A Year After Cup Run, Team Runneth Empty

It is always good to remember that things could be worse.

This could be Medicine Hat.

The hockey team there is even worse this winter, if you can imagine - though even if the hockey was better, it would still be Medicine Hat.

Wait, we take that back. It sounds like something you’d hear about Spokane in Seattle - and we’ve heard quite enough, thank you - so we’d better make nice with Medicine Hat and get back to the topic at hand.

Which is that things could be worse, hockey-wise. Just don’t press us for specifics.

The Spokane Chiefs are lurching toward the seemingly inevitable denouement of not qualifying for this year’s Western Hockey League playoffs - though lurching does imply some willful locomotion that was not evident in the most recent checkup, a 7-3 loss to Kamloops at the Arena on Wednesday.

Short of a real miracle on ice, the Chiefs will finish with their worst record since the franchise was hauled in from Kelowna on one of Vic Fitzgerald’s gravel trucks.

No shame in that. Hey, some year has to be the worst, right?

And conventional wisdom suggests that the year after a Memorial Cup run, successful or not, will be a drastic downer - a bit of the future getting mortgaged in the pursuit of glory.

It might be wisdom, but it’s not the truth.

Four other WHL teams have hosted the Cup since it expanded to four teams in 1985. None of the four won fewer than 31 games the following year.

And of the nine WHL champions of the 1990s, six finished first or second in their divisions the year after winning it all.

Then again, five of those champions plummeted below .500 two seasons later - so at least the Chiefs aren’t making their fans wait ‘til next year.

“We realized that this year or next year was going to be a rebuilding process for us,” acknowledged Chiefs general manager Tim Speltz. “But when we got Cam Severson back and it was obvious Brad Ference was going to be returned, we thought this year we might be able to compete in a division that didn’t look to have a perennial front-running team.”

Someone forgot to tell Kamloops about that last part, however, and the Chiefs didn’t seem to be listening to the first part.

“We needed some guys to be as good as we were projecting them to be,” Speltz said, “or even overachieve. Any year in junior hockey, that’s going to be the difference between being good and being average or between average and poor. We needed to win some games individually. We needed to have some things go right.”

At this point, they’d be happy to see anything go right.

It is not a good sign, for example, when the owner’s box is empty and locked on game night.

Nor is it a good sign when, in midshift, someone’s stick gets wedged in the Zamboni door and remains stuck for nearly a minute. Whether it was a Spokane stick or a Kamloops stick isn’t certain, but a metaphor is a metaphor.

And no metaphor is quite so vivid for the Chiefs’ current misery as the impotence of their power play. They have failed on 59 of their last 60 man-advantages, a Ruthian figure. Indeed, the worst thing that happened to the Chiefs Wednesday was a string of three penalties against Kamloops that put Spokane on the power play for nearly 5 minutes of the first period.

It was the equivalent of a concession speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed the P.A. announcer moonlighting from his TV gig, “the Chiefs have a two-man advantage!”

“Big deal,” muttered a season-ticket holder in the upper deck.

For the Chiefs, the power play rivals Mike Ivie’s mental block in not being able to throw the ball back to the pitcher, or Ian Baker-Finch teeing up a golf ball, or Vin Baker at the foul line.

“Just by accident, one of those shots by the net has to go in and none have,” said Speltz. “So, the effect of each time we don’t score is just devastating.

“We’re the result of ourselves. We’re our own worst enemy. Even our third goal against Kamloops - as good as it was to score that goal - the guy who had the first crack at it couldn’t shoot the puck into an open net. When you’re not playing well, the easiest plays become impossible.”

It is a tribute to the loyalty of the hockey fan - and many still showed up Wednesday, though about 2,000 less than the announced paid gate of 5,011 - that he is keeping his boos to himself. Possibly the Chiefs threw in that line brawl at the end of the second period as a pacifier, but that’s just good marketing.

Or perhaps it’s a big-picture crowd. Even with this dismal season, the Chiefs are the West Division’s second-winningest club of the past five years, behind Kamloops.

“Thankfully, our coaches are experienced guys who have had success before,” said Speltz. “This team isn’t typical of the ones we’ve had.”

So, they’ve been doing something right. This year, however, it turned out wrong - all toos and fews.

Too much turnover - this is truly the all-league team, with spare parts from every franchise. A few untimely injuries. Too many kids. A few big talents who, frankly, didn’t lead in a big way.

It’s the worst label in sports: underachievers.

“As a club, we underachieved, for sure,” said Speltz. “But I think you look at that right from the top down. It starts with me. Hindsight is going to be 20-20, but you look back and maybe realize you should have made some moves earlier or that your evaluations of guys were too optimistic. With the exceptions I think of, (goalie) Mike Lencucha and Dan Vandermeer, I’m not sure anyone lived up to the expectations we had.”

Of course, now the expectation is that the Chiefs will not catch Kelowna for that last playoff spot. It is the one they least want to live up to.

Because if they do, then things simply couldn’t be worse.