Take home a piece of Tigers history
Eight months ago I came up with the idea to compile my season’s worth of Medicine Hat Tigers photos into a book. Today that idea becomes a reality with the release of “2016-17, A season in photos.”
From Zach Fischer’s hat trick in the home opener to Tom Lysiak’s number rising to the rafters and the unforgettable seven-game showdown with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, it was a season I’ll never forget, and this book is my way of keeping those memories alive for years to come.
The following is an excerpt from the book’s foreword, which is now available for $49.95 at the Medicine Hat News office. The book can also be ordered by phone, at 403-527-1101, and shipped to readers outside Medicine Hat. Five per cent of each book sold goes to the Medicine Hat Tigers Education Fund.
Hockey is a series of moments — a game of inches, bounces and split-second decisions. But outside the 200-by-85-foot sheet of ice, the game is about creating those moments — the ones worth remembering.
We watch hockey for the feelings those moments provide. The exhilaration when gloves hit the ice, the impulsive need to leap from one’s seat when a double overtime goal shakes the twine, even the ache of a gut-wrenching loss. These feelings pull us back in. But perhaps most importantly, they pull us together to share in these moments of triumph, of defeat, of anguish or jubilation.
For 45 years the Medicine Hat Tigers built these moments inside the hallowed halls of The Arena. Players like Lanny McDonald, Tom Lysiak, Trevor Linden and Brennan Bosch provided fans with a near-endless string of memories fostered in front of a perpetually packed house of 4,006.
It was a history hard to leave behind. But every chapter has an end, and when the time came to move on from the storied old barn, a group of 20 young men inherited the task of carving a new history into a fresh sheet of ice.
It didn’t come in an instant. It took work, it took dedication and perseverance from a team without a single generational talent or firstround NHL draft pick. It took the blood, sweat and tears of a team, and it came on the heels of heartbreak.
Falling out of the playoff picture in Game 73’s tiebreaker loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings at the end of their first year in the Canalta Centre came with a sting. But it set the framework for one of Medicine Hat’s most successful seasons in recent memory. That sour taste of a 13-year playoff streak reaching its end lit a fire under the team’s group of returning players, and set in motion the banner year to come.
It started with a comeback.
Just five games into the 2016-17 regular season, the Tigers gave their fans a moment they wouldn’t soon forget. Trailing 4-0 to the Moose Jaw Warriors entering the final frame, the comeback kids in orange and black proved no lead is safe in the Dub. Against all odds, the Tigers rallied for four unanswered goals — including three inside just 43 seconds — before Max Gerlach pulled the rug out in overtime to secure one of Medicine Hat’s most unforgettable victories at the Canalta Centre.
It was a sign of the excitement to come, a sign that this team was different...
Pick up a copy of “2016-17, A season in photos” to read the rest of the foreword, and take home a piece of Tigers history.