Ex-MVP knew tourney was ticketed for big things

Now a staple for hockey fans in Calgary over the holiday season, the Mac’s AAA Midget Hockey Tournament had a different sponsor when it began 40 years ago.

Mike Moller was named tournament MVP in 1978 when he helped the Red Deer Optimist Chiefs win the inaugural event, which was then known as the CP Challenge Cup.

“The award for that was two airline tickets from CP Air to anywhere they flew in Western Canada,” recalled Moller, who used the tickets from the nowdefunct airline to fly his parents out to watch him and his brother Randy play for the Chiefs at the 1979 Air Canada Cup in Winnipeg.

“That first year, when the invitation came out to play in this event, even at that time they had talked about having a tournament at the Christmas break and having it hopefully become one of the bigger midget AAA tournaments in Western Canada.

"Four years later, it certainly achieved that goal.”

Forty years later, Moller found himself back in the Mac’s final as an assistant coach with the Chiefs, who wound up losing 4-0 to the Regina Pat Canadians on Monday at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

“I’m so proud of the kids this year,” said Moller in regards to the Chiefs, who finished atop the Pool 2 standings with a 3-1 record. “We had a real tough pool and we were able to get out of our pool, which was so unique because the defending champion Belarus (under-17 team) was in our pool. We did a really good job to beat them in the round-robin game.”

The Chiefs went on to down the Lethbridge Hurricanes 3-1 in quarter-final action on Sunday morning at Father David Bauer Arena. Rylan Burns then scored the lone goal of the game, while goalie Duncan Hughes stopped all 14 shots he faced to backstop Red Deer to a 1-0 semifinal win over the St. Albert Chiefs later that afternoon at Max Bell Centre’s Ken Bracko Arena.

“Midget AAA players, they don’t usually play two games in a day,” Moller said. “That’s the way it is and everybody’s in the same boat. To be able to come through those two games was really good.”