Saturday, April 20, 2019

2007-08 Regular Season






When Scott Drayton left Kansas City after nearly two decades as the face of the Twisters, most believed his best years were behind him. Entering his second season as a member of the Long Island Concordes, Drayton was largely viewed as a valuable veteran presence and a key mentor to young star defenseman Nathan Webb. Nobody expected the 37-year-old to have the most productive season of his career. Drayton led all defensemen in points in 2007-08 with 96, making him the first defenseman ever to lead the Concordes in scoring. Despite Drayton’s efforts, Long Island stumbled out of the gate, losing eight out of ten to start the year. In November, the team acquired two veterans who would both help turn things around. Tory Partridge came in a deal with Vancouver, while veteran goaltender Scott Morrison was acquired from Winnipeg to help first-year starter James Gurmett with the workload. Long Island strung together two ten-game winning streaks after Christmas and were easily the league’s best team in the second half, finishing first in the East and second overall.

The Eastern Conference was dominated by the Atlantic Division, with Philadelphia and Boston rounding out the top three. It was the second year in a row that the Conference was led by the “Big Three”. Philadelphia enjoyed a strong year from their captain, Jared Baxter, as well as solid goaltending from the tandem of Luke Bowers and Pierre Noel. Meanwhile, the defending champions in Boston never lost a step, taking second place with Brendan Marlo claiming the Cleveland Cup with 113 points. The rivalry between the two teams was also renewed in late 2007. On December 16, the teams met in Philadelphia where Redshirts’ agitator Sean Nowakowski delivered a vicious elbow to Jordan McLean. Several scrums ensued but little beyond that. Nowakowski was suspended five games and would return to the ice on January 2, the rematch in Boston. The sold out Globebank Arena booed Nowakowski mercilessly. In the second period, enforcer Brayden McPherson grabbed Nowakowski and the two went toe-to-toe by the Bulldogs’ bench. Several other fights broke out before the game was over in the stands as well as on the ice. “It was a gong show, an embarrassment” said Redshirts’ coach Clint Allen. “What a ridiculous thing to say” responded Bulldogs’ coach Maxime St-Beaudoin. “His goon started the whole thing back in December with that elbow.” The teams played one last game in April, where things took a dark turn. Nowakowski fought Boston enforcer Chris Woods and beat him decisively, humiliating him. Towards the end of the game, Woods retaliated with a horrific slash to the face of Nowakowski, leaving the 25-year-old with a concussion and a shattered jaw. Woods was suspended 40 games for the incident, the longest suspension in PHL history.

The Chris Woods incident was a black mark on the league and the game, but it failed to take attention away from the intense playoff race between Detroit and Houston. The sophomore curse never affected Nathan Sibley, who scored 43 goals for the Mustangs as they looked to return to the post-season. Meanwhile, Houston had struggled all season with Petr Kaleek out with a knee injury. Kaleek returned just in time for the Roughnecks to make a push. A win over Washington, as well as a Cleveland loss to Toronto gave the Generals an opportunity to get into the playoffs on the season’s final weekend. Washington beat Carolina, putting them in the final playoff spot. But Detroit beat Toronto the following night to clinch the final spot. It was a disappointing end for the Roughnecks, who had hoped to make some progress. For Detroit, making the playoffs was an important step for a young team. Sibley. Dominik Musil, and rookie defenseman Jordan Billings had taken Motor City by storm and now they had a chance to make a run for the Lewis Cup.
The Western Conference was dominated once again by the Milwaukee Choppers. The Chops took first overall for the third straight season and first in the West for the fourth straight season with Brad McNair finishing second in league scoring. The Oakland Nuggets won the Pacific for the first time in a decade thanks to a big 92-point year from Justin Ramsey, while goaltender Travis Sweet took home the Whyte Trophy as the league’s top goaltender for the second time in his three-year career. In Edmonton, the Northern Lights overcame a tough season for Kris Nazarenko to finish fourth in the West with Brendan Carnes scoring 44 points in what would be his final PHL season. In St. Louis, the Spirits, led by a 46-goal effort from Tobias Grunberg, finally returned to the post-season for the first time in ten years.

The Calgary Wranglers played the 2007-08 season surrounded by uncertainty. The team’s home arena, the Calgary Exhibition, had failed multiple inspections and was slated to be demolished at season’s end. The club was to move into the smaller but newer Beltline Arena for ’08-09, but the 10,000-seat venue would not cut it for much longer than that. Speculation about the Wranglers’ future swirled while the distracted team plummeted to last place in the Western Conference. In December, things hit a new low when head coach Ron Nichols quit in the middle of a game. Assistant coach and former Wrangler Gary Fox took over and the following day the team made him the new head coach. Things went from bad to worse by season’s end, when the City of Calgary decided through a vote that it could not use taxpayer money to pay for a new building, a private investor would need to step up for at least half. As the season finale and final game at the Exhibition against Edmonton wound down, the crowd began to loudly chant “Save our Wranglers!” In the crowd that night was rodeo legend Rick “Rippin’ Ricky” Adkins. Adkins was a world champion bull rider from Texas who had settled in Calgary after his retirement to pursue various business ventures. Adkins played a key role in the Calgary Stampede, held every year at the Exhibition. Now organizers of the event were scrambling to secure a new home, just like the Wranglers. Two weeks after the end of the regular season, Adkins was joined by former Wranglers stars Don Taylor and Shannon Michaels both successful businessmen since their playing days, to announce that the “Cowtown Three” as they were nicknamed were going to make an attempt to buy the franchise and help fund a new arena. It seemed like a longshot, the group needed to find more money. Altogether, the trio was worth about $800 Million, not near enough to buy even the Wranglers, the PHL’s lowest valued franchise. Other investors soon jumped on board and the hope was that the big names spearheading the campaign would draw a big lead investor over the summer. A city of desperate hockey fans held their breath.

One big name that the Wranglers organization hoped to bring aboard, along with every other team in the league, was 18-year-old Erik Camden. Camden spent 2007-08 tearing up the Ontario Junior League, scoring an unbelievable 124 goals in 64 games for the Guelph Royals, who lost just six times all season. Camden wasn’t even being compared to past PHL greats, he was projected to be better than all of them. Montreal was the front-runner for the new-look draft lottery, with Calgary and Kansas City not far behind. In the end, ten teams qualified for the lottery, with the winner to be revealed just prior to the playoffs. “This could be one of the most significant moments in league history” said one columnist of the lottery. “The future of possibly the greatest prospect in this league’s history is about to be determined.”

On March 29th, 2008, the Chicago Shamrocks set a mark unlikely to ever be matched when they clinched a playoff spot for the 40th consecutive season. The last time Chicago missed the playoffs, Lyndon Johnson was president, the Vietnam War was at its peak, and Neil Armstrong had yet to set foot on the moon. Even more impressive, the Shamrocks had yet to miss the playoffs in the PHL’s post-merger era, and not one player on the team’s roster was alive yet the last time their team enjoyed an early spring. Jonathan Wheatley won league MVP honours for the first time in his career. Wheatley was third in league scoring but finished first in team scoring with 104 points, 46 more than runner-up Vladimir Kozakov. Corey Clark finished second in Cooper Award voting for the league’s top defenseman, and Kari Nurminen enjoyed a stellar season in net. The Shamrocks entered the playoffs as a serious threat to claim the Lewis Cup, just as their owner, 82-year-old Fred Garfield Jr. was handing the reins over to his son, Richard. Richard Garfield was just thirteen years old when the Shamrocks’ incredible streak began. Now he was tasked with running the most successful sports franchise in history, and it would all begin with an opening round date with one of hockey’s newest franchises, the hard-hitting Portland Cascades.





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