A Certain Something Special
He ranks it among his three most enjoyable teams, these Spokane Chiefs who, in his words, came from nowhere.
Spokane Chiefs coach Mike Babcock didn’t call it one of the three most talented, or one of his three best, although one day in the forthcoming playoffs he may.
These Spokane Chiefs, who Friday night in the Arena cleared the final hurdle on the way to their first Western Hockey League regular-season division title in four years, and only their second in 15 seasons, are close to the heart.
“We were awesome that first year we won it (1995-96),” Babcock said after the Chiefs held on to beat the Kelowna Rockets 2-1 in their last home game of the regular season. “We were, I thought, an unbelievable team then.
“This year, we’re a good team, but we’ve come from nowhere. We’ve grown up and developed. You can tell by the way we played, how panicked we were tonight. That year we would have just crushed these guys (Rock- ets).”
But as for special people on a special team, Babcock started a long personal list with his captain, Derek Schutz.
“I said to him in my lifetime I’ve coached some real good teams (including a World Junior Tournament champion),” the sixth-year coach of the Chiefs said. “The World Junior team doesn’t even rank (with the other three).”
One is this one.
“The first team I look back on as special is my team at (the University of) Lethbridge (that unexpectedly won the ‘94 Canadian national championship),” Babcock said. “The second was the first team I had here (in ‘94-95) that did a ton with very little.” This is the third.
“This team makes you proud to coach,” Babcock said. “They bounced back and made us the kind of franchise we want to be. This team works hard.”
That workaday ability to lay it on the line is his highest praise.
“As a coach you’re on them all the time - you’re pushin’ ‘em and pushin’ ‘em - and sometimes you don’t stop to let them know how proud you are to be associated with them,” he said.
“Now the new season, the one that matters, starts Wednesday. But you can only win what’s available so far, and our guys have done that. When I think back to where we were in the exhibition season, and think that we’ve got 98 points (in the standings), that’s scary.”
With the win, the Chiefs eliminated the second-place Prince George Cougars from contention. Prince George goes into the playoffs as the No. 2 seed, important because it has to play its way through the second-round semifinals to get a crack at Spokane, probably, in the best-of-7 set that leads to the WHL finals.
As the No. 1 seed in the West, Spokane gets a crucial bye in the second round of the division playoffs, should it eliminate Kelowna or Tri-City in the first round. The playoffs start Wednesday night in Spokane.
After tonight’s anticlimax of a regular-season finale at Tri-City, the Chiefs will have a couple of days to savor one of the strongest single-season rebounds in major junior hockey history.
Last in ‘99, first in 2000.
“We wanted to win this one,” Babcock said.
Two of the most important pieces of the developing puzzle are import players Daniel Bohac and Roman Trvdon. Bohac went through last year.
“I’m champion for the first time in my life,” said the team’s leading goal-scorer from the Czech Republic, who, with first-year import Tvrdon of Slovakia became one of the league’s most productive forwards.