When the Warriors won the nation

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This article was published 09/05/2016 (3671 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For Winnipeg hockey fans, the spring of 1956 was much better than the spring of 2016.

That year their professional team made the playoffs. The pro game had returned to the city for the 1955-56 season with a Western Hockey League franchise owned by the Perrin family. The team was named Warriors and the new Winnipeg Arena was its home. Winnipeg-born Alf Pike, who had played in the NHL for the New York Rangers, was hired to coach.

Stocked through working agreements with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens, the lineup had a nice mix of local talent and NHL prospects. General manager Jack Perrin purchased veteran AHL defenceman Danny Summers from Eddie Shore to complete an all-Winnipeg defence with captain Fred Shero, Mickey Keating and Bill Burega. Forward Eddie (Spider) Mazur was sent home by the Canadiens as was former St. Boniface junior Gary (Boomer) Blaine, who played 40 games with the Warriors before Montreal moved him back east to the Quebec League. Montreal also provided Regina’s Paul Masnick, who had played parts of five seasons with the NHL club.

Before the season began, Toronto shipped goalie Ed Chadwick west along with young forwards Barry and Brian Cullen, Hugh Barlow, Mike Nykoluk and Winnipeg’s Gary Aldcorn. The first three were linemates on the 1954 Canadian junior champion St. Catharines TeePees. Nykoluk and Aldcorn played for the 1955 Memorial Cup champion Toronto Marlboros.

That year was a good one for Aldcorn as he also played lacrosse for the Manitoba junior all-star team that represented the West in the Canadian final and baseball for Columbus Club in the Winnipeg junior league. On April 23 of this year, he was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame as a hockey and lacrosse athlete.

After the Warriors lost 5-2 to the Calgary Stampeders on Oct. 18 in the first game at the arena, two important components were added. The Chicago Black Hawks wanted to ship veteran winger Bill Mosienko to Calgary but he refused to report. Mosie had kept in shape skating at the Olympic Rink near his Main Street bowling alley and an arrangement was made for him to play at home. Montreal sent centre Skippy Burchell, who had tallied 150 points the previous two seasons for the Montreal Royals of the Quebec League. Later, Winnipeg product Cec Hoekstra came from the Royals and Flin Flon-born Eric Nesterenko directly from the Leafs in time to play 20-plus regular-season games.   

All that talent came through as Winnipeg edged Calgary by two points to win the Prairie Division. In the playoffs, the Warriors knocked off Saskatoon and Calgary, which set up a league final against the Coast Division champion Vancouver Canucks. In B.C., the teams split the first four games of the best-of-seven series, Back in the arena, the Warriors won the WHL championship with 4-0 and 6-3 victories. But the season wasn’t over, as Winnipeg had to play Montreal Royals in a best-of-nine series for the Canadian minor pro championship. The Western champions won the Edinburgh Trophy in six games losing only game two in Edmonton, 5-4 in overtime. On May 3, 1956, a record Winnipeg Arena crowd of 10,072 saw Mosienko score twice and Masnick once in the final 3-1 victory.

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