photo credit: WHL

Ray Ferraro: 1983 Memorial Cup Season

Originally posted March 7, 2021.

The 1983 Memorial Cup tournament served as the culmination of a season of firsts for the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association.

Historically played in a Canadian locale, the city of Portland, Oregon played host to the 1983 Memorial Cup. By all accounts, it was a resounding success.

Prior to 1983, the event had been played as a three-team, double-round robin tournament. In Portland, for the first time, the format included four teams, with the Winterhawks serving as hosts.

The Memorial Cup

Coincidentally, the previous year, the Winterhawks traveled to Hull, Quebec as the Western Hockey League champions.

At the time, there were plenty of opinions in the major junior hockey world regarding the format change. Then CAHA President Murray Costello was emphatic in his support for the new format including a host team.

“I think the answer to that is if you’re going to go with a tournament format, you simply have to include a host team,” Costello said during an interview after the first period of the final game in 1983. “That’s just the practicalities of it.”

When all was said and done in Portland a year later, the Winterhawks became the first US-based team to capture the Memorial Cup trophy. Indeed, they accomplished this as the host team.

I wanted to connect with a player from that Winterhawks team, just to be able to learn about the environment on the team and in the city during the run-up to Memorial Cup week.

It seemed like a bit of a reach to seek out Ray Ferraro, given his time commitments and responsibilities across his many media roles. When he agreed to take a stroll down memory lane with me, I was thrilled to unearth a few extra tidbits from his junior career and that championship season in Portland.

The road to Portland
During his one and only season in the BCHL, Ferraro led the Penticton Knights in scoring with 135 points. Surprisingly he says, the NHL Draft hadn’t really been on his mind.

“Unbelievably, I didn’t even know it was my draft year until January of that season,” Ferraro said. “I had no idea. So, my coach, Mark Pezzin tells me, ‘hey you keep playing like this, you’re gonna get drafted’.

“And I’m like, what? When? And he says, ‘June’.”

Ray Ferraro, TSN

“I thought it was another year because my birthday is in August. So, anyway, I got drafted.”

The Hartford Whalers selected Ferraro in the fifth round, 88th overall at the 1982 NHL Draft. While he hadn’t really had the NHL Draft in his crosshairs, he was also unaware he’d been listed by the Portland Winterhawks.

“Back then, unbeknownst to you, you could be on a junior team’s list,” Ferraro said. “I ended up on Portland’s protected list somehow. So, I got a call from them and they said they wanted me to come to Portland, they wanted me to play.”

Ferraro says he hadn’t spoken with the Whalers, but he was confident he knew the best route to take to give himself the best chance to play professional hockey.

“I had signed a scholarship to Northern Michigan,” Ferraro said. “That was kind of my goal, to go to college. But then I thought, I’m already drafted and the quickest way to get to the NHL would be to play Junior. At the time, the college game wasn’t even in the ballpark of junior hockey as far as notoriety and respect.

“So, I had to call Northern Michigan and tell them that I wasn’t coming. That was in late August and that call didn’t go very well. Like, their coach was not very happy with me.”

Ferraro made his way to Portland, but it’s an understatement to suggest he got off to a rocky start in the WHL. He was able to impress the Winterhawks brass enough to crack the lineup – as a third-line centreman.

“I played three games and came down with mononucleosis,” Ferraro said. “I missed about six weeks, came back and played four or five games then broke my wrist, which required surgery. So, that about accounts for those 22 games I missed.”

All told, Ferraro chipped in with 90 points in 50 games as – it bears repeating – Portland’s third-line centre.

A team built for success
The Winterhawks were the defending WHL champions, perhaps smarting to some extent after the 1982 Memorial Cup in Hull, Quebec.

That event was the last of the traditional three-team, double round-robin format. In 1982, Portland, the Kitchener Rangers, and Sherbrooke Castors finished the round-robin with matching 2-2 records, but the Winterhawks were relegated to third place by the tie-breaking formula.

Heading into the 1982-83 campaign, Portland had a solid core group with forwards Ken Yaremchuk, Randy Heath, and Richard Kromm. All would go on to play in the National Hockey League, though Heath’s was rather a short stint. Jim Playfair, Brian Curran, Kelly Hubbard, and John Kordic patrolled the blueline, along with 100-point rearguard Brad Duggan.

This was a capable, talented team, built to play the game any way it had to be played.

It also didn’t hurt that general manager Brian Shaw was able to add forwards Cam Neely and Alfie Turcotte. Ferraro seemed to fit in nicely as well.

Six players tallied 100 points that season including Yaremchuk (160 points), Heath (151), Neely (120), Grant Sasser (119), Kromm (103), and Duggan (100). It’s not at all unreasonable to suggest a healthy Ferraro would have been the seventh player to reach the century mark.

Incidentally, there was success at the gate in Portland as well. Ferraro estimates the games averaged about 7,000 fans at the Memorial Coliseum.

“It’s a beautiful building,” Ferraro said. “For me, it really felt like it was a big-time organization.”

Portland finished the regular season with a 50-22 record, good for 100 points and first place in the six-team West Division. Only the Saskatoon Blades (52-19-1; 105) compiled a better record.

WHL post-season drama
The Winterhawks landed in the WHL final series after sweeping the Seattle Breakers in four games then knocking off the Victoria Cougars in the West Division final, four games to one.

Over in the eight-team East Division, the Lethbridge Broncos road to the final series included a sweep of the Winnipeg Warriors and a six-game upset of the Blades, before defeating the Calgary Wranglers in six games.

The Broncos had finished fifth in the East Division. After a horrid start, the team finished with a 38-31-3 record. Ron Sutter went ballistic in the postseason with 22 goals and 41 points. Rich Sutter was a menace and productive offensively, along with future NHLer Troy Loney. Ivan Krook led the team in scoring during the regular season with 88 points.

Bob Rouse and Gerald Diduck anchored the blueline. Future NHL defenceman Mark Tinordi was a 16-year-old rookie. Goaltender Ken Wregget, who was outstanding during the post-season, appeared in all 20 playoff games.

“I remember it was really rough,” said Ferraro when asked about the final series. “It was not our intention to get into a series where it was going to be a slugfest. It just wasn’t going to happen.

“Lethbridge was by far the better team that series. They played harder and wanted that series more. It was very clear.

“It was impossible not to have it in your mind and in your back pocket, like yeh, we’re going to the Memorial Cup in 10 days. It was the weirdest circumstance. It’s the worst thing about being a host team.”

The Broncos would also land in Portland for the Memorial Cup, as WHL Champions after defeating the Winterhawks in five games.

Controversy before puck drop at the Memorial Cup
If the WHL final series wasn’t enough to spark animosity between the Broncos and Winterhawks, there was even more drama before the tournament started in Portland.

The rules in major junior hockey allowed a league champion to add an extra goaltender on loan for the Memorial Cup tournament. With Wregget less than one hundred percent after suffering an ankle injury in the final game of the league championship series – he would not play at the Memorial Cup – the Broncos reached out to add Mike Vernon of the Calgary Wranglers.

Vernon was the reigning WHL Most Valuable Player, an award he would receive again in 1983. He had joined the league champion Winterhawks the previous season on loan for the Memorial Cup in Quebec.

When he turned down the invitation from the Broncos, said to be in part due to an unwillingness to play for the Broncos head coach John Chapman, Vernon was allowed to join the host Winterhawks on loan for the Memorial Cup.

Mike Vernon, 1983 Memorial Cup

“Back then, we heard the rumblings,” Ferraro said. “You never really know where it starts. Like, we think we can get Mike Vernon if he doesn’t say ‘yes’ to Lethbridge?

“So here we are, which is a goofy thing anyway when you think about it, but all of a sudden we get a guy that’s gonna turn out to be a Stanley Cup champion and he’s in goal for us.”

As fate would have it, by the time Broncos and Winterhawks met in the round-robin, the contest had become inconsequential. Lethbridge had lost its first two games while Portland had won its two games. The Broncos couldn’t qualify for the semi-final. They were done.

It would be understandable if by then the Broncos were seething, looking to go hard after the Winterhawks. For safety sake perhaps, Portland didn’t dress Yaremchuk and Vernon.

“They were going to try and beat the hell out of us,” Ferraro said. “There was no question why we sat out those guys.”

Lethbridge drilled Portland 9-3 in a nothing game that could have gotten ugly. But it didn’t.

However, had things deteriorated during the affair, the Winterhawks roster was certainly not full of shrinking violets.

“We had Jimmy Playfair, Brian Curran, John Kordic, and Kelly Hubbard was a tough-as-nails 20-year-old,” Ferraro said. “And Curt Brandolini. Those were our tough guys. Tim Lorenz went on to play in the Canadian Football League. And nobody was going to mess with Cam Neely.

“We had a tough team. But as I recall, the game meant nothing. We were not going to get involved in any of this stuff. We’re just going to play, it’s going to end, we’re going to move on. That was it.”

Portland had earned a bye into the championship game by virtue of a goals-scored tie-breaker. Verdun and Oshawa met in the final round-robin game, then met again in the semi-final. Oshawa won both contests.

The Broncos season ended on a winning note, but there had to be frustrations, too. They had beaten Portland in five out of the six games between the teams that spring but did so never knowing if they were getting the best the Winterhawks had to offer. But it wouldn’t necessarily matter anyway.

Portland would be playing in the Memorial Cup final.

The Championship Game
“Oshawa was a really good team,” Ferraro said. “And remember, they had two players in the NHL that weren’t there. Dave Andreychuk and Tony Tanti.”

“But it felt to me that we were the best team. I thought if we play, they can’t keep up.”

In recent years, the entire Memorial Cup tournament is televised. In 1983, only the final game was telecast. Played in front of a full house in Portland with Canadian broadcasting veteran Bernie Pascal handling play-by-play duties, the Winterhawks never trailed.

Up 2-1 after the first frame, Portland took charge in the second stanza and headed into the final 20 minutes with a 5-2 lead. Early in the third period, Ferraro played a key role in pretty much putting the game away.

Ferraro and Gord Walker broke into the Generals zone two-on-one. Walker slid the puck to Ferraro in the slot and the Trail, BC product buried a forehand deke to give the Winterhawks a four-goal advantage.

“The building was full, it was an afternoon game and it was fun,” Ferraro said of the Winterhawks 8-3 romp. “You know, it was fun to be in there, it felt like we were playing in the NHL, although none of us had played in the NHL at that point.

“It was just such a remarkable atmosphere.”

Neely tallied on a breakaway in the last minute, completing his hat trick. He was awarded a 20” television as the Panasonic Player of the Game.

“Boy, that would be neat to get a hold of him,” Ferraro laughed, “and find out what he did with that thing!”

1983 Memorial Cup Champions (photo credit: Portland Winterhawks)

The post-championship celebrations in Portland came and went, and the group headed off to the Bahamas.

“We weren’t in Portland very long, I wish I had the time frame, but I’m thinking it wasn’t more than a couple of days,” Ferraro said. “And when we came back from the Bahamas, we just packed up and drove home.

“Gordy Walker, Bruno Campese and I drove home in my Toyota Celica. Bruno was from Nelson and Gordy was from Castlegar. That was it. That was the last time I had anything to do with the Winterhawks until I got called and traded in the summer.”

The Trade. Hello Brandon…
There were a pair of historic WHL trades in 1983 and Ferraro was involved in one of them.

On January 19, the Seattle Breakers sent Tom “Bussey” Martin to the Victoria Cougars in exchange for a used team bus and future considerations. Martin, a fourth-round pick by the Winnipeg Jets in 1982 (14 spots ahead of Ferraro), never played for the Breakers but was a listed player.

On August 28, a more conventional move was orchestrated between the Winterhawks and Brandon Wheat Kings. Generally referred to as the Blaine Chrest trade, Portland sent five players to Brandon in exchange for the rights to Chrest.

“I get a call at home,” Ferraro said. “Brian Shaw’s assistant says hello and I’m like, ‘Hi Jan’. She says, ‘hold for Mr. Shaw’. And I’m like, well, what the hell is going on here?

“He gave me some song and dance about how they knew they were going to lose Alfie and Ken to the Canadiens and Blackhawks, and they were worried I was going to be gone, too. But I had never talked to Hartford, so I mean I wasn’t going anywhere.

“So they made this trade. I didn’t even think it was within the realm of possibility.”

The deal saw Ferraro, Derek Laxdal, Brad Duggan, Dave Thomlinson, and Tony Horacek sent from the WHL’s western-most locale to its eastern-most outpost.

“I didn’t want to go,” Ferraro said. “I hang up and I’m not in a good frame of mind, that’s for sure. And then I find out the trade’s five for one, which made me even less thrilled. I was going to actually wait, try and wait it out and try and work a trade to Kelowna where Mark (Pezzin) was coaching. They were the new expansion team.

(photo credit: Regina Leader Post)

“And my dad tells me Brandon had made this trade and obviously they felt I was a big part of it and I should at least go give it a try. Les Jackson was the general manager, just a wonderful guy. Les and my dad and I had a couple of discussions, so about four three, or four days before the season I got on a plane and flew to Winnipeg.

“Dean Evason’s brother, who’s since passed away, picked me up at the airport and drove me to Brandon. I practiced once and I don’t know anybody on the team except a couple guys that got traded from Portland with me. We played in Winnipeg, the first night I got three goals, played at home and I got three goals the second night.”

Ferraro was off and running, en route to a 108-goal season with the Wheat Kings, a WHL record that stands to this day.

(Glen Erickson is a long-time freelance writer with ties to the WHL over the past 35 years. He covered the WHL extensively in Kelowna between 2005 and 2019, in addition to four CHL Top Prospects Games and a pair of IIHF World Junior Championships. Erickson provided coverage of Rockets home games for the Kelowna Daily Courier during the 2018-19 season, before relocating to Medicine Hat.)