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1980-81 Regular Season
Flags vs. Flint Generals |
The Port Huron Flags were in their 19th season of operation in the International Hockey League, the third-oldest franchise in the league (behind Fort Wayne and Muskegon). Despite low attendance and rising financial losses, the Flags were one of the more competitive franchises in the IHL, making the postseason four of the past five years, including a Turner Cup Finals berth in 1978 and a North Division championship in 1979. Home games were played at McMorran Arena. Former Michigan Wolverines assistant Doug Hinton returned for his second season as Flags coach, while Morris Snider was general manager. The Flags were a farm club of the St. Louis Blues, Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals.
Port Huron went through 35 players in 1980-81, as the team constantly battled injuries and limped to a 31-35-16 record. Their 78 points were good enough for second place in the North Division, six points ahead of third-place Flint, but 20 behind first place Saginaw. 1980-81 was a season of "haves and have nots" as five of the IHL's eight teams finished with a sub-.500 record and both first place teams ran away with their divisions.
The Flags finished in fifth place in offense, scoring 337 goals. They were led on offense by Dave Faulkner. Faulkner, a former LA Kings draft pick and member of the Flags' 1976 and 1978 Turner Cup finalist teams, had a career year with 45 goals and 105 points in 82 games. Third year right winger and St. Louis Blues prospect Serge Menard was next in goals with 44 in his final year of hockey. Veteran Larry Gould had 30 goals and 93 points in 71 games. Brian Kinsella (36) was the other player on the roster with at least 30 goals.
Port Huron's defense was a weak point in 1980-81, as the Flags allowed 377 goals, ahead of only the last-place Toledo Goaldiggers. The team used four different goaltenders that year, though only three actually made it in the net. Norm Jacques, who played for the Flags from 1962-68, was brought back on an emergency basis. While he did not play in a game, he did take part in a bench-clearing brawl, earning a 5:00 major in the process. The team's starting netminder was Gordie Laxton, acquired from the defunct Grand Rapids Owls. Laxton, a former Pittsburgh Penguins draft pick, played in 52 games, with a 4.25 GAA and no shutouts. His backup was rookie Bart Hunter, who played in 33 games with a 4.71 GAA with no shutouts. Jim Bales was called up from the EHL's Erie Blades, playing three games for the Flags with a 4.93 GAA and no shutouts.
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1981 Flags-Mohawks brawl
(picture from Pinterest) |
The team's leading scorer on defense was a 20-year old Claude Julien, who scored a career-high 15 goals to go along with 55 points in 77 games. Julien would play 11 years in pro hockey (including 14 games with the Quebec Nordiques) before embarking on an 18-year career in the NHL as a head coach, winning the Stanley Cup in 2011 with the Boston Bruins. Wayne Ramsey was next on the blueline with 9 goals and 38 points in 61 games in his final season in pro hockey. IHL veteran and team captain Jim Bannatyne had five goals and 30 points in 52 games before being traded to the Flint Generals.
Port Huron was in sixth place in the IHL in penalty minutes, with 1,516. Leading the pack was 20-year old Frank Perkins, with 232 PIM in 53 games. Perkins would go on to play several years in minor pro hockey, making it as far as the AHL's Hershey Bears, then would serve as player/head coach for the ACHL's Virginia Lancers. Sadly, Frank would die suddenly in 1987 while serving as player/assistant coach for the Flint Spirits. Right wing Rick Dorman, acquired from Saginaw during the season, piled up 192 minutes in just 44 games (while also scoring 10 goals and 33 points).
The Flags qualified for the Turner Cup Playoffs for the third straight season, drawing the Saginaw Gears in Round 1. The Gears had been red hot since midway through the season, having picked up several talented players from the CHL's Houston Apollos, who folded at midseason. Saginaw made quick work of the Flags, sweeping them in four straight and outscoring Port Huron 15-7 in the process. The Gears would bulldoze their way to the Turner Cup with a 12-1 playoff record, sweeping aside defending champion Kalamazoo in the process.
As far as I know, this is by far the smallest program the Flags ever put out in their 19-year run. It's actually a tri-fold scorecard printed in red-and-white (not sure if other colors were used for other games). This scorecard is from the Friday, November 7, 1980, game between the Flags and the Flint Generals. According to the scorecard, the Flags won, 8-5. I found this recently on eBay, and bought it quickly, since I've been looking for a program from the final season. The franchise had been hemorrhaging money the past several seasons, and lost about $200,000 in 1979-80, so maybe programs was one of the expenses that were cut. You would think that such a severe decrease in advertising revenue would make matters worse.
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Here are the rosters for that night. Larry Gould played for the Flags for the team's last five seasons of existence, and was a dependable 30-goal man for most of those seasons. He would join the Generals partway through the 1981-82 season, his final season in hockey. Jim Bannatyne played practically his entire 16-year career (except for a two-game stint with the AHL's Montreal Voyageurs) in the IHL, winning the Turner Cup in 1976 with the Dayton Gems. He would play 3 1/2 seasons in Port Huron before being traded to Flint in 1981. After 1 1/2 years in Flint, Bannatyne finished his career with the Milwaukee Admirals in 1983-84. Head Coach Doug Hinton would remain in Port Huron after the Flags folded, coaching high school hockey, then was an assistant coach with the UHL's Port Huron Border Cats in 1997-98. General Manager Morris Snider also served as GM of McMorran Place, as both the Flags and the arena were owned by the City of Port Huron. Snider would remain as GM of McMorran Place until 1996, when he retired after negotiating the lease for the Colonial League's Port Huron Border Cats. Gould and Bannatyne would have their numbers raised to the rafters of McMorran Place. Snider would similarly be honored with a banner celebrating his run with the Flags and McMorran Place.
Pierre Giroux was the leading scorer for the Flint Generals in 1980-81, scoring a career-best 55 goals and 102 points in 81 games. He was no pushover either, piling up 303 penalty minutes as well. Giroux would eventually play six games with the Los Angeles Kings in 1982-83, scoring one goal, and finished his career in 1983-84 in Flint. Don DeLabbio had his best season in pro hockey that year, scoring 15 goals and 45 points in 82 games. He played just 16 games in the next five seasons (with the Flint Generals and Flint Spirits). He later played 19 games with the forgettable Port Huron Clippers of the
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Mike Rusin
Picture from mlive.com |
AAHL in 1987-88, his final season in hockey.
Mike Rusin was a tough-as-nails defenseman for the Generals for six seasons, averaging well over 200 penalty minutes per season. In 2011, Boston Bruins goaltender (and Davison native) Tim Thomas named Rusin his favorite hockey player when he was growing up. Bob Sauve was part of the deal that sent Jim Bannatyne to Flint. In his final season in pro hockey, Sauve tallied 10 goals and 26 points in 19 games for the Flags after scoring 22 goals and 63 points for the Generals in 61 games. Goaltender Richard Wilson played for the Generals for four seasons and was part of the 1984 Turner Cup championship team. Jean Pominville played seven games in 1981 before being traded to the Muskegon Mohawks.
Head Coach/GM Marc Boileau was a winner. Boileau played 20 years in pro hockey, winning the Turner Cup with the 1954 Cincinnati Mohawks and 1962 Indianapolis Chiefs. He later won two Lester Patrick Cups with the Seattle Totems and played 54 games with the Detroit Red Wings in 1961-62. Following his playing days, Boileau began his coaching career with the Fort Wayne Komets, winning the Turner Cup in his second season behind the bench. He coached the Pittsburgh Penguins from 1973-76, then went to the WHA's Quebec Nordiques, winning the Avco World Trophy in 1976-77. He coached three seasons in Flint before being replaced in 1981 by Ted Garvin.
Local advertisements include WHLS 1450 AM (the radio home of the Flags, with Doug Redford on play-by-play), the Bowl-o-Drome and Zebra Lounge (newly renovated), the Brass Rail bar, the Fogcutter Restaurant, The Pantry Restaurant, Robbins & Marcozzi Insurance Counselors and Jensen-Townsend Publishing. Other advertisers include Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, AAA of Michigan, Coca-Cola, By-Pas Superior Concentrate, and Shell/Star Oil Co. On the front cover, Cawood Auto sponsored the Score-O intermission event. Those are all the advertisements in this scorecard.
Aftermath: Usually, playoff games would give the Flags a boost in attendance, which would help offset the losses the team had in the regular season. The franchise lost a whopping $250,000 in 1980-81, as the economic downturn in Michigan caused attendance at McMorran to drop to dangerous levels. The playoffs were even worse, as the Flags drew under 1,600 total fans for Games 2 and 4 against Saginaw. Declaring he couldn't run the team any cheaper, Morris Snider recommended to the McMorran Authority to suspend operations of the Flags just a few weeks after being eliminated from the playoffs. The inactive franchise kept its place in the IHL for a year, as Snider hoped the rest of the league, also hemorrhaging money, would cut costs and change into a junior league. When that didn't happen, the franchise was terminated. The IHL Flags would be replaced by the Port Huron Jr. Flags, which played in the Great Lakes Junior B Hockey League from 1981-83, winning two state titles and advancing to the National Tournament. That team folded after the 1983-84 season, after a 3-win campaign in the more competitive Western Jr. B. Hockey League.
References:
International Hockey League Statistics: 1980-81, from hockeydb.com
"Port Huron Flags-Muskegon Mohawks brawl from 1981", from pinterest.com
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