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| 1995-96 Regular Season Whalers vs. London Knights |
The Whalers finished in first place in the OHL's Western Division, with a 40-22-4 record. Their 84 points were just two points ahead of second place Sarnia and 3 ahead of third place Sault Ste. Marie, but 11 points back of league best Guelph. It was the fourth season in a row the Jr. Red Wings/Whalers franchise finished on top in their division.
Detroit had the second best offense in the OHL, scoring 319 goals on the year. Leading the team in points was Maple Leafs prospect Sean Haggerty, with 60 goals and 111 points in 66 games. Defenseman Bryan Berard, the #1 overall pick in the 1995 draft by Ottawa, was next on the scoring list, with 31 goals and 89 points in 56 games. Hartford Whalers prospect Tom Buckley was next with 29 goals and 72 points in 66 games. Other 20-goal scorers were Matt Ball (23), Nic Beaudoin (26) and Dan Pawlaczyk (21).
The Whalers were seventh overall in defense, allowing just 243 goals that season. The team used three goaltenders that season. Mike Minard, a 1995 Oilers draft pick, played in 42 games for the Whalers that season, with a 25-10-4 record, 3.32 GAA and 2 shutouts. Robert Esche was next, with 23 games that year, going 13-6-0 with a 3.74 GAA and 1 shutout. Darryl Foster, a member of the 1995 Jr. Red Wings, went 2-6-0 with a 4.89 GAA in 8 games. Leading scorer on defense was Berard, but Dan Preston was next, with a career-high 15 goals and 57 points in 65 games. Mike Rucinski had 10 goals and 35 points in 51 games. Minard had 4 assists, leading the goaltenders in points. Minard and Esche saw action in the postseason.
The Whalers opened the defense of their championship against the Windsor Spitfires, and all Whalers home games were at Oak Park Arena. Despite finishing 38 points ahead of the Spitfires, the series went the full seven games before the Whalers advanced with a 9-2 win in Game 7. Detroit had a much easier time with the Kitchener Rangers, zipping past them in 5 games to advance to the conference finals. The Whalers then fell to Peterborough in 5 games, though two games went to overtime. The Petes would end up winning the OHL championship.
This is a 63-page program, loaded with advertisements. The Whalers players are featured on pages 29-35. The story of the franchise is on page 37, while OHL stats for the 1994-95 season is on page 36. The Jr. Red Wings season and playoff statistics are featured on pages 38-39.
1995-96 was the low point, as the Knights, wearing their "Spider-Knight" uniforms, finished with a horrific 3-60-3 record. Three coaches came and went that season. Mike Federko was fired after an 0-13-0, and was replaced by Murray Nystrom, who was 0-18-2 before being canned himself. Former Saginaw Wheels head coach Tom Barrett finished the year and got the team's only wins, going 3-42-1. His first game was the team's first win, a 5-3 win over North Bay. Sadly, Barrett, who was diagnosed with lung cancer, died just weeks after the season was mercifully over.
London didn't have any future NHLers, but they did have some players I recognized from the Colonial Hockey League. Ryan Burgoyne, the leading scorer, would play parts of two seasons with the Port Huron Border Cats, while Chad Cavanaugh would play for the Flint Generals in 2005-06. Goaltender Eoin McInerney, who won all three games in that dreadful year, played 12 games for the Border Cats in 1998-99. Obviously, a team with several future NHL players going against a team of future Colonial Leaguers isn't going to be close, and it wasn't as the Whalers won, 7-2, to drop London to 0-29-1 on the season.
The neat thing about this season was doubleheader hockey. The IHL's Detroit Vipers were in their second season at the Palace, and Whalers games were often scheduled in the afternoon. You could buy tickets to both and spend the entire day watching hockey. We would sit near ice level for Whalers games, then have to move up to the upper level for the Vipers games as those games often had at least 15,000 in attendance. As a young hockey fan, you couldn't beat two games in one day! Plus, the Palace was actually a pretty good hockey arena, especially when there was a big crowd.
This program is signed by assistant coach, and former Red Wings goaltender, Greg Stefan. During warmups, Stefan was sitting in the stands watching the players. I asked him for an autograph and he said, "Sure!" and signed this program. I said good luck to him and he snickered. I mean...they were facing the winless Knights.
Local advertisements include Zubor Buick, and the crowd interaction went like this whenever Zubor was mentioned for a power play:
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