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VIKES CLASSIC
Tristan Brackman (right) of the Barriere Cougars and Matt Bellmond of the host Valleyview Vikings fight for the basketball in pool play at the senior boys’ Vikes Classic tournament on Thursday. Salmon Arm edged Ron Pettigrew Christian School of Dawson Creek 78-72 to win gold. Westsyde won bronze with a 66-56 victory over Valleyview in the third-place game.
Hay’s 700th win actually his 702nd? MARTY HASTINGS
STAFF REPORTER
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here was some confusion and debate in a post-game scrum, a meeting between reporters and Kamloops Blazers’ head coach Don Hay at Sandman Centre on Friday. Hay had just secured his 700th win — or so he thought. CFJC-TV sports director Earl Seitz asked Hay if he remembered win No. 1 and the 62-year-old bench boss began telling the story, recalling Hnat Domenichelli’s hat-trick heroics when the Blazers edged the host Tacoma Rockets 8-7 in overtime on Sept. 26, 1992. “We were trailing after two periods,” said Hay, a rookie head coach that season, taking charge after six years as an assistant. “I remember the PA guy in Tacoma saying, ‘Can you believe these are the Memorial Cup defending champions?’” But Seitz had called the WHL office earlier Friday and was about to play his trump card — or so he thought.
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Kamloops Blazers’ head coach Don Hay waves to the crowd after a 3-1 victory over the Kelowna Rockets at Sandman Centre on Friday.
Hay’s first win, according to the league, came on Dec. 13, 1991 — 7-4 over the visiting Spokane Chiefs — while Tom Renney, the Blazers’ head coach at the time, was away coaching at the World Junior Hockey Championship. “I didn’t know they added those ones on,” said Hay, who paused for a second to think and said “but I took over for Hitch when he went to the world juniors, too.” He did. So why don’t those games count? The scrum ended without a definitive answer. Gregg Drinnan, who runs the
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sports blog Taking Note and was also at Sandman Centre to watch the Blazers down the Kelowna Rockets 3-1 on Friday, did some homework that night. He wrote that Hay’s first victory came on Dec. 18, 1987, when the Blazers beat the hometown Seattle Thunderbirds 5-2. Then-head coach Ken Hitchcock was away coaching Canada at the 1988 world junior championship. The Blazers won two games when Hay was filling in for Hitchcock. If that’s correct, the win on Friday, celebrated at the rink by the 3,732 in attendance as Hay’s 700th, was actually the 702nd of his career, which leaves him 40 wins (not 42) behind the WHL’s all-time leader, Ken Hodge, who has 742. That would also mean Hay’s 700th win actually came on Dec. 30 when Kamloops doubled the Vancouver Giants 4-2 in Langley. For now, the Blazers are sticking with the WHL’s official record book, which has Hay on 700 wins. There’s no disputing Hay’s memory of his inauspicious entrance into the coaching world in the 1970s, after a brief profes-
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sional playing career had ended and a firefighting career had began. “I got the opportunity to be player-coach [with the senior Kamloops Cowboys] when the head coach was mad at us and didn’t come to a game,” said Hay, who is from the Tournament Capital. “Everybody was kind of looking around and asking who wants to coach. I put up my hand and it’s something I’ve really enjoyed ever since.” Since then, he’s coached in the NHL with Calgary, Phoenix and Anaheim, in the AHL with the Utah Grizzlies and the WHL with the Blazers, Giants and Tri-City Americans. Hay won three Memorial Cups in his first stint in Kamloops — one as an assistant in 1992, when Renney was in charge, and two as a head coach, in 1994 and 1995. — and one as a head coach in Vancouver in 2007. He coached Canada to gold at the world juniors in 1995 and bronze in 2012. It seems likely Hay will become the all-time WHL coaching wins
leader next season in his second stint with the Blazers. “It’s a great honour, No. 1, and it really is a team award,” Hay said of reaching 700. “You’ve been involved with a great group of players, great organizations and great support people. They get a lot of credit.”
Extra frame
The Blazers took three of a possible four points on the weekend, following Friday’s 3-1 victory over the Rockets with a 3-2 shootout loss in the rematch in Kelowna on Saturday. Kamloops was meant to travel to Portland on Saturday night ahead of a Sunday date with the Winterhawks, but inclement weather led to the game’s postponement. The Blazers (25-15-1-2) are second in the B.C. Division, five points back of the Prince George Cougars, who have two games in hand, and two points ahead of the Rockets, who have one game in hand. Next up for the Blazers is a game against the Everett Silvertips on Friday at Sandman Centre. Game time is 7 p.m.
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