Darren Steinke
Special to the Herald
Wendel Clark will always see Prince Albert as a place his late older brother Donn viewed as a home.
While Wendel is best known as being a legendary power forward for the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and playing defence for the Saskatoon Blades in the WHL from 1983 to 1985, Donn developed big ties with the Prince Albert Raiders. Donn was a defenceman for the Raiders during their inaugural season in the WHL in 1982-83.
He was the club’s head coach for two seasons from 1993 to 1995. After leaving the Raiders, Donn returned to the team before the start of the 2000-01 campaign as head coach and transitioned over to the executive side part way into the 2001-02 campaign as the director of hockey operations and then later as general manager before being ousted on January 14, 2008.
During his years with the Raiders, Donn got to experience two magical post-season runs in 1995 and 2005 when the club advanced to the WHL’s Eastern Conference Championship Series falling in both of those jaunts in a series-deciding Game 7 to the Brandon Wheat Kings.
Wendel will be back in Prince Albert on Saturday as the guest speaker for the Kinsmen-Raiders Sportsman Dinner to be held at the Ches Leach Lounge at the Art Hauser Centre. The doors open at 5 p.m., supper follows at 6 p.m. and the program starts at 7:15 p.m.
“I’m very honoured to be able to come up and speak and be a part of helping raise money and in a place where my brother loved,” said Wendel over the phone from the Toronto area. “He loved coaching and managing and being a part of the community.
“I know he always spoke very highly of it. It is great that I can, you know, be a part of it and be in a town that we had a lot of fun times being that the old Saskatoon and Prince Albert rivalries were awesome.”
The Kinsmen-Raiders Sportsman Dinner will honour young hockey phenom Stryker Zablocki as the Prince Albert’s Female Athlete of the Year, lacrosse star Brayden Rieger as the Male Athlete of the Year and softball organizer and executive Ian Litzenberger as the Sportsman of the Year. Funds will be raised at the dinner for the wave pool at the Lake Country Co-op Leisure Centre.
Wendel remembers well being in “Hockey Town North” on March 1, 2019 to accept Donn’s induction as a builder on to the Raiders Wall of Honour. Donn was in the palliative care unit at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon battling cancer at the time and would pass away one day later, which was just two days before what would have been his 57th birthday.
He is remembered as a beloved figure in the history of the Raiders, and Wendel said it means a lot to his family that Donn is remembered fondly in Prince Albert.
“We’re very honoured, you know, as a family and everybody back home,” said Wendel reflecting on Donn’s Wall of Honour induction. “I know my mom and everything we’re very honoured when that happened for him, because he was not well at the time when it did happen.
“It was a huge honour for us as a family and being understanding that you know what he did for the team and community trying to try to represent the Raiders when he coached and managed there and bring kids along and hopefully make them better hockey players and in the big picture better people.”
Looking back on his own hockey playing days, Wendel’s memories of playing against the Raiders were enjoyable ones. He appeared in 136 regular season games for the Blades collecting 55 goals and 100 assists.
Wendel’s arrival in the WHL coincided with the Raiders going into their second season in the major junior ranks after winning 16 games in their inaugural WHL regular season in 1982-83. The Raiders had a core group in Dan Hodgson, Dave Pasin, Manny Viveiros, Ken Morrison, Dale McFee and netminder Ward Komonosky who took their lumps in that first season and were ready to fly with the team built around them by iconic head coach and general manager Terry Simpson.
The Raiders posted 41 wins in the 1983-84 regular season and 58 victories in the 1984-85 regular season before going on to win the WHL title and the Memorial Cup as CHL champions.
“Terry Simpson being a good coach he brought them along quickly,” said Wendel, who enjoyed the atmospheres at the Hauser and the now demolished Saskatoon Arena. “By the time I got there, they became a very good team, and they were starting to want to give it back to everybody that was giving it to them when they were youngsters.
“Being a player that played physical for me, it was fun. It was an awesome atmosphere to be able to play in, because it was going to be a tough night with the skill you had with Danny Hodgson and Dave Pasin and the guys that were playing at that end. Then, you also had Kenny Baumgartner and Dave Manson and all those guys leading the way on the other end plus the role players they had played very physical.
“It was always a fun, exciting match between the two teams even when sometimes they weren’t at the same skill level in the standings. You always knew it was going to be a good home and road game.”
Wendel would play on Canada’s entry at world juniors during the 1984-85 campaign that was coached by Simpson and included Hodgson. Canada won that event played in Finland marking the first time a team from North America claimed gold at that tournament when it was played in Europe.
Looking back, Wendel was impressed with how quickly Simpson brought that team together and how good they were on the penalty kill. Wendel couldn’t remember Canada giving up any power-play goals at that world juniors.
After joining the Leafs in 1985-86, Wendel was a first-year professional for most of that campaign playing alongside Hodgson. While they had fun playing together as teammates, Wendel appreciated how well Hodgson played with the Raiders.
“He was the guy that stirred the drink,” said Wendel. “He was a small finesse player.
“He was not a scared player, but he was always involved. You looked and he was always in the middle of everything whether it was getting points, or if he thought something had to be stirred up if his team needed some energy, because he knew that “Bomber” (Baumgartner) and Manson and every teammate was going to come and stick up for him. He’d start stuff to bring the team together as well.
“Hodgy did that very well. He knew the game so well that he’d make sure the team was ready to play if the game started slow.”
At the Kinsmen-Raiders Sportsman dinner, Wendel, whose 59th birthday will be on Saturday, plans to share stories and memories from his time in hockey. He hopes to do it in a way to get the crowd engaged leaving a good memory for all who come out.
“Basically, I’m hoping you will all be doing a lot of talking about different hockey,” said Wendel. “We are going to be probably doing a little bit of a hot stove.
“There will be questions answered, and hopefully, maybe there is going to be some interaction with the audience. We will see maybe I will answer some questions and give my side of a story. It is always great when you get some different opinions about the same story in the game of hockey, but really, we’re just coming out to celebrate the game of hockey and raise some great money.
“Basically, we will just talk hockey and hopefully jog some memories about the hockey days back in the older days or even talk about what is happening today in the game the way it is.”
Darren Steinke is a Saskatoon-based freelance sportswriter and photographer. He blogs frequently at stankssermon.blogspot.com.
