1975-76 Regular Season

The PHL entered the 1975-76 season mourning the loss of it's all-time greatest player, Skippy Cleveland. The former New York Civic and Calgary Wrangler had been killed the previous spring in a car accident. Both New York and Calgary paid tribute to their former legend with patches honoring him on their uniforms. Skippy's death motivated the defending champion Civics to a first-place finish in the Atlantic Division. The season saw several shifts in power in the PHL. The Detroit Mustangs were finally handed the bill for their dynasty, dropping out of the playoff picture entirely for the first time since 1960. A 42-goal season from Kirk Saunders was the lone bright spot for the Mustangs, who struggled to find chemistry after a large wave of retirements following Detroit's last Cup victory in 1974. The Philadelphia Redshirts enjoyed their first 100 point season, as their fans once again dared to believe that this could be their year. The Redshirts once again found themselves caught up in their rivalry with the hated Boston Bulldogs. On January 1, 1976, the Redshirts and Bulldogs engage in a brawl, much like the one in 1973, this time in Philadelphia. The brawl was spurred by a vicious elbow from Boston rookie Casey Oaks on Philadelphia's Kurt Hopkins. The battle culminated in a big fight at center ice between Philly's Mark Dent and Boston captain Johnny Bedford. Boston would return to the playoffs in 1976 on the strength of strong goaltending from Ricky Spooner, who took home the Whyte Trophy as the league's top goalie.

Boston vs Philadelphia was not the only rivalry to boil over in 1976. The battle of Quebec exploded on January 30, when Montreal defenseman Martin Gilbert delivered a devastating hit on Quebec's Denis Lambert. Lambert only missed three games but two nights after the hit, the benches cleared. Quebec tough guy Paul Ryan went after Gilbert, knocking him out cold with a sucker punch. Ryan then went on to take down two Royale players at once while goalies Jean-Claude Richard of Montreal and Andy Poole from the Nationale squared off at center ice.  Things were finally cleared up and the game was allowed to continue, resulting in a 5-2 Montreal win. Minnesota once again dominated the Western Conference with a club record 58 wins. Guy Dupont led the way for the Lumberjacks, winning the league scoring title. LA also enjoyed their best season yet, winning 55 games to claim the Pacific Division. The division title was unexpected, as Ray Fowler, the MVP from the previous season, suffered an ankle injury in December, keeping him out of the lineup for two months. Sheldong Hopkins picked up the slack for Fowler, scoring a career best 53 goals while Holly scored 56, the first time in PHL history that two players from the same team scored 50 goals in a year. David Appleby and the St. Louis Spirits finally reached the playoffs in 1976, with Appleby scoring 55 goals in only his second season. Meanwhile Grant Millen finally blossomed in his third season with the Spirits, scoring 36 goals. In Toronto, the Racers took full advantage of the expanded 16-team format. Despite a difficult 30-win season, the Racers barely managed to edge out Detroit for the final spot. Both clubs had 66 points but Toronto managed to get in with more wins. As Toronto hung on to a 2-1 victory over the rival Ottawa Beavers on the last day of the season, the celebration spilled out of the Queen Elizabeth Arena and into downtown Toronto as the Racers were headed back to the post season.

1975 Off-Season

1975 Entry Draft

The 1975 PHL entry draft was another strong one. Bruce Gratton was the first selection, going to the Dallas Metros. Gratton led the Western junior League’s Edmonton Drillers in scoring two years in a row, leading them to a league title in 1975. Washington took center Jeff Leroy second. Leroy is a big center from Manitoba who led the WJHL’s Red Deer Cowboys to the league semifinals. Toronto took defenseman Doug Nichol third overall, hoping he would anchor the Racer blue line along with Todd Beirness. Pittsburgh selected speedy winger Dave Farris with the fourth pick. Farris is an American kid who moved to Toronto at age 12 and played hockey for the first time at age 15. In only three years, Farris went from a beginner in house league, to a dominant force in the Ontario Junior League. Vancouver finally got their much-coveted goaltender in Chris Withrow to round out the top 5 picks. Other interesting picks included Seattle’s Jake Fairbanks from Cornell University, the highest pick ever from a US college, while Denver selected the first-ever Finnish born player in PHL history, Jani Kaaleppi.

1.      Dallas – Bruce Gratton, F

2.      Washington – Jeff Leroy, F

3.      Toronto – Doug Nichol, D

4.      Pittsburgh – Dave Farris, F

5.      Vancouver – Chris Withrow, G

6.      Seattle – Jake Fairbanks, F

7.      Quebec – Etienne St. Laurent F

8.      St. Louis – Kevin Cummins F

9.      Winnipeg – Pascal Renaud G

10.   Boston – Casey Oaks F

11.   Calgary – Ron Borden F

12.   California – Jacques Lambert D

13.   Denver – Jani Kaaleppi F

14.   Detroit – Mike Rigby D

15.   Philadelphia – Kevin Whitmore F

16.   Nova Scotia – Darian Peeler D

17.   Montreal – Adam Olsen F

18.   Chicago – Rob Saskin F

19.   New York – Bryan Trask F

20.   LA – Trent Rawling D

21.   Ottawa – Rob Ashley F

22.   Minnesota – Doug Lindley F

Rule Changes:

The playoff format is expanded to 16 teams.

Retirements:

Doug West, D, Detroit, Winnipeg, Boston (1954-1975)

Doug West retires as one of the greatest defensemen of all time. West spent the first 12 seasons of his career with Detroit alongside his brother, Sam. Together, the West brothers helped lift the Mustangs from the league basement to their first Lewis Cup victory in 1963. In 1966, both West brothers left Detroit to join the expansion Winnipeg Pioneers. Doug was named the Pioneers’ captain, leading them to a division title in 1970 before moving on to Boston, where he helped the Bulldogs win the Lewis Cup in 1971. After three seasons in Boston, West returned to Detroit just in time for the tail-end of their dynasty, winning his third championship with the team he started with in 1974. He had planned to retire but returned for one last season with the Mustangs.

Bobby Cole, G, Detroit, 1960-1975

Bobby Cole’s career started slowly. He was recruited by the Detroit Mustangs at age 17 in 1953, but did not crack the lineup until the 1960-61 season when he was 24. Cole immediately made history in his debut on January 26, 1961 when he became the first goalie in PHL history to permanently wear a mask, which he had been wearing in the minors since suffering a serious concussion in 1958. Cole would win his debut and go on to backstop the Mustangs to a Lewis Cup title two years later. By decade’s end, Cole had developed into one of the best goaltenders ever to play the game. Between 1969 and 1974, Cole played a key part of a Detroit dynasty that saw the Mustangs win four Cups in six seasons.

Ben Williams, F, Quebec, 1955-1975

For two decades, Ben Williams was a fan-favorite in Quebec. When the Sarnia, ON native arrived in Quebec in 1955, he was one of the only non-Quebec born players on the Nationale roster. He soon won the fans over, however, with his hard-nosed play and scoring touch. Williams would team up with a young Gilbert Giroux during the early 1960s to lead Quebec to four Lewis Cups in six seasons, including three straight from 1960 to ’62.

Transactions

Detroit trades F Bjorn Rasmussen to St. Louis in exchange for F Dave Hughes.

Rasmussen joins his fourth team in his career to provide leadership for a young, rebuilding team, while Hughes joins a rebuilding Detroit team.

LA trades D Todd Clinton to Chicago in exchange for D Don Sims.

LA beefs up their blue line with veteran Don Sims while Chicago gets a solid young D-man in Hughes.

News

In the wake of Skippy Cleveland’s death, the New York Civics and Calgary Wranglers both announced they would honor him by retiring his number 3. The PHL however, had no plans to retire it league-wide, until Boston veteran Don Greer announced that he was switching to number 33. Greer encouraged every other number 3 in the league to change their number in honor of Skippy. The players happily complied. I’m proud and happy to give up number 3 in honor of Skippy Cleveland.” Said LA forward Jack Carson, who switched to number 6. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one number 3, and that’s Skippy Cleveland.”

In July, Alan Garcia revealed some details about the World Hockey Challenge. The tournament will take place in September, 1976 in Toronto and feature six countries, Canada, USA, Soviet Union, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. It will be a round-robin format with the top two teams facing each other in the final. Rosters will be revealed at the conclusion of the 1975-76 PHL regular season.

Vancouver Bighorns Reveal New Logo, Uniforms

One year after taking over control of the Vancouver Bighorns from his father, Donald Smythe unveiled a new look for his team. The Bighorns have been stuck in the league basement and decided to change their look in an effort to turn around their image. "We got to a point where we simply did not feel confident in really anything about our hockey club." said Smythe. "We feel we're making some positive changes and slowly moving in a good direction and the new logo is a great place to start." The Bighorns' new logo features a letter "V" with ram's horns on the top of it italicized to invoke speed. The uniforms are very similar to what Vancouver wore before, the biggest change is that the maroon is now a couple of shades darker.

In other news, one of the PHL's two newest franchises, based in Long Island, NY, announced they will be called the Long Island Concordes. The name Concordes was chosen as a tribute to Long Island's aviation history, while the team chose to go with the locator "Long Island" rather than "New York" to better identify with the community. No word yet on when a logo will be revealed.

Edmonton Awarded PHL Franchise

It's official, Edmonton, Alberta has been named the PHL's newest city after receiving the majority of votes from the PHL Expansion Committee. The Alberta capital has been seeking a franchise for over a decade and just narrowly missed out in the 1972 vote. "We are very excited to welcome the fine city of Edmonton to our league." said PHL President Alan Garcia. "We've had our eyes on Edmonton for quite some time. This is a first class hockey town and they're definitely ready." Fans in Edmonton celebrated in the streets all night after the announcement. "We're ecstatic right now, this city has waited a long time for a team of our own. I can't wait till we kick Calgary's butt!" said one excited fan. Edmonton will join Long Island as an expansion franchise to begin play in the 1976-77 season.

In other news, the Long Island franchise will reveal their name before the start of the 1975-76 season, while the Vancouver Bighorns will unveil a new logo and uniforms later in the off season.

1975 Lewis Cup Finals

The much-anticipated 1975 Lewis Cup Finals got underway in Los Angeles on May 15, 1975. Game one was the first-ever Lewis Cup Finals game to be played in the US sunbelt, where the Wizards were backed by a sellout crowd at Inglewood Colosseum. It seemed to help, as the Wizard skated to a pair of two-goal victories before heading to New York. It appeared that LA had control over the series, but the Civics managed to win a couple of close games at home to tie the series 2-2. Tragedy struck just hours before game 5 when the announcement came that Skippy Cleveland, arguably the greatest player in PHL history, was killed in a car accident just outside Calgary. The news hit the Civics hard, particularly head coach Frankie White, a close friend of Cleveland's who had played with the superstar for 14 years. In spite of the tragic news, the Civics turned in a valiant effort, keeping the game tied through two periods. As the third period began, New York began to run into penalty trouble. Defenseman Claude Clark was called for a cross-check on Ray Fowler with just 6 minutes remaining in the third. Fowler capitalized on the ensuing powerplay to give the Wizards a 3-2 lead. 4 minutes later, Sheldon Hopkins scored the emtpy-netter to seal the victory and a 3-2 series lead for LA. Back in the Big Apple for game 6, and with the Lewis Cup in the building, the Civics looked to their fallen legend for inspiration. Skippy Cleveland's old sweater was hung up behind the New York bench. Determined to honor Cleveland, the Civics jumped to an early 2-0 lead. Midway through the second period, Stuart Holly scored to bring the Wizards within one. At the end of the period, Gilbert Giroux tied the game. Entering the third period, LA had all the momentum, Gil Brady was forced to stand on his head for the first 6 minutes of the third period. About halfway through the period, Phil Halas engaged Roy Priest in a fight that would shift the momentum in New York's favour. 3 minutes later, Dave Tobin scored a big goal to give the Civics a 3-2 lead. With the clock winding down toward a game 7 back in LA, the New York crowd gave their team a standing ovation as the Civics' lead held up. Game 7 was May 26 in LA. The Civics once again had Skippy Cleveland's sweater behind the bench. LA's Brad Wolfe opened the scoring. Holly scored 3 minutes later to give the Wizards a 2-0 lead. Just 31 seconds later, Freddie Huff skated the puck the length of the ice and beat Dennis Carter glove side. Just 20 seconds into the second period, Phil Holmes tied the game. Huff scored again halfway through the period to give New York the lead before Kirk White potted the insurance marker less than a minute later. Fowler scored with 7 minutes remaining in the game to pull the Wizards within one. LA swarmed the New York net in the final minutes of the game, but Gil Brady met every challenge. Time finally ran out as the Civics poured off the bench and mobbed Brady. Freddie Huff donned Skippy Cleveland's sweater as he accepted the Lewis Cup from Alan Garcia while the New York fans who had made the trip to California joined their heroes on the ice. The Civics were Lewis Cup Champions for the first time in nearly two decades.

1975 Playoffs

As the 1975 playoffs got underway, one of the most intriguing stories involved the Detroit Mustangs and whether or not they could pull off the three-peat. Facing Montreal in the first round, the aging Mustangs quickly found themselves in a 3-1 hole. However, with the resilience that had gotten them four Lewis Cups in six seasons, they managed to take games 5 and 6 both in overtime with Kirk Saunders proving to be the hero in both contests. Game 7 would also go into OT, with Saunders even hitting the crossbar at one point. Ultimately, Royale winger Emmett Hudson netted the winner, propelling Montreal to the second round and likely putting an end to one of hockey's all-time greatest dynasties. In the West, the Denver Bulls and California Nuggets played a very dramatic series with Denver immediately taking a 3-0 series lead. Facing elimination in game 4,  rookie goaltender Yvon Tremblay stopped 47 shots, backstopping California to a 4-2 victory. In game 5, Tremblay would earn a shutout as the Nuggets continued to prolong the series. The Nuggets would win game 6 in dramatic fashion as Dennis Yates scored two goals including the OT winner to send the series to a seventh game. Game 7 was a hard-fought goaltending dual as both Tremblay and Bulls' netminder Jeff Muskew turned in a spectacular performance before Denver's Jack Dunn finally scored the winner halfway through the third period, giving the Bulls their first playoff series victory since 1951. In other first round action the Nova Scotia Claymores only managed 3 goals in their entire series with Philadelphia as the Redshirts swept the series 4-0, while Chicago took out Calgary in 5 games.

In the second round, 3 of the 4 series went the full 7 games, the exception being Ottawa and Philadelphia in which Ottawa defeated the Redshirts in 5. LA entered their series with Chicago as the heavy favorites. However, the gritty Shamrocks did not make it easy on the Wizards, keeping the series tight and ultimately forcing a game 7 which LA won on the strength of a Stuart Holly hat-trick. New York Civics had a lot of problems closing out the Montreal Royale. After taking a 3-1 series lead, the Civics were shut out in game 5, then lost in overtime in a game 6 in which they outshot Montreal 51-32. New York finally sealed the series in game 7 with a 3-1 victory. Minnesota's matchup with Denver was perhaps the most lopsided in the entire playoffs. though Denver had shown tremendous improvement in '74-'75, the fact remained that the Lumberjacks were a legitimate Cup contender who had finished 32 points ahead of Denver, a team that had just squeaked into the post-season. Right off the bat, the Bulls showed they clearly didn't care about the regular season standings or anyone's projections as they won game 1 in Minnesota and game 3 at home to take a 2-1 series lead. Minnesota would put them in their place in game 4, however, as Bobby Sorel turned away 36 shots while Guy Dupont, Todd Winslow, and Clint Allen each scored to give the 'Jacks a 3-1 victory to tie the series. After winning game 5 4-3, it appeared that Minnesota would once again snuff out the plucky Denver squad for the second straight year. However the Bulls, feeding off the energy from a rare sellout crowd, would take game 6 to force a deciding game back at Twin Cities Forum. After jumping to an early 2-0 lead, Minnesota looked to be in control. When Denver responded in the second period with a 3-goal explosion, Minnesota fans wondered if they were about to witness the biggest upset in PHL history. The sellout crowd breathed a huge sigh of relief when unlikely hero Kevin Jewett tied the game with 43 seconds left. Minnesota once again had all the momentum heading into overtime. Then, 15 seconds into the first OT, Brian Hunt blocked a Todd Winslow shot before beating Sorel on the ensuing breakaway. The home crowd was stunned as the Bulls cleared the bench and mobbed their captain in celebration. Denver had pulled off arguably the biggest upset in PHL history.

 After such a dramatic second round, the conference finals had a tough act to follow. Denver had clearly emptied the tank in their upset over Minnesota. LA deafeated the Bulls 6-0 in the opening game of the Western Conference final and ultimately only surrendured game 4 to Denver en route to a 5-game series win and their first-ever berth in the Lewis Cup Finals. In the East, Ottawa took game 1 against the Civics but failed even to get the lead in the next four games as Freddy Huff and the New York Civics returned to the Lewis Cup Finals for the second time in 3 years. The much-anticipated championship series would pit the Civics, looking to redeem themselves after the heartbreak of '73, against the Wizards, a team that many believed would be the league's next great dynasty.

1974-75 Regular Season

1974-75 saw a lot of changes to the league landscape from the previous year. The Seattle Grey Wolves and Dallas Metros both made their debuts as PHL franchises, The Washington Generals played their first season in DC, and the defending champion Detroit Mustangs now found themselves in the Eastern Conference. Seattle entered their first season with modest expectations. However, the Wolves enjoyed a decent year for an expansion team,winning 27 games and actually finishing ahead of Vancouver to avoid the Pacific  Division basement. The same could not be said for Dallas, who won only 12 games all year despite a promising rookie year from Mike Fleming. Minnesota and Ottawa battled neck and neck for first place all year as the Beavers finally enjoyed a breakout year with Casey Beckett leading the way with 98 points as Ottawa finished with 51 wins and their first ever 100 point season. However is was the Lumberjacks who took first overall, winning 55 games with Guy Dupont enjoying a career high 47 goals. The Washington Generals' struggles continued in their new home, the Generals finished in last place in the Atlantic Division with only 22 wins. Meanwhile, it was a tough year in Toronto as the Racers finished third last in the entire league the team began to look towards the future. rumors began to surface that 20-year veteran and future hall of famer Mark Benson was looking to leave Toronto. Benson quickly debunked those rumors. "Toronto is my home, win or lose I'm a Racer until the end." Boston had a tough year as well, missing the playoffs for the first time in their history as veteran stars Johnny Bedford and Phil Reid began to decline, while Detroit struggled in their first season in the Eastern Conference, finishing third in the division and just making the playoffs. In LA, the dynamic duo of Stuart Holly and Ray Fowler continued to light it up, and this time it was Fowler who would lead the way, taking the league scoring title with 112 points. On February 16, Fowler set a PHL record for goals in one game when he netted 7 goals against Vancouver in a 11-0 LA rout.

Ray Fowler

Back east, it was the New York Civics who led the way in the Atlantic Division throughout most of the season. Heading into the last day of the regular season, the Civics led the Philadelphia Redshirts in the standings by two points. New York faced the Boston Bulldogs while the Redshirts took on the lowly Pittsburgh Stingers. The Bulldogs, playing for pride, defeated the Civics 2-1. In order for New York to take first place, the Stingers would need to defeat their rivals in Philadelphia, something they had yet to do in their six years in the PHL. After skating with the Redshirts in a tied game, Danny Stevenson finally scored with 40 seconds left to secure a victory for the Stingers and first place for the Civics. The drama was building heading into the playoffs as the big questions began to surface. Would Detroit be able to defend their title after a tough season? would this be the year LA finally gets it done? Would Minnesota finally prove their Lewis Cup run in 1972 was no fluke? Those questions would all be answered soon enough as the last 12-team playoff got underway.