on the clubhouse wall says it’s time the clubhouse walls came down.

And not a minute too soon. More like a decade too late.

Sorry, I could never get very sentimental about the Howard Street Hovel. When everyone was all soggy with nostalgia three months ago as the final event approached, I was soggy with what was leaking through the cheesecloth roof and all over my seat in Section 21.

Not that I begrudge anybody their memories; I merely regret not being allowed to steer the wrecking ball that will turn our dingy fossil into gravel soon.

Because for all the splendid sporting events staged on its finicky ice and glorified kindling, there was always a current of counter-karma running through any event at the Coliseum.

A f’rinstance:

The joint was a month old in 1955 when Oregon’s basketball team came to town led by Jungle Jim Loscutoff, who would gain renown for the jewelry collection he later amassed as a member of the Boston Celtics. Just 4 minutes into the proceedings, Loscutoff - his patience frayed by the hand-checking of Gonzaga’s Jerry Vermillion - tucked the ball under one arm and cracked his tormentor in the jaw with the other.

And was promptly shown his seat for the rest of the evening.

Let’s roll the tape of some other Coliseum lowlights:

Bryan Maxwell’s punchline: No one called the former coach of the Spokane Chiefs “Slapsy Maxy” until he and former Tri-City assistant coach Gerry Johannson scuffled between periods of a 1990 game - much to the dismay of the refined hockey crowd, since it happened mostly out of view in a corridor. Among the amusing sidelights was Chiefs owner Bobby Brett suggesting the fault rested with the prehistoric facility, because both teams had to exit the ice at the same gate.

George Raveling’s Waterloo: The former Washington State coach scheduled an innocent rendezvous with Eastern Montana on a December Monday in 1981. But the Cougs lost 51-48 in easily the worst triple-overtime game since the invention of air. Luckily, only 450 witnesses were present. Unfortunately for Raveling, he was one of them. Sometime in the middle of the scoreless first OT, he knelt in front of the press and muttered, “Got any openings down at the paper?”

Great moments in promotion: How did Spokane get a reputation as an indifferent sports town? Well, World Team Tennis visited in 1977 with three-time Wimbledon finalist Betty Stove - and drew 1,243. Five days before Sergio Palma took the WBA junior featherweight title from Leo Randolph in 1980, promoter Al Rose said, “A sellout wouldn’t surprise me.” The crowd count was 1,800.

The Games of Goodwill: Ted Turner’s made-for-TV pseudOlympics gave us the best athletes in the world - like the weightlifters, who rode the 15 yards from the warmup area to the platform in a golf cart.

Roller derby: I would pay big money for any Spokane Westerners or Northwest Ravens memorabilia from the gory days of Leo Seltzer’s heels-on-wheels league.

A ‘B’ movie: So many lowlights, so little time. There was the kid from Cathlamet who semi-mooned Reardan coach Gene Smith. The Davenport kid who was Scottie Pippen before his time, refusing to go back into a game. The Indian Heritage bench-warmer who told his female coach, “Bleep, Karen, put me in - I’m better than him.” And the time frosty malts were 86ed from the menu and three kids held up a spray-painted sign that read, “We want our malts back.”

Our favorite? Budding broadcaster Ric Jensen promising his radio audience a halftime interview with the Toutle Lake Fighting Ducks mascot - only to discover the bird’s webbed feet couldn’t negotiate the Coliseum stairs. But Jensen went on with the interview anyway, quacking out answers to his own questions.

Come September, the building that gave birth to all that and more will be 500 parking spaces for the new arena.

Dibs on the first one.

You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

, DataTimes