Having spent this season playing for the 10 win Vancouver Whalers, I've spent some time pondering the history of the SMJHL. Surely this team wasn't the worst team in league history right? So in order to save some of our pride and massage our wounded ego I decided to look back at the available history of the SMJHL, starting from season 53 where the index starts all the way to the present in order to find the definitive worst team in SMJHL history.

Now first up we need to set some criteria, some categories we can look at to decide the worst team based on more than just point total or vibes. Not to say point total isn't important, because it absolutely is, but we will also be looking at some other categories we can use to break some ties or differentiate between close calls. First off is the self explanatory number of wins. Next is goal differential, but we'll also be taking a look at the actual goals scored and conceded to see the makeup of the differential. To close it out we'll be looking at the gap to the second worst team to see if they were even the definitively worst team in the league that season.

Our starting benchmark will be the season 79 Vancouver Whalers, who finished with 10 wins, 24 points, 158 goals for and 358 goals against for a goal differential of -200. They were 20 points behind second last place, and had the fewest goals scored and most goals allowed in the league with a goal differential 91 worse than the second worst team. That's a pretty high, or low depending on how you look at it, bar to beat.

Going back, our first contender comes in the form of the season 75 St. Louis Scarecrows. The argument is a flimsy one as they won five more games than the Whalers and finished with 31 points, but they're still worth mentioning as they had an abysmal -232 goal differential coming off 137 goals for and 369 against. They also only had one less win than the second worst team that year making it hard to call them the definitive worst team ever.

Then we go a long gap with a few teams worth mentioning but no real contenders to our benchmark. St. Louis makes another appearance in season 69 with a 13 win 29 point season, but with a goal differential of only -164 that's a non-starter. Vancouver rears its head in season 64 with an 11 win season, but with 31 points and a goal differential of only -142, they're nowhere near as bad as the season 79 team.

Finally in season 63 we get our first real contender to the throne. With a miserable 8 wins on the season for 24 points, a goal differential of -209 coming from 133 goals for and 342 goals against, season 63's St. Louis Scarecrows firmly supplant themselves atop the mountain of trash. They only had two players score above 30 points on the year compared to season 79 Vancouver how had seven such players as well as two above 50.

But luckily for St. Louis, none of this matters because the season before them was the definitely worst team in SMJHL history, and it's frankly not even arguable that it's anyone else. In season 62 the Detroit Falcons put up a 5 win, 18 point season. Their goal differential was a bit better than some of the previous teams mentioned at -180 with 128 goals for and 308 against, but with a points percentage of 0.121 that small of a gap doesn't make the difference. They were also the definitive worst team in the league that year finishing a massive 23 points back of 2nd last, which means the 2nd worst team in the league more than doubled the number of points they had.

So to my fellow Whalers and Scarecrows, take heart that despite being mentioned a lot in this article your egos are safe from the title of worst team in SMJHL history, all thanks to a Detroit team with a record that very well might be as unbreakable as any there is.

Fun read!

@MightyMulder approved, +5 tpe

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. ... There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”





Rurik Markov| C | SMJHL Prospect | Future Madison Valkyries
Birthplace: Visby, Sweden
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