It is time to let your imagination run wild for a few minutes. OK?
Just imagine that NHL teams only carried one goaltender. And let’s imagine that one team’s goaltender was injured during a pre-game warmup, played the first two periods, but then couldn’t continue.
If that team was the Pittsburgh Penguins, would Sidney Crosby go in goal for the third period? If it was the Edmonton Oilers, would it be Connor McDavid?
Because that’s exactly what happened with the Estevan Bruins during a game in 1967-68, the second season of what is now the WHL.
I had never heard this story from the annals of WHL history until stumbling on it while doing some research on Saturday.
I was looking for a goaltender, any goaltender, who might have started his WHL career by going 20-plus games without a regulation-time loss.
The Bruins — Scotty Munro was the general manager and Ernie (Punch) McLean the coach — had opened the 1967-68 season with a 22-game winning streak, so I started there.
Gord Kopp was Estevan’s goaltender — teams only carried one goaltender — so he had opened the season with 22 straight victories.
Unfortunately, WHL statistics from the early seasons are embarrassingly scarce. So I was relying on newspapers.com where a subscriber is able to access a whole lot of newspapers, including the Brandon Sun, Edmonton Journal and Regina Leader-Post.
Through these newspapers, I was able to ascertain that the Bruins won their 22nd straight game on Dec. 10, 1967, beating the host Swift Current Broncos, 9-6.
However, Kopp was injured in the warmup, suffering a broken nose and a bad facial cut. I think it’s safe to assume that Kopp took a puck to the face. I don’t know whether he wore a mask with the Bruins, although I did find a photo of him wearing one of those form-fitting Fibreglas masks from a time in his brief minor pro career.
Anyway, he played the first two periods in Swift Current before apparently deciding that he couldn’t continue.
This is where things get interesting because it was F Jim Harrison, perhaps the Bruins’ best player, who donned the pads and played the third period. Not only that, but Harrison had scored three goals through 40 minutes. While I wasn’t able to find out how many saves he made in the third, the Bruins did hold period leads of 5-3 and 7-3. So the Broncos outscored the visitors 3-2 with Harrison in goal.
(Harrison finished that season with 75 points, including 32 goals, in 46 games. F Gregg Sheppard led the team with 81 points, 35 of them goals, in 58 games.)
But when is the last time a WHL player — or any junior player for that matter — had a hat trick and played goal in the same game?
Still, the Bruins came out of that game boasting a 22-0-0 record.
And then came Dec. 12, 1967, and a game in Saskatoon against the Blades.
“You have to concede the Bruins win No. 23 tonight when they take on the Blades in Saskatoon,” wrote Ron Campbell in that day’s Regina Leader-Post.
With Kopp unavailable, the Bruins brought in Ed Dyck, who had turned 17 on Oct. 29, from the junior B North Battleford Beaver-Bruins. With Dyck in goal, the Bruins dropped a 4-3 decision to the Blades before 1,410 fans.
Estevan took a 2-0 lead on first-period goals from Harrison and D Dale Hoganson, but F Orest Kindrachuk got the Blades to within one before the period ended. F Ron Fairbrother pulled Saskatoon into a 2-2 tie with the only goal of the second period, then gave his guys a 3-2 lead at 5:46 of the third.
F Greg Polis scored for Estevan at 6:18, only to have F Jim Nicholls score what proved to be the winner, at 10:59, as the Blades improved to 7-12-3.
“Those Blades played a whale of game,” Munro told Jack Cook of the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. “We were bound to lose one eventually, and I’m glad we didn’t give it away. Blades were good enough to take it tonight.”
BTW, Cook reported that “there was no shortage of professional scouts at the game with five NHL clubs represented by nine men . . . including Dennis Ball, Danny Summers, Lorne Davis, Metro Prystai, Johnny Walker, Bud Quinn and Rudy Migay.”)
Cook also wrote: “Young Dyck, playing in his first junior A game, was remarkably calm and had little chance on the four shots that beat him.”
Dyck played four straight games with the Bruins. He beat the Oil Kings, 5-3, in Edmonton on Dec. 13, then dropped a 2-1 decision to the Buffaloes in Calgary the next night. (The Buffaloes had been 0-17-2 in their previous 19 outings.) On Dec. 16, Dyck beat the visiting Buffaloes, 7-4.
Dyck would go on to a couple of stellar seasons with the Calgary Centennials, and would spend three seasons in the NHL and one in the WHA.
Kopp returned for a Dec. 17 game against the visiting Brandon Wheat Kings, and stopped 23 shots in a 5-0 victory for his 23rd straight triumph.
However, Kopp’s run ended four nights later with a 4-1 loss in Brandon. The Wheat Kings outshot the Bruins, 28-20 in that one, as Brandon head coach Elliott Chorley chose to use only six forwards and four defencemen for most of the game. Yes, it was a different game in those days.
Chorley had Larry Romanchych between Jack Wells and Bob Young, although Young was injured early on and Gerald Canart slid into that spot. The other forward unit featured Jack Borotsik between Ray Brownlee and Bob Clyne, who scored twice. The defence pairings had Bill Mikkelson with Mark Kennedy, and Jack Criel with Jim Wilton.
At that point, the Bruins were 25-3, with Kopp at 23-1 and Dyck at 2-2.
In the end, however, it turned out that Kopp didn’t start his WHL career in 1967-68. As I learned with more digging, Kopp played some in 1966-67 when Prince George native Pete Neukomm was the Bruins’ starter. (Kopp actually lost his final appearance of 1966-67, 3-2, to the visiting Regina Pats.)
All told, Kopp got into 103 games with Estevan over the 1967-68 (55) and 1968-69 (48) seasons. In 1967-68, he played in 55 of the team’s 60 regular-season games, with a 2.76 GAA, .902 save percentage and six shutouts. He was 3.33 and .900 without a shutout in 1968-69. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any statistics from 1966-67.
——
All of this was necessary because the WHL wasn’t able to confirm whether G 
Daniel Hauser of the Winnipeg Ice had set a record or was near a record when he went into Saturday’s game in Saskatoon with a career mark of 22-0-2.
Hauser, who turned 18 on Jan. 29, was 7-0-1 with Winnipeg in the development season of 2021. This season, he was 13-0-1 before the Blades beat the Ice, 7-2, on Saturday night.
It would seem that Hauser does indeed hold the record for longest unbeaten streak by a goaltender to begin his WHL career, at 22-0-2. Perry Bergson of the Brandon Sun pointed out that Scott Olson, a native of Bloomington, Minn., who spent parts of three seasons (1977-80) with the Wheat Kings, started his career on a 15-0-3 run. We will assume, unless we hear differently, that Olson held the record before Hauser’s arrival.
The 5-foot-11, 160-pound Hauser, from Chestermere, Alta., was a sixth-round selection by Winnipeg in the WHL’s 2019 draft.
——
When you go down a rabbit hole like I did in chasing Gord Kopp and the Estevan Bruins, you stumble on things like this . . .
The Bruins beat the visiting Weyburn Red Wings, 5-1, for their 20th straight victory on Dec. 5. The next day, The Leader-Post reported: “The Bruins moved one step closer to the all-time junior hockey win streak mark set at 25 by the now-defunct Portage Terriers of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in 1942.”
Of course, the Bruins didn’t quite get there.
Tweet of the week — Sunaya Sapurji (@sunayas), after Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers repeated the nonsense about the validity of U.S. President Joe Biden’s election victory in a Friday interview with ESPN: “Has anyone gone from ‘He could host Jeopardy!’ to ‘Legit horse paste conspiracy loon’ faster than Aaron Rodgers!?!”
John Stockton, the NBA Hall of Fame guard who starred at Gonzaga, has had his season tickets suspended by the school because he refuses to wear a mask at men’s basketball games. In an interview, Stockton, a devout anti-vaxxer, told Theo Lawson of the Spokane Spokesman-Review: “I think it’s highly recorded now, there’s 150 I believe now, it’s over 100 professional athletes dead — professional athletes — the prime of their life, dropping dead that are vaccinated, right on the pitch, right on the field, right on the court.” . . . Lawson also wrote: “During the interview, Stockton asserted that more than 100 professional athletes have died of vaccination. He also said tens of thousands of people – perhaps millions – have died from vaccines.” . . . Yes, we are in this for a long time yet.
Dwight Perry, in the Seattle Times: “Robot umpires — or ABS, the Automated Ball and Strike System — will be used in Triple-A games this season, Major League Baseball announced. So now players will be subjected to a whole different kind of annoying robocalls.”
——
A reminder from Perry: “Only 22 days till pitchers and catchers don’t report.”
The Fredonia State Blue Devils are an NCAA Division III team that plays out of the State University of New York in Fredonia. . . . And here’s a goalie goal from the Blue Devils’ Logan Dyck, a 22-year-old from Calgary . . .
Headline at fark.com: Seahawks uninstall Norton.
If you are interested in being a living kidney donor, more information is available here:
Living Kidney Donor Program
St. Paul’s Hospital
6A Providence Building
1081 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1Y6
Tel: 604-806-9027
Toll free: 1-877-922-9822
Fax: 604-806-9873
Email: donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca
——
Vancouver General Hospital Living Donor Program – Kidney
Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre
Level 5, 2775 Laurel Street
Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9
604-875-5182 or 1-855-875-5182
kidneydonornurse@vch.ca
——
Or, for more information, visit right here.
and Kelowna Rockets on pause “as a result of multiple players and staff being added” to the protocol list “due to exhibiting symptoms or having tested positive for COVID-19.” . . . This means that the league has had 20 of its 22 teams pause all activities at one time or another since Dec. 30. . . . I had written that the only team not to have had to pause was the Seattle Thunderbirds, but Nick Marek, Portland’s media relations and broadcast manager, points out that the Winterhawks haven’t been paused, either. . . . 
Saddledome — with the NHL’s Flames and the NLL’s Roughnecks. So it’s not always easily to reschedule games. . . . That has resulted in the Hitmen moving two rescheduled games to the Seven Chiefs Sportsplex on Tsuut’ina Nation. That is the same facility in which the Hitmen played during the 2021 development season. . . . The Hitmen will play the Moose Jaw Warriors there on Feb. 16 and the Winnipeg Ice on Feb. 18.
to COVID-19 having found its way into the organization. They were headed into a stretch of schedule that called for them to play four games in five days, so those games, through Jan. 25, have been postponed. . . . Battlefords is at least the ninth of the SJHL’s 12 teams to have had to pause team activities since Jan. 4. As of Thursday night, the Notre Dame Hounds also were on pause. . . . The SJHL has a terrific chronology of pauses and postponed/rescheduled games 
exhibiting symptoms or having tested positive.”
all team activities are paused immediately. The entire team completes one round of PCR testing and isolates until the results are received and the WHL Chief Medical Officer is made aware of the situation. The WHL, in consultation with its Chief Medical Officer, treats each situation as unique. As such, the WHL Chief Medical Officer reviews all positive test results and scenarios on a case-by-case basis, factoring in a number of variables, including travel, recent schedule, and potential exposures that may have occurred.”
Let’s take a look at the Brandon Wheat Kings’ upcoming schedule. . . . The Wheat Kings are one of seven teams not have had to pause team activities. But that doesn’t mean that won’t be impacted. . . . First, they were to have entertained the Calgary Hitmen last night (Friday), but that game was postponed because of the attendance restrictions imposed by the Manitoba government. . . . In the coming week, the Wheat Kings are scheduled to venture into Alberta for four games in five nights. But all four opponents — Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Edmonton and Calgary — have been shut down by the WHL as part of their protocols. . . . After that road trip, the Wheat Kings next games are scheduled for home ice, against the Regina Pats on Jan. 21 and Jan. 22. But what if the provincial government hasn’t lifted its restrictions by that time? . . . And so it goes. . . . One would assume that the Wheat Kings have a few uncertain days ahead of them as they and so many others wait to see if/how this all sorts itself out. . . . The Wheat Kings also were planning a reunion of the 1978-79 WHL championship team and had hoped to hold it on the Feb. 4 weekend. The reunion was postponed on Friday, and the organization now is looking to hold it at some point during the 2022-23 season.
Game 4, seven men held a meeting to discuss an alleged sexual assault that had occurred one of the two previous days. The incident involved video coach Brad Aldrich and Kyle Beach, one of the Black Aces.
with the team after being away following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. He will be taking another leave in December as he undergoes surgery.
scoring three third-period goals in a 3-1 victory. . . . F Connor McClennon (10) gave the Ice a 1-0 first-period lead. . . . F Dylan Guenther (4) tied it at 3:28 of the third, and F Carson Latimer (5) broke the tie at 11:42. F Jaxsen Wiebe (2) added the empty-netter. . . . The Oil Kings (7-2-1) have won three in a row. They also have posted 10 straight victories against the Ice. . . . The Ice (11-1-0) had won its first 11 games. The 1988-89 Swift Current Broncos hold the WHL record for longest winning streak to open a season (12). . . . The Ice and Oil Kings were ranked second and third, respectively, in the CHL’s weekly release. The No. 1-ranked Quebec Remparts (9-2-0) lost, 2-1, to the visiting Shawinigan Cataractes on Thursday. . . .
Silvertips, 4-3, in a shootout. . . . G Dante Gianuzzi stopped 36 shots for Portland (4-5-1), which had lost three straight. . . . Everett (6-0-1) had a 7-0 edge in OT shots. Silvertips Color Guy (@TipsATG) tweeted that Everett hit three crossbars in OT. . . . The Silvertips scored three first-period goals, two via the PP. . . . D Clay Hanus (3) pulled Portland into a tie at 18:37 of the third period. . . . Portland’s first two goals also came via the PP. . . . F Cross Hanas, the first shooter, scored the lone goal of the shootout. . . . 
added a shootout goal as the Brandon Wheat Kings beat the Raiders, 5-4. . . . G Ethan Kruger, who had been out of Brandon’s lineup since being injured on Oct. 9, stopped 33 shots. . . . Hyland’s first career three-point game came in his 33rd outing over three seasons. He has a goal and four assists in seven games this season. . . . The Wheat Kings (5-6-0) had lost their previous three games. . . . The Raiders (2-7-1), who have lost three in a row, got three assists from D Kaiden Guhle. . . . D Remy Aquilon scored his first two goals of the season for Prince Albert. . . . Hyland and F Tyson Zimmer scored shootout goals for Brandon, with Guhle doing the same for the Raiders. . . . Darren Steinke, the travelling blogger, was on hand and posted this story 
allowed, when they met the Cougars in Prince George on Saturday night. When the teams played again on Sunday afternoon, the Royals, playing their fourth game in six days, were down to 13 skaters, including only eight forwards. . . . You are free to wonder at what point this becomes a safety issue for the players who are in the lineup. . . . 
Wednesday night. The WHL now is admitting that Brandon’s second goal, which gave it a 2-1 lead, developed after an off-side play.
as the Blades dropped the Medicine Hat Tigers, 4-0. . . . Maier (3-1-1, 3.12, .893) had shared the shutout record with Andrei Makarov (115 games, 2011-13). Maier, who has played in 161 games, already holds the franchise record for regular-season victories by a goaltender (94). . . . The Blades (3-1-1) got three assists from F Tristen Robins — one each via PP, shorthanded and even strength — as he enjoyed his fourth straight multi-point game. He has a WHL-leading 11 points, including a league-high nine assists, in four games. . . . F Kyle Crnkovic (5) scored twice. . . . The Tigers are 2-3-0. . . . Darren Steinke was in attendance and the report he posted to his blog is 
in the third period and then scored in OT to beat the Seattle Thunderbirds, 5-4. . . . F Alex Swetlikoff (2) pulled Everett (3-0-0) into a tie at 14:10 of the third and F Ben Hammering (2) won it at 2:11 of OT. . . . Hemmerling finished with two goals and two assists. . . . Seattle (2-1-1) lost F Lucas Ciona with a charging major at 13:49 of the second period after he ran into Everett G Braden Holt. Everett scored once on the ensuing PP, F Austin Roest (1) pulling it into a 3-3 tie. . . . The rivalry resumes tonight in Everett. . . .
the title chase this season, it ended on Wednesday afternoon when they cut a deal with the Calgary Hitmen. Yes, the Oil Kings, the CHL’s top-ranked team, are all-in. . . . The Oil Kings (3-1-1) acquired D Luke Prokop, the first player in junior hockey history to come out as gay, from the Hitmen (1-2-0) in exchange for D Blake Heward, D Keagan Slaney, a second-round selection in the WHL’s 2022 draft and a conditional fourth-rounder in 2024. . . .
Airdrie, Alta., he was the 20th overall pick in the WHL’s 2018 draft. . . . Heward, from Regina, is the son of former WHL/NHL D Jamie Heward, who now is an assistant coach with the AHL’s Henderson, Nev., Silver Knights. Blake, a seventh-round pick by the Swift Current Broncos in the WHL’s 2018 draft, has three assists in 23 games with the Oil Kings. . . .
Lafleur. The ceremony will take place on Oct. 28 in Quebec City as the Remparts play host to the Shawinigan Cataractes. . . . From a QMJHL news release: “Lafleur was elected the league’s all-time greatest player as determined by a panel of experts during the 50th anniversary season celebrations, just ahead of the great Mario Lemieux. The Outaouais native played two seasons with the Quebec Remparts from 1969 to 1971, collecting 233 goals and 146 assists in 118 games. On Feb. 5, 1971, he became the only QMJHL player to score five goals in a single period. He finished that game with 11 points. The “Démon Blond” also led the 1971 Remparts to a Memorial Cup championship, the first of 13 national championships for the QMJHL.” . . . The Guy Lafleur Trophy is awarded to the most valuable player in the QMJHL playoffs. . . . Lafleur was among the first players inducted into the QMJHL Hall of Fame in 1997. . . . If you’re wondering, the QMJHL has had this on its agenda for a while now, but the pandemic kept getting in the way.
was the backup goaltender for a pair of weekend games against the visiting Val-d’Or Foreurs. The Olympiques brought Gascon, 18, in from the Saint-Laurent Patriotes of the Quebec Collegiate Hockey League.
on Saturday — but there aren’t any scheduled today (Monday), which is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada. . . . Here’s a look at Sunday’s games . . .
Tuesday, F Zac Rinaldo’s name was nowhere to be found even though they had signed him as a free agent to a two-way contract last month — US$750,000 in the NHL, $275,000 in the AHL. . . . John Davidson, the Blue Jackets’ president of hockey operations, explained that Rinaldo “is not vaccinated and because of that — and that’s his decision — the plan is to start him in the American Hockey League and he will not be coming to our training camp.” . . . And wouldn’t you love to know what the other players in the Cleveland Monsters’ camp think about that? . . . Rinaldo, 31, was pointless in five games with the Calgary Flames last season. . . . Davidson also said: “When you read the amount of players, the percentage that have been vaccinated, it’s a big, big number. There’s very few who aren’t, and that’s their own personal choice. I’m not going to sit here and tell them what to do, even though I’d like to see the whole world get vaccinated. My daughter’s a doctor. She believes in this, and I believe in her because she’s a whole lot smarter than I am. I’d like to see the whole world get vaccinated. We have a responsibility as the leaders of the organization. We want our people vaccinated. We want them wearing masks as much as possible.” . . . Earlier this month, the Blue Jackets dumped assistant coach Sylvain Lefebvre after he chose not to get vaccinated. . . . It’s interesting, too, that the Blue Jackets’ training camp is presented by Ohio Health, which bills itself as “a family of not-for-profit, faith-based hospitals & healthcare organizations.” . . . 
per cent of the Seattle Kraken’s players are fully vaccinated “even though general manager Ron Francis said he wasn’t authorized to comment.” . . . In an interesting piece, Baker writes: “Given our city’s dark history with pandemics and hockey, it’s a relief to see Kraken players aren’t testing the resolve of both the team and most of the local community. With the 1919 Stanley Cup final in Seattle still the lone major sports championship ever canceled by a pandemic that also killed some players and maybe coaches as well, it’s good to see the league and Players’ Association getting tough about vaccine compliance.” . . . Baker’s piece, which is well worth a read, is 
TAKING NOTE 