Welcome to my new feature here at Dub Network. I’m very excited about this new venture and the opportunity to continue talking about the Western Hockey League but in a way that is a little bit outside my comfort zone. Before I go on much further, I should introduce myself.
My name is Guy Flaming – and yes…that is my real name. You’d be surprised how often I get asked that question and my answer is always the same; if I’d had the foresight to get a stage name, why on Earth would I have picked ‘Guy Flaming’!? If I’d known when I started that I’d still be in the media business all these years later, I probably would have thought of a pseudonym but alas, it is what it is.
I grew up 3 hours northeast of Edmonton in the thriving mecca of Cold Lake, AB. In the 70’s and 80’s, the days of 13 TV channels and well before the internet, there was little (if any) exposure to the Western Hockey League for someone living up there. The highest level of junior hockey around when I was growing up was Jr.B although a couple hours away were the Jr.A Lloydminster Blazers.
The closest WHL franchise to me back then was either the Prince Albert Raiders or the Saskatoon Blades but we never took the 6-hour drive to see them. In fact, the league was really unknown to me until I was in my 20’s and I had relocated to Edmonton. However, the Edmonton Ice were still years away let alone the Oil Kings so when I tell you that my first WHL experience was during the 2002-03 season, perhaps now you’ll understand why.
That first game featured Braydon Coburn and Brandon Dubinsky’s Portland Winterhawks against the Calgary Hitmen with Ryan Getzlaf and Jeff Schultz, at the Saddledome. I was in town on business and took the game in on my own.
Was I immediately hooked? I’d be lying if I said I was but the hockey was pretty good and the league definitely grew on me but like a lot of people, at that time I was a NHL fan first and everything else was…meh. But I wanted to get into covering the game and knew that I’d have to start somewhere. Since there was very little coverage of junior hockey, at least by today’s standards, I immersed myself in the world of prospect hockey and that led me to the online magazine called Hockey’s Future.
Although it’s gone by the wayside now, HF provided a lot of people with the opportunity and I took it and ran. Starting right after the 2003 draft, I began covering the Edmonton Oilers. I did that for three or four seasons during which time I got to know a lot of people in the orgainzation from GM Kevin Lowe through Assistant GMs Scott Howson and Kevin Prendergast and all of the scouting staff. I had NHL Credentials, attended all of their home games and wrote prospect profiles for the team’s game programs.
I also started attending a lot of junior hockey events – Hockey Canada camps in Calgary, Canada/Russia games, the now defunct Viking Cup in Camrose, AB. It wasn’t long before I started writing for other outlets too and then began appearing on Edmonton’s all-sports station, then known as TEAM 1260. I became the station’s de facto “prospect guy” so if the Oilers made a trade or called someone up, I was the guy with the insight to tell people about the player. Edmonton radio legend John Short then asked me to co-host his show with him after every Edmonton Oilers game, an honor I still have a hard time believing. I was also doing colour commentary on radio broadcasts for the University of Alberta Golden Bears and the ACAC.
I really enjoyed radio. It seemed easy to me because all you do is talk and when it came to hockey prospects in general, and Oilers prospect specifically, I knew my stuff inside and out. That’s when I made the decision to create my own radio show.
I approached TEAM 1260 with my pitch – an hour long show that was 100% Oilers prospects. I’d call it “The Pipeline Show” to accent that we’re focused on the player pipeline from junior to the NHL. But the station initially passed because I had very limited radio experience but they told me to come back once I found a co-host with a media background. Enter Dean Millard from Global TV. Having grown up in Brandon, MB with a work history in both Regina and Red Deer, Dean had a much more established relationship with the WHL than I had. When I approached him, he was immediately on board and The Pipeline Show was born.
Our first show was February 13th, 2006. Our first guest – a top player from the WHL by the name of Kyle Chipchura, a prospect of the Montreal Canadiens who was in his final year with the Prince Albert Raiders. Being the radio rookies that we were, we assumed that when the team told us that Chipchura would call us at a specific time that it would naturally happen. Of course, our first guest was a no-show and our policy of “Always get the guest’s number” was immediately instituted.
After the 2006 NHL Draft, we took a 6-week hiatus to see if we wanted to come back in the fall and continue on with the show. We both really wanted to but neither one of us wanted to just focus on the Oilers and their prospects anymore. So when we came back we decided to branch out and that’s when the show really began to take shape. We expanded to two hours, then added a second show every week. Now the program covers not just the WHL but the OHL and the QMJHL too, the USHL and the NCAA. We always said that we had four majors just like the PGA. Ours were the World Junior Championship, the NCAA Frozen Four, the Memorial Cup and the NHL Draft and that is true to this day.
The Pipeline Show is about to conclude it’s 13th season. Much has changed; Season 12 was the final year on TSN 1260 radio, Dean took a year off along the way before coming back for a season and then moving on to a full time gig at the station. Taylor Medak assumed co-host duties for the last couple of radio years but the move to podcast and his own schedule saw an end to his tenure.
Aside from The Pipeline Show, I’ve been the colour analyst on Edmonton Oil Kings radio broadcasts since February of 2014. Kent Simpson had held that job since the team’s return to the WHL in 2007 but he was relocating to Kelowna so Corey Graham asked me if I’d like to take over. I’d been the fill-in guy every year so jumped at the chance and what a year that was. The Oil Kings went on to win the WHL championship on the road in Portland and then proceeded to claim the 2014 Memorial Cup title in London, Ontario as well. I was along for the ride and although not an employee of the team, it was the closest I’d ever felt to being a part of something like that.
When the Oil Kings were resurrected for the 2007-08 season, I shelved my NHL credentials to focus entirely on the WHL and the content for The Pipeline Show. It’s funny to think back that just a few years earlier, I had almost zero knowledge of the WHL and how it had come full circle. I haven’t covered an Oilers game as a media guy since 2007 and don’t miss it even a little bit.
Over the course of the last 16 years, I’ve gotten to know a lot or people around junior and college hockey. Some I have had very good relationships with right from the start while others I’ve butted heads with from time to time. Sometimes those two groups have overlapped – maybe one day I’ll tell you a story about Ryan McGill, Kelly McCrimmon or Ryan Huska but not today.
My intention with this ongoing column is not to break news or unearth secret stories. What I’m looking to do is share some perspective on different topics around the WHL. First, I’ll share my thoughts on the recent NHL Draft and the return of import goalies to the CHL. In the coming weeks and months I would like to touch on the Ivan Hlinka tournament, the Bantam Draft, the ongoing lawsuit against the CHL, the Canada-Russia Challenge and whatever else pops up along the way. All from a ‘Dub point of view.
These things have been talked about before and in other places but the reason I am here is to share my perspective. My opinion. My take. My hot take.
My… Flaming Hot Take.
Sometimes things just seem to write themselves, don’t they?
Thank you to Dub Network for the opportunity and to you the reader for stopping by. I hope you’ll be back for more.
