Midget Cats came close to making semis in 2001
The Prince George Multiplex was rocking to the beat of 3,227 foot-stomping fans before the opening puck-drop and Mark Nelson’s heart was racing.
Never before in his 17 years as a hockey player had he played in front of a crowd that big or that loud and he was plenty nervous.
His Prince George Coast Inn of the North Cougars were the host team of the 2001 Air Canada Cup (now called the Telus Cup) midget hockey national championship, facing off against the Beardy’s Blackhawks of Saskatchewan and all but a few dozen fans in the crowd that night were firmly in the Cougars’ camp.
“That first game of the Air Canada Cup was the most memorable for me – it was a good crowd, a lot of excitement, a lot of nerves,” said Nelson, 33, who went on to play junior A in the B.C. Hockey League for the Prince George Spruce Kings and Vernon Vipers and had a fouryear NCAA career at Quinnipiac.
“We were the host team but not a lot of people remember that we actually won our way in – we went to Calgary and ended up winning a best-of-three series. We beat the Calgary Royals in the third game.”
Nelson played right wing and defence but didn’t get to finish the tournament. In the Cougars’ third game against Dartmouth he got banged into the corner boards chasing down a loose puck and separated his shoulder.
The Coast Inn Cougars were stacked with future junior A and NCAA players, including forwards Nelson, Blair LeFebvre, Aaron Hareuther and Keanan Hopson; defencemen Braden Chamberlain, Kyle Popovic and Aaron Agnew; and goalie Jeff Warrilow.
Of the 19 players who suited up for the Cougars that year, all but one (Tyler Walsh of Fraser Lake) were from Prince George. That formula changed in 2004 when the Cariboo Cougars (Canucks at the time) became part of the nine-team B.C. Major Midget League, which shifted teams to a more regional focus and allowed the Cariboo club to draw players from the northern half of the province and the Yukon.
“We had a lot of talent on our team, a lot of guys went on to play junior, but I would say the Cariboo Cougars (the host team of this week’s 2017 Telus Cup) are probably a better team – it’s tough to compare,” said Nelson.
The 2001 Air Canada Cup was the first national hockey championship hosted in the Multiplex (now CN Centre) since it opened in 1995 and the buildup to the tournament captivated fans.
“The town itself was excited, it was a big event and that was huge – just to be part of Prince George hosting it is the memory for me,” said Nelson.
“We won our way to get there and that’s something we’ll never forget as a team.”
After winning their tournamentopener 6-4 over Beardy’s, the Coast Inn Cats lost their next four games to finish a disappointing fifth in the six-team tournament. The Cougars still had a chance to make the playoff round heading into the final day of the round robin but lost 2-1 to the Toronto Young Nationals to finish 1-4.
“We didn’t have the best showing we kind of hoped for,” said Nelson. “But, in saying that, we weren’t in the major midget league at the time and we were going up against teams that had brought in players from all over.”
Nelson’s other teammates that year were goalie Chris Selzler; defencemen Braedy Powell and Garth Martin; and forwards Mark Tanemura, Colin Germaniuk, Eric Miller, Ben Eggen, Rocky Mix, Brett Fillion and Mike Parkin.
Crowds averaged more than 3,000 for each of the Cougars’ games and Tanemura, now 33, will always look back on that April 2001 tournament as the highlight of his career.
“Each and every game we got to experience the scale and what it is to play in front of your home crowd, just the energy levels and the adrenaline going through your veins, we’d never felt that before,” said Tanemura, who also played defence in the tournament.
“The teams we were playing against were really strong teams all year long and that was hard back then for us. I remember playing Quebec and their speed was something else. (Losing four of five games) was kind of disappointing for us but you gain so many life experiences from something like that.”
Brent Arsenault was head coach of the Cougars that year and his assistants were Trevor Sprague (now head coach of the Cariboo Cougars) and Jeff Parker. Arsenault remembers how close his team came to making the semifinal round.
“Our goal was to finish in the top four and we were one goal away from that at the end of the day,” said Arsenault. “We lost the last game 2-1 (to Toronto) but it was 1-1 in the third.
“We were one of the first B.C. teams to win the Pacific (region) in a long time. Now B.C. has the major midget league which makes that more common.”
The powerhouse Ste-Foy Gouverneurs of Quebec went undefeated in the 2001 tournament, beating the Calgary Royals 4-3 in double-overtime in the gold-medal game. Sixteen-year-old Gouverneurs captain Steve Bernier, the tournament MVP, ended the game 2:39 into the second overtime session.
Toronto beat the Dartmouth Subways of Nova Scotia 4-3 for bronze.
Still active in pro hockey as a right winger, Bernier was drafted by the San Jose Sharks in the first round in 2003 and has played 633 NHL games for the Sharks, Buffalo, Vancouver, Florida, New Jersey and the New York Islanders. One other player from the 2001 tournament, Beardy’s left winger D.J. King, played 118 games in the NHL for St. Louis and Washington before he retired in 2013.
We had a lot of talent on our team, a lot of guys went on to play junior, but I would say the Cariboo Cougars (the host team of this week’s 2017 Telus Cup) are probably a better team – it’s tough to compare. — Mark Nelson