Tightknit Chiefs Scatter Overachievers Consider Next Challenge; Brandon Moves On

On one side, reaction kept pace with the excitement.

The Brandon Wheat Kings - who moments before had beaten the Spokane Chiefs 3-0 to win the Western Hockey League championship - were loud, happy, hurrying, eager for the next challenge.

The Wheat Kings would board their bus Thursday night - the WHL trophy in tow and make the 20-hour journey back through the Alberta prairies and Manitoba wheat fields to Brandon, napping and mapping plans as they wait for next week’s Memorial Cup.

Coach Bob Lowes was hustling off to a pay phone to check on his wife, who’s scheduled to deliver their second child within a week.

“They say (Wednesday), but it could be anytime,” said Lowes, whose Wheat Kings won their first WHL championship in 17 years.

Happiness in Lowes doesn’t register in neon smiles, but this was as content as a man could be.

Lowes was a winner and possibly a father on the same night.

On the other side of the Arena dressing complex, reality was slowly sinking in.

The Spokane Chiefs were finished, beaten four games to one by the Wheat Kings, who had felt the same sting of losing in the WHL finals a year ago.

You come so far to get so close. The season started last summer, when the Mariners were turning Seattle on to baseball.

The Chiefs, of course, didn’t capture a whole region’s fancy like the big league club in Seattle, but they did turn the people of Spokane on to their game.

Now it was midspring of the following year and the Chiefs were still together, one last time.

Jason Podollan, eloquent beyond his 20 years, was taking time to leave, knowing he probably won’t be back. He had the right words for the whole room of hockey players slumped against the cubicles.

“I’m still trying to figure out what went wrong,” he said. “I played hard, I know that, but my job is to put the puck in the net.”

The Chiefs scored a single goal in their last two games at home. Finishing - Podollan’s speciality - was at a premium. “Especially last night (Wednesday),” Podollan said. “I had two breakaways in the first (period). I wish I had them back. The post got in the way and (Brandon goalie Jody) Lehman got in the way.”

Podollan was gamely accepting his share of the blame, but this was the year he became a winner.

He and Sean Gillam and Darren Sinclair. Dmitri Leonov and Jan Hrdina. David Lemanowicz and Randy Favaro and Hugh Hamilton. Adam Magarrell. Joel Boschman. Jay Bertsch and John Cirjak and Joe Cardarelli. All are veterans. All were on losing hockey clubs here.

They were - the record will tell us - losers until this year.

No one at the start gave them much of a shot at turning it around, but they did. Picked to finish fifth by most, they were one of the last two teams standing.

The goal was to play to May, and they made it.

“I guess I played all right, but we didn’t win. I wasn’t doing something right,” Podollan said. “They outplayed us in this series, but I wish we could play them again, start over. But it doesn’t happen.”

Podollan said the club could be better next year.

“The guys were a little tentative, maybe not knowing what to expect and how to react. But they’ll take that into next season and they’ll be a better club for it.”

Last junior hockey game?

“Guess so,” Podollan said. “I’m proud to be in the league final. It was the most successful season I’ve had here - personally and teamwise.

“As a group, it was a great year. Everyone cared about each other. It was a pleasure to play here. I’ll miss the guys and the fans. We filled the building on weeknights. We appreciated that, just as I think they appreciated how we played for them.”

Some coaches teach. Some motivate. A few can do both.

One is the Chiefs’ Mike Babcock, who at 33 stamped himself as one of the rising stars of his profession in a season of unpredictable overachievement.

“The fans really got behind something that was exciting,” Babcock said. “Any time your team is not expected to be great and suddenly things start to go, it gets exciting. That and the new building made for an excellent atmosphere.

“The guys who get to play in the National League probably won’t miss it. The guys who play minor pro and find out they’re not playing in as good a venue or as great a place will miss Spokane a lot.

“But all of them know how good it was this year.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo