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Friday, May 18, 2018 A29
…on the Semiahmoo Peninsula
Former Surrey Eagles reflect on 20-year anniversary of RBC Cup
‘It seems like it was yesterday’ Nick Greenizan Staff reporter
J
ust a few months removed from a heartbreaking loss in the championship game of the 1997 Royal Bank Cup, the South Surrey Eagles entered the next season as something of a wild card. They had just seven returning players from the previous year’s team and were without not only their former head coach, Rick Lanz, who had left to join the staff of the Western Hockey League’s Tri-City Americans, but also their entire first line, which the year prior has arguably been the best in the entire country, as Shane Kuss, Scott Gomez and Rodney Bowers combined for an astounding 377 points. Their new coach was former Lanz assistant Mark Holick, and the team’s roster, according to captain Kris Wilson, “was basically just a band of gypsies.” Though lacking in star power with the departure of Gomez, who followed Lanz to the WHL, and Kuss and Bowers, who aged out of the league, the team still featured a strong contingent of forwards. There was Wilson – or “Freight Train Willy” as former owner Cliff Annable still calls him – as well as Mike Bishai, Lyle Steenburgen, Brian Herbert and John McNabb, who joined the team from the WHL. The team’s defence was also impressive, led by Czech import Jakub Ficenec, a 1997-holdover who scored 91 points in 55 games, Joe Vandermeer and Aaron Schneekloth. This week marks the 20th anniversary’s of that team’s crowning achievement – a Royal Bank Cup national championship win, which came in Nanaimo on May
Peace Arch News photo
Surrey Eagles Chris Tarr (left) and Joe Vandermeer (right) congratulate goaltender Peter Wisloff (centre) after Wishloff was named player-of-the-game at the conclusion of the Royal Bank Cup final in 1998. 10, 1998. And though Holick, who had assistant coach John Short with him on the bench that year, called the group “incredibly tight-knit,” no one outside of the team likely would have batted an eye had the defending BC Hockey League champs finished the 1997/98 season as a middleof-the-pack team, maybe making the playoffs, maybe winning a round or two. Instead, the Eagles – who a few years later would drop the ‘South’ from their name – finished as the best team in the entire country, capturing the elusive trophy that had slipped from their grasp the season before in P.E.I., when they lost the final 4-3 to the Summerside Capitals. “They were very confident, very close… it was a special group,” Holick said. This year’s RBC Cup is also back on B.C. soil and is currently being held in Chilliwack. It wraps up Sunday. And though two decades have passed since the final buzzer of a 4-1 victory over the Weyburn Red Wings, that ‘98
Eagles team still holds a special place in the hearts of those who were a part of it. “It seems like it was yesterday sometimes,” said Wilson, a Seattle-area resident who captained that year’s team and ended up playing four years with the Birds. “There’s just so many memories I have with that team – and especially that year, because of that success we had that season, and really, weren’t supposed to have, I guess… in the preseason polls, I want to say we were ranked like third in our own division. “On our part, we felt that was kind of a slight.” In the BCJHL regular season, the Eagles weren’t able to quite match the win-loss record of the high-powered 1996/97 squad, winning 43 games and losing 15, compared to the 47-win, seven-loss record the season before, but they picked up their play in the playoffs, rolling through their own league with what, to Holick’s recollection, was a 12-1 win-loss playoff record. They defeated
the Penticton Panthers in the league final. The team had to play an extra playoff round that year – against the Cranbrook Colts of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League – just to be crowned provincial champs. And though the Rocky Mountain loop was thought at the time to be a step below BCJHL competition – which proved true, as the Birds won with relative ease – that series with the Colts was a memorable one for those involved. “I remember that rink – we had to walk through the crowd to get to our dressing room, and that wasn’t much fun when you’re the visiting team,” laughed Bishai, an Alberta native who scored 100 points in 57 games for the Eagles that season, and went on to a long pro career that wrapped up in 2013. After dispatching Cranbrook, the Eagles went north to the Edmontonarea to square off against the Albertachampion St. Albert Saints, who were led by future NHLer Mike Comrie. Continued on A30
Skaters from across the world to compete for $10,000 in prizes
World-renowned skaters return to Cloverdale Rodeo Samantha Anderson Black Press Media
The World Freestyle RoundUp is returning for a seventh time at the Cloverdale country fair this weekend, rounding up the world’s best professional and amateur freestyle skateboarders for four days of trick contests, demonstrations and battle-style competition. From Friday until Monday,
the World Round-Up will transform the Cloverdale Curling Rink on the Cloverdale Fairgrounds into a skateboarding arena, featuring a flawless 50-foot by 110-foot concrete floor — perfect for freestyle skateboarding. More than 50 skaters from 14 different countries, including Switzerland, Hungary and Brazil, will be competing for
$10,000 in prize money. Organizer Monty Little said that performances from some of the younger competitors, including Yuzuki Kawasaki, 9, Ikkei Nagao, 12, and Yuta Fujii, 12, just “blew the crowd away last year.” Another one to watch is Mirei Tsuchida, the sole female competitor, who is a “phenomenal skater” and “all-
round competitor,” said Little. Canada will also have strong representation in the four-day competition. White Rock’s Andy Anderson, who is billed as a “household name in the Lower Mainland’s skateboarding community,” will return after placing fourth in the pro division last year. And Ryan Brynelson, a professional rider from Delta,
will return for his sixth World Round-Up competition. Spectators can watch the qualifiers on Friday, May 18, the semi-finals on Saturday, May 19, and the finals on Sunday, May 20. Although the main competition comes to the end Sunday, the fun continues on Monday, with several trick contests planned.