Skip to main content

Kalamazoo Wings (1985-86, IHL)

1985-86 Regular Season--Wings vs. Salt Lake Golden Eagles
     The Kalamazoo Wings were back for their 11th season of IHL hockey in 1985-86. They were still part of the Red Wings farm system, but were also affiliated with Vancouver and Philadelphia. Ted Parfet was still owner of the franchise. Bill Inglis returned as coach/GM for a second season after three years in Toledo.
     The IHL emerged from the recession of the early 1980s to begin expanding across the continent to much larger towns. The demise of the Central Hockey League brought teams from Salt Lake City, Utah, and Indianapolis, Indiana, into the IHL for the 1984-85 season. Peoria became the Rivermen and Muskegon became the Lumberjacks. After the 1984-85 season, the Flint Generals would move to Saginaw and would be replaced by the expansion Flint Spirits.
     Bill Inglis' 1985-86 K-Wings finished in second place in the Eastern Division. Their 47-29-6 record gave them an even 100 points just five behind first place Muskegon and 12 behind league-best Fort Wayne. The K-Wings were the fourth best team on offense that season, scoring 341 goals. They were led by center Bill Terry, who had 43 goals to go along with 109 points. Wayne Crawford led the team in goals with 51. Three more players had over 20 goals, and three others had at least 15.
     Defense was a weak spot for Kalamazoo that year. The K-Wings surrendered 310 goals, fourth-worst in the IHL. The team used four different netminders that season. Veteran Georges Gagnon played the bulk of the games, sporting a 3.40 GAA in 63 appearances, then started in all the playoff games. Corrado Micalef, Shawn MacKenzie and Dave Ross made it into several games apiece.
     Kalamazoo faced the Saginaw Generals in Round One of the Turner Cup Playoffs. The Generals, despite finishing 10 points back in third place, upset the K-Wings in six games. Saginaw would then fall to eventual champion Muskegon in five games in the semi-finals.
    This is probably the nicest K-Wings program that I own. It's much larger than the previous ones I have posted, at 53 pages. It's almost all black-and-white, and features lots of local ads, from D&G Vac Distributors to Asphalt Protection Service. There's even an ad for the Mc D.L.T. (remember those?)! That night's opponent was the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, in their sophomore season in the IHL. The game was played on October 25, 1982, 3 games into the season. Kalamazoo was in third place at that point, a point behind Toledo. Salt Lake was in fourth place at the time.


Sources:
International Hockey League Statistics: 1985-86 (from hockeydb.com)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Port Huron Hockey: Flags/Wings (1962-81)

Now, on to Port Huron.      Port Huron has had a long, yet checkered, history of pro hockey. The most successful franchise, by far, was the Port Huron Flags (also called Wings for a few years) of the IHL. The Flags were, for the most part, a competitve team on the ice, making the Turner Cup Finals seven times and winning the Cup on three occasions. For three years, (1971-74), the franchise was a farm team of the Detroit Red Wings, and sent numerous players on to the NHL in it's existence. However, the team had problems drawing big enough crowds. While the Flags lasted for nearly 20 years, former GM Morris Snider later admitted that the franchise could have folded three years before it actually did, due to declining attendance. I've found some Flags/Wings programs online over the years, and here's what I have. 1963-64 Regular Season--Flags vs. Windsor       1963-64 was the second year of existence for the Flags. After missing the playoffs in their inaugural cam

Fort Wayne Komets (1967-68, IHL)

1967-68 Regular Season--Komets vs. Des Moines Oak Leafs      1967-68 was the sixteenth season of Fort Wayne Komets hockey, all in the IHL. The team was coached by Ken Ullyot, who had been with the franchise since 1958. The Komets played      Having lost to Toledo in the 1967 Turner Cup Finals, the Komets slipped to fourth place in '67-68. While Muskegon ran away with first place, the battle for the second-fifth slots was hotly contested. Fort Wayne finished 30-29-13, their 73 points one ahead of Toledo and just five behind second place Dayton.      The Komets were also in fourth place in offense, scoring 282 times that year. Fort Wayne legend Len Thornson led the team with 38 goals and 97 points. Three others, Bob Baird, Randy Gates and Merv Dubchak, joined Thornson in the 30+ goal club. Three others scored at least 20 goals.      The Komets had the second-best defense in the IHL that season, allowing just 272 goals. Fort Wayne used three different goaltenders that year. Rob

Flint Generals yearbook (IHL, 1973-74)

     I recently bought two yearbooks from the Flint Generals of the IHL. This one is from the 1973-74 season. It's a 40-page book, all in black-and-white, and on glossy paper. Each player for that season has a full page photo and a short bio. The statistics and a team photo for each Generals season are included. Stats for every player that wore the "blue and gold" are listed in the back of the yearbook. Flint Journal sportswriter Len Hoyes added an article previewing the remainder of the 1973-74 campaign.       One thing that Hoyes noted in his article was about attendance: "With all of their problems, the Generals were still attracting fans at a rate of 3,950 per game. Attendance was down slightly, but Flint's percentage rate of almost 100 percent remained the envy of minor league hockey." (Hoyes, 1974)      The original Generals were a popular team for most of their existence, and attendance only bottomed out when the region's economy tanked