Oilers obvious choice as opponent

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This article was published 21/10/2016 (3268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Morris Lukowich maintains it was really a no-brainer from the very beginning.

The man known as Luke to a generation of Winnipeg hockey fans says when it came time for the powers that be to select the Jets’ opponents for the Heritage Classic weekend, only one franchise made sense.

“It had to be the Edmonton Oilers, no question,” Lukowich said Friday. “All those battles over the years, all those great players on both sides. When you think about the history of the Jets, it’s hard not to consider the Oilers a big part of it — some good and some not so good.”

The Jets and their fans will have trouble forgetting the Oilers have beaten Winnipeg in six playoff series,

Lukowich will skate for Winnipeg in today’s alumni game, set for 3 p.m. outdoors at Investors Group Field.

Environment Canada is calling for a mostly cloudy day with a high of 10 C in the afternoon. Some rain could fall, but likely not until the evening.

Lukowich is joined on the roster by Jets luminaries such as team captain Dale Hawerchuk, Teemu (Finnish Flash) Selanne, Ed Olczyk, Thomas Steen, Dave Ellett, Teppo Numminen and goalie Bob Essensa.

The other side reads like an NHL Hall of Fame program. Wayne (The Great One) Gretzky leads the Oilers and he’s flanked by greats such as Paul Coffey, Glenn Anderson, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Ryan Smyth and goalies Grant Fuhr and Curtis Joseph.

There’s also a couple more players Jets fans loved to loathe, such as Ken Linseman, Esa Tikkanen and Dave Semenko, Gretzky’s old bodyguard.

Friday, more than 6,000 people took in practices by the two star-studded old-timer squads at the MTS Centre.

During line drills, Gretzky centred a line with Kurri on the left side and big Semenko patrolling the right.

The alumni game is the appetizer to Sunday’s main course, a clash of today’s Jets and Oilers with a pair of very real NHL points on the line. Game time for the Heritage Classic is 2 p.m. at IGF.

Lukowich, who celebrated his 60th birthday in June, played a year with the Jets (1978-79) in the World Hockey Association and ripped a whopping 65 goals that season. The team went on to claim the Avco Cup, beating the Oilers in six games in the farewell championship series for the Rebel League.

He vividly recalls No. 99 already doing his thing.

“I remember getting on the ice against a young rookie by the name of Wayne Gretzky,” Lukowich said. “We had an amazing defenceman, Lars Erik Sjoberg, who was a terrific skater. And I remember in the final game of the WHA championship, Wayne absolutely tied up Lars in a knot, and Lars told me he could not believe how shifty that guy was. So, that’s an amazing memory. Luckily, we were able to beat them in that last WHA championship — it was very seldom we beat the Oilers after that.”

Both teams joined the NHL in 1979, and Lukowich remained a Jet for the better part of the club’s first six seasons (1979-85) in league. A couple of times during his tenure, the Oilers knocked the Jets out of the playoffs.

Then again, that happened a lot in the 1980s. Most of the time, a road through Winnipeg also resulted in a Stanley Cup championship for the Oilers.

“The challenge to beat the Edmonton Oilers was incredible,” Hawerchuk said. “Now, you look back on it and you see all the star power in the Hall of Famer they had. The list goes on and on. We beat them a few times. We just couldn’t get past them in the playoffs.”

Hawerchuk won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year in 1982 after firing 45 goals and adding 58 assists for Winnipeg, and went on to play another eight spectacular seasons for the Jets until he was traded to the Buffalo Sabres in the summer of 1990. The Jets got all-star defenceman Phil Housley back in deal.

Does he have regrets about not beating the Oilers in the post-season?

“No, I think everybody’s moved on. Life changes. We’ve been out of the game for a long time now. I think what we do is look back on it and say how privileged we were to be in the same division and play against them,” he said.

Hawerchuk, who hand-picked the Jets roster, said it was a difficult task whittling down to the final two dozen or so.

“We tried to take care of all eras and how many games they played and how long they were here,” he said. “There’s always a few more guys you’d like to get in but we had only so many spots.”

Mike Ford, 64, a Jets defenceman for parts of four World Hockey Association seasons, will be the elder statesman on the host alumni squad. That is, unless Willy Lindstrom gets traded mid-game, as rumour has it he will. Lindstrom, 65, played four seasons with the Jets in the WHA and another four in the NHL before spending three seasons with the Oilers, winning Stanley Cups in 1984 and ’85.

Ford, meanwhile, said he’s thought of little else since Hawerchuk’s invite to join the defensive corps.

“I got the call when I was on holidays in Europe and we came back a little early and my wife put me on a program of exercise and dieting, running, weights, swimming, everything. I’m probably the lightest I’ve been since I played for Winnipeg (in the mid ’70s),” he said.

“At this stage of life, most guys aren’t even playing anymore, so to get a chance at this game is amazing. I’m just over the moon.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPJasonBell