It was the usual, almost predictable start to the new year in 1971, a general flow of news and business in Estevan, but by the time summer rolled around, there was plenty of chaotic-like action to record for the pages of the Mercury.
For instance, in the middle of June, the Estevan Bruins owners, Bill Shinske and Ernie “Punch” McLean announced they were moving the franchise to New Westminster, B.C., thus ending a 15-year love affair with our city. Or so it seemed.
The previous year the team had brought Bobby Hull to town to help with a local season-ticket drive that resulted in an additional 400 season tickets being sold, but even that wasn’t enough.
As luck would have it though, the Bruin legacy was not lost, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves on the chronological order of things, so more on that later.
So while the Bruins were packing the semi-trailer, the sporting front was hailing the success of the Estevan Ace Mud Mets, the 1970 provincial juvenile champions who were now ready to take a run at a junior title. They got off to a good 5-0 start with a double-header victory over the Regina Maroons and Melville Millionaires thanks to the pitching expertise of the likes of lefthander Ron Friess and the hitting of Doug Overbo and Bob Burns Jr.
On the scholastic front, it was no less exciting. The two-year old Estevan Comprehensive School had a graduating class of 189 students and student population of over 800. But troubles were brewing as teacher cuts were looming and there were rumours of resignations on the horizon.
On the civic governance level, more confusion as city councillors (or aldermen as they were called then) took sides on the issue of parking configurations in the city. Was it to be parallel parking or angle parking in the city’s central business district?
Coun. Phil Attrill took the Mercury to task in a public manner, lamenting the fact the local newspaper had not taken a stance on the issue. That criticism arose just minutes before councilors adjourned to an in-camera (private) session with media and public excluded, to discuss the issue. They later emerged with the decision to give parallel parking a two-week mandated extension.
Shortly after this little civic rumble began, it was reported that Chief Constable Ross Pollack’s contract with the city would not be renewed and in an unrelated matter, Coun. Frank Mather said he was stepping down only five months after being re-elected. He cited personal reasons for the reason and the community acknowledged that Mather had served the city before in admirable fashion and would be missed.
Pollock’s dismissal, on the other hand, caught one councillor, Russ Brown, by surprise. He said he had missed the in-camera meeting where the decision had apparently been made and the announcement in the public council chambers had caught him off guard as it did the majority of local citizens.
Mayor Ida Petterson responded that it was unfortunate that Brown “hadn’t come to the right meeting,” on the night in question. Perhaps leaving the implication that his campaign was taking precedent over his council duties.
Media inquiries about the Pollock dismissal resulted in Petterson stating only that “council had to consider the matter,” while the rest of the councillors uttered a series of “no comments,” as did Pollock when he was questioned by the Mercury.
On the provincial governance front, an election campaign was in full swing with Estevan area MLA Ian MacDougall attempting to hold his seat while former MLA and noted NDP supporter Russ Brown attempted to wrest it away. A local Liberal rally brought Premier Ross Thatcher into Estevan and a week later, an NDP youth rally saw that party’s deputy-leader Roy Romanow in the Energy City.
The rumours about cuts at ECS, proved to be correct when it was announced by the local school board that the teaching staff at the Comp would be reduced from 43 to 40 full time educators. There were 12 resignations with just two of them being retirements. Principal Ed Lucotch and one vice-principal Ray Petrowitsch were among those resigning. Ted Jankoski would remain as the other vice-principal.
But it wasn’t all negative news on the high school front. The newspaper pages carried a couple of reports regarding the outstanding successes of the ECS Marching Elecs band and their majorettes who had been afforded a standing ovation from a crowd of over 1,500 in the Moose Jaw Civic Auditorium during their appearance at the Band City’s annual Music Festival. The Elecs scored consecutive marks of 91 and 90 from adjudicator Frank Connell who added later that these two marks were the highest he had ever given to any band. The marching expertise, said leader R. Benson was attributed to the volunteer efforts of local RCMP Const. Murray Meachem who had worked with them for hours during their three-days a week rehearsal schedules.
On the business reporting field, the huge dragline from Wales was photographed as it was being reassembled to be put into service by M&S Mines, south of Estevan.
By mid-June the Bruin announcement had been finalized. McLean noted that New West, being a larger city (50,000 population) with a larger arena that could seat 5,300 and with access to an immediate market area of 1.2 million was something they needed in order to pay the bills and the 2,000 seat Civic Auditorium and a 40,000 market area, could not fill that need.
The WCHL would then be split into two divisions with the West division being comprised of Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Calgary, Edmonton and new comer Medicine Hat that had been granted a franchise a year earlier.
In the Eastern Conference would be Saskatoon, Regina, Swift Current, Brandon, Winnipeg and Flin Flon.
Later that summer, four of McLean’s big bad brawling Bruins were drafted by NHL teams with defencemen Glen Irwin, Ed Sidebottom and Yvon Bilodeau along with centre Dave Bonter being picked up. Irwin, the first of the Estevan Bruins to go in the draft was taken as the ninth pick in the third round. Bonter was the 16th pick in the third round going to Boston while Sidebottom was selected by Montreal as the fourth pick in the fourth round. Bilodeau was taken sixth in the eighth round. The first overall pick that year was Guy Lafleur while Marcel Dionne went second. The top pick from the WCHL that year was Gene Carr from Flin Flon, selected in the No. 4 slot right after Jocelyn Guevremonth. Richard Martin was claimed by Buffalo at No. 5.
Within two and a half months though, the New Bruins were announced as a replacement for the Old Bruins and they would toil in the now 10-team Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. Estevan would take up a spot in the southern division with Regina’s two teams along with Moose Jaw, Weyburn and Notre Dame.
Within a week, it was announced the new Bruins had worked out a fresh deal with the City of Estevan regarding operations of the Civic Auditorium, but it was then determined by the new committee the style of arrangements used by the former Bruins, wasn’t going to work with a new publicly owned franchise.
Gary McKechney was named coach, the Bruins had a new 16-member board of directors who set out to raise $10,000 in seed capital following a meeting that was attended by 35 people. A series of $200 loans would form the financial nucleus. Local restaurant owner/developer George Sereggela bought the first membership (loan) and Ray Frehlick was elected the team’s first president with Jack Teal being elected vice-president. The first budget, it was determined would be set somewhere between $26,000 and $30,000.
Back on the civic front, Torgeson Park was officially dedicated, former police Chief Pollock was suing the city and Mayor Petterson personally for between $40,000 and $100,000. That matter was settled quietly and non-publically after the paperwork had been filed, for an undisclosed amount with the public accounts showing the city had presented Pollock with his “final paycheque of $1,005” in late summer.
Back to baseball, the Mets kept rolling along, claiming the provincial title in an exciting final series against the Saskatoon T-Birds at Saskatoon’s Cairns Field. The Mets captured the title in the second game of a double-header 7-6 after they had lost earlier in the day by a 5-3 count. The first game in the best-of-three final had been won by the Mets at Met Stadium in Estevan, 7-4. Doug Overbo, Brian Burness, Friess and the Drader brothers, Larry and Daryl along with “Shorts” Martin played key roles in the victories as did left hander Wayne Schell who had stymied T-Bird batters at the juvenile level a year earlier with his curve ball and change up combinations. Overbo had pitched no-hit ball and struck out 11 over seven innings in downing Weyburn in earlier playoff action and also wielded a big bat as did Burness who pitched and played centre field.
The victory earned the Mets the right to represent Saskatchewan in the National finals which, as luck would have it, was slated for North Battleford that year.
The Mets, short of pitching arms, were allowed to pick up four players from other Saskatchewan teams so coach Don Dupuis and manager Ray Frehlick chose catcher Ken McEachern, pitcher Bob Currie and outfielder Doug Simon from Regina and left handed pitcher, first baseman Bob Fawcett from the T-Birds.
The Mets failed to win a game at the nationals though, going down in four straight games including opening day defeats to Nova Scotia and the favoured Quebec team in a night cap game that wasn’t completed until 1 a.m. the next morning. Quebec went on to win the title. The Mets, realizing they were overmatched, still had a great time, in spite of key injuries and the realization that in a tournament of this calibre they needed 10 or 11 pitchers, not the usual five or six. They were also hampered by the fact that Overbo, their ace right hander had been declared ineligible for the nationals since he was an American citizen. A Crosby N.D. native, Overbo would have had to establish his residency in Canada by March 31 in order to qualify. His bat as well as pitching prowess in the regular season and provincial playoffs had been well documented including a 405 foot home run blast in the fourth inning against the T-Birds in the third game.
Coach Dupuis laughingly declared the Met dugout “an official disaster area,” and sent the team’s young borrowed bat boy Roger the Dodger to the bullpen to warm up “in case we need you at 1:30 in the 10th inning if we can tie this game.”
The Quebec team picked up on the fun of seeing a 10-year-old warming up, and started doing a phantom warm-up, sans baseball in their own bullpen, partly to keep warm as the winds howled and rain spattered down on the participants as a crowd of over 1,000 spectators dwindled to less than 100 as midnight came and went.
On other sporting fronts, Bill Tholl of Estevan captured the provincial Junior Golf Title with a 3 and 2 victory over Kirk McGregor of Regina in the tournament hosted at Woodlawn Golf Club.
As the summer rolled to a conclusion, it was reported as being one of the busiest summers on record for the Estevan supervised playparks, Russ Brown defeated Ian MacDougall for the MLA’s seat by 230 votes as the NDP rolled to a 45 to 15 seat majority in the legislature in a huge reversal of fortune and within the next few months, former Premier Ross Thatcher would be dead.
As a final note, as the summer exit began, Estevan had a new police Chief in home grown candidate Ray Worsnop and the councillors and business community continued to bicker over parallel parking versus angle parking with parallel, obviously winning in the end, with or without editorial commentary from this newspaper.
