RED DEER, Alta. – Jeff de Wit kind of froze on the bench, where he was standing in overtime, when he saw his teammate Evan Polei wide open just off the post, stick charged for the one-timer.
When Polei labeled a perfect Connor Bleackley pass top shelf to give the Red Deer Rebels the come-from-behind, 2-1 win on Wednesday in front of the hometown crowd, eliminating the Brandon Wheat Kings from the MasterCard Memorial Cup and earning themselves a berth in Friday’s semi-final, de Wit jumped off the bench and he just about landed face first on the ice.
“I nearly tripped and fell, I was so excited,” the six-foot-three centreman said, grinning. He regained his footing, then jumped on his teammates while this crowd of more than 7,000 went absolutely berserk.
“Craziest crowd I ever played in front of, easily,” de Wit said. Then he added: “I’m feeling pretty good right now. That was huge.”
It sure was huge for the host team Rebels. As Bleackley, the well-spoken Arizona Coyotes prospect, put it: “People on the outside looking at the host team that was already knocked out [of the WHL playoffs], we’re probably counted out already.”
Not so much anymore. Red Deer, 2-1, now boasts the second-best record in this tournament through the end of round-robin play.
And as big as this win is for the Rebels, it’s even bigger for a couple guys on the team in over-ager defenceman Colton Bobyk and de Wit. They’re both born and raised in Red Deer.
De Wit’s grandparents were in the crowd. So was his sister, and his mom and dad – they were all wearing de Wit jerseys – and a few friends.
“This is the biggest highlight of my career, easily,” said de Wit, who was a first-round pick of the Rebels’ in 2013. “Being in your hometown, having excitement like that in front of people that have watched you play since you were a kid? It’s something I can’t even put into words, how special this is, how grateful I am for this opportunity.”
Both Bobyk and de Wit started going to Rebels games when they were kids, and started dreaming of playing for the team around that same time.
“You grew up watching this team your whole life, and you wanted a chance to play on the team and I’m lucky it happened,” Bobyk said. “This whole experience has been so awesome, to be a part of this at home.”
It was mayhem at ENMAX Centrium on Wednesday night, and it felt like the place was going to explode when Adam Musil scored with less than six minutes to go to tie things at one, and again when Polei put in his first-ever overtime winner.
“I thought Connor was gonna pass,” Polei said, grinning. You couldn’t wipe the smile off the kid’s face.
It’s good news for this tournament that the hosts are still in it, too. Sit in this building during a Rebels game and you can tell Alberta has been waiting more than 40 years for another chance to play host. Not since Calgary in 1972 has the province staged a Memorial Cup, and that was back in the days when the home city’s team didn’t earn a berth.
Red Deer has been waiting for this, too. Only once did they win the WHL title, back in 2001, the same year the Rebels captured their only Memorial Cup.
The arena oozes junior hockey fandom. When the home team plays, the Rebels mascot – Woolly Bully – runs around the concourse and pumps his fist. Rebels flags wave. Fans bat their clacking paper fans against their knees, they blow horns, they gasp, they cheer and they make a building with a 7,000-person capacity feel louder than some NHL barns do on some nights.
Fans drink a lot of beer (the lines are insane) and caesars (you’ll find 250 pre-rimmed plastic cups with vodka in them, ready to go before each game at the Caesar Bar). In the stands you’ll find what’s known as ‘The Cowbell Section.’ There’s also an area of people wearing helmets with horns, just like Wooly Bully’s, a horn-wearing fan base that includes the billet mother of both Adam Helewka and Musil, whose family is known around these parts as “the Adams Family.”
As Rebels defenceman Haydn Fleury put it, he with the booming point shot that led to a rebound that turned into the game-tying goal: “People here have been excited for a long time. Now that it’s here, it’s real easy to see why.”
They brought in a mechanical bull for the festivities, and planted it in the middle of the Molson Canadian Hockey House, which is appropriately located next door to the rink. The Bull rides start every day at 2:00 p.m. There are daily and nightly country concerts, and in that same building, the Prairie Pavillion, starting four hours before puck drop you can play just about any type of hockey – box, bubble, plinko-type, bouncy castle – or get fired on by foam pucks as a goalie, or test your accuracy or speed with your slap shot.
But the best show here is in the rink when the Rebels are playing. On Wednesday, the ‘Lets Go Rebels!’ chants started before the anthem. And during that moment of silence just before the singer belted out O Canada, a fan yelled “Papirny!” and the rest of the crowd responded with, “you suck!”
Jordan Papirny is the Wheat Kings goalie, who didn’t suck at all. He was the game’s third star.
“[The fans] have been awesome all year and especially during the Mem cup,” said Fleury, the seventh overall pick from 2014 who’s from Carlyl, Sask. “It’s been awesome, even watching the game last night [which Red Deer wasn’t playing in] you hear the ‘Let’s go Rebels’ chants it’s just cool to see, and it gives our team that extra little jump.”
The crowd here is also bringing back a lot of memories for one member of the city’s lone Memorial Cup squad, in retired NHLer-turned analyst, Colby Armstrong.
“I remember this feeling of how crazy this city gets,” Armstrong said, grinning. “I felt like this was the greatest place on earth when I was here.”
The 33-year-old from Lloydminster, Sask., who recently retired after an eight-year NHL career, had a real Red Deer experience: He billeted with a family that owned a dairy farm, though he’s pretty sure he never milked a cow.
“I did drink fresh milk every morning,” he said. “It was so good.”
The fans were just as good back then, too. There was a section of Colby Cheese Heads in the stands, and after the team won the Memorial Cup, a parade took over downtown. When they won the league title, “the whole city showed up in the rink parking lot to celebrate,” Armstrong recalls.
“They love their hockey, and they celebrate their local team. It’s so Canadian, it’s so junior hockey. If you’re a kid and you’re thinking how cool junior hockey will be, this is the place you want to play.”
De Wit knows that feeling exactly, because he grew up around it. He’s 18, so a little too young to really remember Armstrong and the only other Rebels team to play in a Memorial Cup, back in 2001. He’s heard stories, though, about how crazy this city went after they won it.
“They had a solid group in there when they won,” de Wit said. “I think we’ve got the same type of group in here this year to do the same thing.”