A look back at past Peterborough Petes appearances in the Memorial Cup
This weekend the 100th Memorial Cup champion will be declared in Regina.
Leading up to the event, the CHL polled fans on the best past Memorial Cup champions. The 1979 Peterborough Petes team, the city’s only cup championship, didn’t make the cut.
Even so, the Petes have been an integral part of the Cup’s history. They were part of the first roundrobin championship series in 1972.
They joined Cornwall, then a member of the Quebec junior league and Edmonton in the three-team event played in Ottawa. Cornwall won the final game over the Petes.
In 1996, Peterborough hosted their only Memorial Cup. In the era when the host team had automatic entry in the four-team event, the Petes entered as OHL champions.
They lost the final to Granby of the Quebec league in a fogshrouded final.
In their 1978-79 championship year, their 23rd in the league, the OHL introduced a 10-minute sudden-death overtime for all tied regular season games.
The Petes went into training camp with 11 returning players. They were one of the first Ontario teams to bring in European players, adding Veli Kinnunen and Anssi Melametsa from Finland.
Before the end of camp, they lost returnee Keith Crowder who decided to turn pro with the WHA Birmingham Bulls.
After a so-so start in the regular season, the Petes went on a 15-game winning streak soon after Crowder returned to the team. Late in January the team convinced themselves they could win.
Down 4-1 to league-leading Niagara in the Falls, they scored four unanswered goals in the third period for the win. “It was our biggest win of the year,” coach Gary Green said.
Late in the season the Petes added Peterborough’s Larry Floyd and Jim Pavese from the junior B team.
That season Tim Trimper broke the team’s goal scoring record with 62 goals and defenceman Greg Theberge set a record for rearguards with 60 assists. The Petes ended the regular season first in the Leyden Division and first overall in the OHL.
The Petes received a firstround bye in the playoff, meeting Kingston in the second round. After falling behind two games to one, the Petes rode the outstanding goaltending of Ken Ellacott to a seven-game series win.
In the next round, they played Sudbury who were led by future NHL’er Mike Foligno and future Petes coach Dave MacQueen.
They went on to win the series eight points to two in the era when there was no overtime in playoffs until the eighth game.
That set up the OHL final between the two division winners, the Petes and Niagara Falls Flyers. The Petes again fell behind two games to one after losing game three when the Falls scored five third period goals, one by Peterborough’s Steve Larmer.
When the Petes lost game four, they were one game from elimination. The Petes won the next three games, the seventh before 5,031 fans in the Memorial Centre.
Within days the Petes were off to the Memorial Cup in Quebec to play the QMJHL champion, the Trois-Rivieres Draveurs. They lost 4-3.
Next, they played the Brandon Wheat Kings in a double roundrobin preliminary game, winning 7-6.
The Petes then beat TroisRivieres but lost to Brandon. All three teams ended the round robin portion with identical twowin two-loss records.
Goal differential put the Petes and Wheat Kings in the Memorial Cup single-game final in Verdun.
Many Petes fans made it down for the Sunday afternoon game just outside Montreal.
The game ended in a 1-1 tie with Trimper scoring for the Petes and Brian Propp for Brandon.
At 2:38 of overtime Bob Attwell scored on the rebound from a Larry Murphy shot to give the Petes their only Memorial Cup victory.