Login

***artermis*** · 07-18-2018, 05:53 PM

The following is the first of three stories I plan on writing to start off my unofficial SHL history book. I will include my ideals and message in the preface, but the idea is our stories deserve to be told, as all we have left are people's stories of the past, besides numbers that is, and I wish to change that.

The Whalers-Knights Rivalry as told by artermis

In the age of conferences, SMJHL rivalry hockey was alive. You had the Battle of British Columbia, of course, of which the the western conference was made up solely of for many seasons, with Vancouver, Kelowna and Prince George all being located in Canada’s westernmost province as a result of the SMJHL’s heritage as the NWJHL. Interestingly enough however, the Battle of BC was not at its most ferocious when it was a three-way conflict. Instead, for one season it consumed much of the league’s drama and was fuelled by one of the largest draft classes the site has ever seen.

Naturally, the repeated match-ups of conference hockey, the two teams being regional rivals, as well as a healthy youth movement and both teams being competitors for the S19 Four-Star Cup all contributed to the atmosphere and helped brew the regularly entertaining provincial rivalry into something much bigger: the games were tense and emotional affairs with games flip-flopping either way and with the victor eventually being whoever had the momentum. Eventually, players decided to take things off the ice, either to cement the rivalry, give an advantage for the next matchup or to just wreak havoc. The “Prank War” began. It started innocent enough: locker room pranks ranging from sabotaging equipment to petty theft. However, neither team was willing to back down, and the incessant back-and-forth nature of the pranks attempting to outdo one another.

The first time the off-ice shenanigans made front page news was with the “Toilet Stall Incident”. The Kelowna Knight’s homerink, Prospera Place, was shook with an explosion that left a gaping hole in the outside wall and sewage leaking out into the parking lot. No one was seriously harmed, but two rink employees were taken to the hospital for treatment to minor injuries. No official statement was ever made on the incident nor any charges pressed, but to the Knights and the league the perpetrators were clear: the Vancouver Whalers. The Knights would not fail to answer. In the early morning hours of August 7th, 2014, a night that still lives in league infamy as the beginning of the end, in an operation that must have involved more than a half dozen accomplices, a group broke into the Whalers’ rink, the Pacific Coliseum, with a clear goal in mind: the killing of the Whalers’ mascot and ceremonial whale, Flappy the whale. The whale was tranquilized, removed from his tank on-site, and moved 250 metres to the nearby PNE Amphitheatre where his stomach was cut open and a small amount of explosives inserted inside, which would then be detonated and kill the whale. A gruesome video was even taken by one of the perpetrators detailing the final moments of the carefully planned execution. While the group that assaulted the rink obviously included more, Gryck Rhobinson, Jackson Rodgers-Tanaka and Mikko Koskinen were all Knights officially identified as having taken part of the assault.

Now it was war. The death hit the Whalers hard, but it also had the effect of incensing the players and left them with a near insatiable taste for revenge, and seeing as neither the league nor the proper authorities were making head-way, the Whalers took things into their own hands. Just hours later, on the night of seventh an explosion would again shake Prospera Place in Kelowna. An explosive device was placed inside the rink by another rink breaking-and-entering group, although the blast cast by this device was more for show as would later be confirmed, as a fire was started by lighting the rink’s jerseys and banners hanging from the rafter on fire. Soon enough, the fire would engulf the playing area itself, although firefighters would be able to somewhat control the blaze upon their arrival. Once most of the fire had been put out, the firefighters had made their way to the ice surface, which was of course melted by this point, but was covered in ash and debris. Upon clearing the playing surface of ash and debris several bodies were found, which would later be confirmed as several player’s grandmothers that were stolen from their graves and placed around centre ice, all while wearing Knights jerseys. The bodies were also impaled by harpoons into their respective nether regions in a disgustingly violent criminal act. The only perpetrators confirmed to have been at the scene this time are Whalers forwards Marek Vyskoč and Nicholas Flamel. Finally, the league would get involved, issuing the following statement:

The SMJHL has suspended all games until such time as an investigation into the alleged terrorist activities of several teams has been conducted.
League officials have expressed 'grave concerns' over the escalation of junior rivalries into a full-blown defcon 2 situation.
Updates on the situation will be provided as they become available.

By this point the rivalry had gotten too big to sustain itself off the ice. Now attracting more attention from law enforcement and the league, both teams took measures to lessen the damage, save for a few vengeful souls on Vancouver (namely Benjamin Reid) as well as enlisting help from a few stars in the league such as Arton Laxk of the Regina Force and Bojo Biscuit of the Montreal Impact in two plots hoping to seriously injure and maim the Knights, one bein sabotage to Kelowna bus by cutting the brakes, which did end up rolling off the highway but leaving none seriously injured, and a bomb going off in the middle of the Knights’ President’s Trophy parade, which lead to quite a few serious injuries on the team and in the crowd, but still not disciplinary measures were taken. Now that it was playoff time, the rivalry took to the ice once again.

The 3-team conference and bye-system means it’s probably the Knights and Whalers will face each other, all Vancouver needs to do is defeat the underperforming Regina Force in the first round, and that they do. After their brief four game series against the Force, the Whalers and the SMJHL brace themselves for an explosive series as the Kelowna Knights take on the Vancouver Whalers in the S19 Western Conference Finals. Despite having home ice advantage, Vancouver delivered a healthy thrashing in game one that ended at 6-1, but after re-grouping the Knights would take game two in a convincing two-nothing shutout. Game three would head to Vancouver and then the rivalry began to surface again as the first two period were penalty-filled and high-scoring, but by the third only the high-scoring would remain as the teams prepared for overtime tied at five after a late tying goal by the Knights with a minute and a half remaining. Finally, after twelve minutes of overtime and after never holding a lead in the game, the Knights’ Keith Trubachev scored the game winner to quiet the home crowd. The Knights had the momentum going into game five and it showed, as they scored first and Vancouver had to spend the entire game fighting for their lives as they struggled to make up each deficit they were presented with, but persevered they did. Sure enough they tied the game at one, but their goal was answered by another Knights goal, to which Vancouver’s Marek Vyskoč scored shorthanded to tie it, which was followed by another Kelowna goal, and with the score being 3-2 for the Knights late in the third, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s over, but it would be Nicholas Flamel scoring with but six seconds left in the game to tie it and send the game to second straight overtime in Vancouver. Now it was Vancouver who had the momentum, but Kelowna didn’t even have a chance to show how willing they were to fight as it would be Bryson Thomaz just six seconds into OT to seal it for the Whalers. Chester Cunningham and the Knights would start game five very well at home with a goal, but the rest of the game would be lackluster for the Knights as the Whalers take it 4-3 after Chester Cunningham scores one more with five seconds left after pulling the goalie. Game six was a different story, however, as Vancouver remained in control for most of the game and won quite handedly 4-2 and to take the series.

Now, one would expect some vengeance to come out of Kelowna, but no, the following weeks were mostly calm. Vancouver would go on to take the cup versus St. Louis in five games The night of the championship parade marked the end of hostilities between these two teams, as Mikko Koskinen’s house was burnt down in one final act of revenge by the unforgetful Whalers, and both Scarecrows and Knights fans banded together to take to the streets and burn debris to force the parade to change its route, but these events are quite tame in comparison to the events preceding them and thus this chapter came to a close.
The SMJHL has never seen a rivalry quite like this one before or since, and it would leave its mark on all those involved, for better or for worse, and the league for that matter. The ferocity and the violence of which the heinous deeds carried out by the players it particularly remembered, but the intense competition on the ice and the incredible hockey that resulted from two powerhouses clashing for SMJHL dominance and its prized Four-Star Cup should be remembered as well as one of the best rivalries in the league’s history.

King · 07-18-2018, 06:06 PM

Great idea for a series.

raymond3000 · 07-18-2018, 06:37 PM

GKG

***WannabeFinn*** · 07-18-2018, 07:42 PM

S19 Knights GOAT

Blues · 07-18-2018, 08:15 PM

Holy I forgot about the BC beef

Major throwback, I love it arty

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us