When the Bombers battled the Jets

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/04/2019 (2408 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let’s look at the junior hockey battles between Winnipeg and Flin Flon as a follow-up to a recent column about their many provincial final meetings in midget and juvenile.

Flin Flon did not enter a team in junior hockey until 1948-49, when the Bombers joined the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL). By that point, Winnipeg area teams had won nine Canadian championships, with the last captured by the Winnipeg Monarchs in 1946. When Flin Flon made its first Memorial Cup playoff appearance in 1957 and went on to win the Canadian title, the Bombers did not play the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL) champions along the way. The Monarchs had lost a Western semi-final in eight games to Fort William Canadiens.

The spring of 1959 saw the first major confrontation between Winnipeg and Flin Flon. Led by Sir John Franklin Community Club product Cliff Pennington, who had set a SJHL scoring record, the Bombers cruised through the season and met the Winnipeg Braves in the Western final.

Flin Flon was heavily favoured and won the first two games, but the Braves outskated and outchecked the northerners en route to four straight victories. Flin Flon product Ernie Wakely starred in the Winnipeg net in the clinching 3-1 win. Underdogs once again in the Memorial Cup final against Peterborough Petes, Braves prevailed in six games. Leading the way was the L line of Bobby Leiter, Laurie Langrell and Al LeBlanc (who died in Calgary just this past January).

In 1966-67 when Flin Flon left the SJHL to join the MJHL, scoring champion Bobby Clarke led the Bombers to first place. After eliminating the Monarchs and the Brandon Wheat Kings in the playoffs, Flin Flon lost the Western semi-final to Port Arthur Marrs. The next season the Wheat Kings, Bombers and a new Winnipeg team called the Jets entered the Western Canada Junior Hockey League.
A strong rivalry was established between the Bombers and Jets. Of the 49,000 fans who watched the Jets for 30 home games, more than 10,000 were there for four battles with the Bombers. In the standings, the Bombers finished first and the Jets were sixth. Estevan Bruins eliminated the Jets in the quarter-final and then beat Flin Flon in the league final.

Junior fans from the day will remember the intensity when the clubs met in the playoffs the next two seasons.

In 1968-69, Bombers won the series 4-2 with one game tied. Clarke, Reggie Leach, who had been out four months with a shoulder separation, and goalie Ray Martyniuk sparked the way. In the spring of 1970, the teams clashed in a best-of-nine East Division final. Over the first six games, it was like two different series. In Flin Flon, the antagonistic Bombers, who that season had 10 players with more than 100 minutes in penalties, won 7-3 and 6-1. At the Winnipeg Arena in front of a crowd of 9,000, Jets won 3-1 and tied the series with a 7-2 victory. Back in the Whitney Forum in a game highlighted by 218 minutes in penalties, the Bombers fought to a 4-1 win despite serving 20 minors, five majors, five misconducts and two game misconducts.

In Winnipeg, where the Jets won game six 7-3, the hometown fans may have affected  the emotional Martyniuk with their chants of “Marty, Marty” as he was chased from his net partway through the second period. (It also happened in Game 4).

The Jets had never won a playoff game in Flin Flon and their coach, Nick Mickoski, had them reading the book, The Power of Positive Thinking, on the trip north for game seven. But the Bombers edged the Jets 5-4.   

The rollercoaster ride continued in Winnipeg, when the Jets put seven past Marty in the first 30 minutes en route to a 10-1 win that forced a ninth game back in Flin Flon.

The record crowd of 2,617 jammed into the Whitney Forum saw the Bombers finally finish it off with 6-2 win. A highlight for Marty, who that year was drafted fifth overall by the Montreal Canadiens, came when Jet Wayne Chernecki lost his helmet near the net and the goalie picked it up and threw it into the stands. The loss was the final junior game for Jets stars Chris Oddleifson, Brian Cadle, Jim Hargreaves, Bill Mikkelson, Milt Black and Henry Boucha.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com