So, a couple weeks ago, I was e-mailed all the Bentley Generals Allan Cup Finals games ever broadcast on TSN. Watching all TEN of those games has been quite a stroll down memory lane but also a bit of a wake-up call to just how much of the Gens’ very unique story I had been

Forgetting about when I was threading stories about it all a couple weeks ago. When I left off, we had just won the 2009 Allan Cup in Steinbach. Our first. But before I get going into the dynasty they were becoming, I wanna explain more about the foundation. The roots. The guts.

When The Gens’ got rolling in 99’, SR teams were nothing more than Saturday nite booze fests. Even if you look at the very best SR AAA teams...prior to the Bentley Generals...none of em sought to operate like a pro team. They were kinda the exact opposite of that. Til’ then, SR

AAA teams convinced high end players to play for Allan Cups by selling them the chance to compete for a National Championship while investing the absolute bare minimum in terms of time & soul. Show up a for a few weeks in March/April...jump into a line-up along with whatever

Semblance of a team was already together and that’s the extent of it. The Gens’ decided they wanted to do it differently. I think Gens’ Executive had an epiphany of sorts when they saw the 2004 St George’s Garaga team. That team was a PRO squad. Elite level players. Demanding

League schedule against high end opposition, all winter long. And certainly augmented with serious practice time. The Garaga were already prepping to jump to the LNAH so, in 04’, they weren’t acting like an amateur SR AAA team. I’ll admit, they manhandled everyone at @AllanCup 04

The Gens’ were impressed. They evacuated Quebec and got serious about starting a pro hockey culture in a beer league venue back home in Bentley. Ya. Bentley. Of all the little holes in the canola...the smallest town to EVER chase Allan Cup glory. And I gotta talk a bit about

One of the underrated key ingredient to it all...The Bentley Generals Clubhouse. Ha! Fuck. I know a few guys reading this are going to get emotional just thinking about what that room ended up representing. I can’t even remember the exact year they got a building permit to start

But part of creating a pro hockey culture, meant having a pro hockey headquarters. The existing dressing rooms in Bentley were basically Penitentiary level. 600 sq foot rooms with white cinder block walls. One sink. One urinal. One shower. Ok for a Pee Wee team. But the Gens

Wanted to have a place to call home. A room where they could get a respectable shower, store a bungalow full of tack & conduct weekly, if not daily, hockey operations like signing players, paying bills, league meetings and getting black out drunk whenever the boys had a big game

They didn’t really have the cash or engineering to get super-snazzy. The Bentley Arena is, literally, an outdoor rink which grew a roof in 1967. So, kinda tough to transform into a hallowed cathedral with $15,000 and one summer to pour concrete, plumb, plank and finish.

But they ended up with something even better, I’d say. They ended up with a clubhouse. It really did have the feel of a secret room in the back of a casino where extra late nite poker was goin’ down & the doors were locked & the outside world was just another Alberta blizzard

Ya. When you drove around back of the rink & parked on the gravel pad where only the players, coaches & executives had an independent entrance into “the room” you walked through a door that led into a heart. You had to take your shoes off at the door. And the coat hangers had a

Spot where you could hang your street clothes, along with your ego and whatever expectations you’d had before you were introduced to THE ARMY. The clubhouse was a tight little maze of different rooms. The first door on the left was Brian Sutters’ office. A strategic placement ...

Because Suttsy’ would often be in his office before practices & games, taking attendance of the players coming in, sometimes you got through w/o even a nod. Sometimes you got pulled inside for a little chat. And sometimes that chat was gonna change your life. Haha. A good old

Eye-to-eye, cut the BS, lets see something tonite from you, otherwise I’m gonna personally remove your balls and place them into this desk drawer beside my 60 of Crown Royal. Ya. Suttsy always had a jug of whiskey in that desk. And you prolly didn’t want to be called in there.

Before a game or a practice. The next steps took you past Ginners’ executive office. This office was typically a closed door deal. No booze and no partying. That’s a businessman in his domain. To be honest, I never set foot in there. And I never saw anyone go in w/o the door

Closing behind them. Let’s be honest, they were paying some big bills and the sponsors who were ponying up the cash needed to trust that it was being done with respect & process...just like if they were handling a meeting in DT Calgary or a Bank Manager’s’ office...closed doors.

So, the two big areas of the Gens Clubhouse, the players’ main areas: The TV Room and the dressing room. The TV room had a big HD screen with the NHL CENTRE ICE package. Two couches. A piece of shit stationary bike, a legendary beer fridge and a Wall of Fame.

Pretty much every player who ever played for The Army had a nameplate put on his locker & regardless of whenever/whatever circumstances that player left the team...his name plate went on that wall. That wall grew a life of itself over the years. Like...you had Kelly Buchbergers’

Name plate glued somewhere in a mural of (eventually) 100’s of others...new recruits would stand in front of it and scan it like a Fucking war memorial. And they’d have one of the old farmers from town standing there beside em’, beer in hand: “Oh Jesus Christ, ya. Darren Van Impe

...yes...he served with The Army in 2010. Gifted skater. Beautiful skater, actually. His knees weren’t good but we were lucky to have him. Yes. Yes a realtor in Calgary now...”. *takes swig*...”Ahh ya...you played with Stephen Wagner?! He was here in 2007...” and on and on...

No SR hockey team in the history of Senior Hockey can glue together the list of names The Army compiled. I’m not saying they were all loved. But someone had the foresight to physically put their names on that wall & it’s an amazing macrame of what usually went right but sometimes

Wrong and sometimes something else. I spent a lot of time drinking free beer & watching hockey in that room. The players would come in from across the hall where the dressing room was and load up with beer...usually in a knee cut off undergarment and you guys are prolly gonna

Give me a hard time for saying this but I mean...you evaluate a SR AAA hockey players conditioning level on the shape of ass & his legs. I’m serious! I learned this over the years. He can have droopy, tired face work bags under his eyes, a bald patch on the back of his head that

His helmet hides but if he’s still packing that two-axe-handle-wide ass...he’s got a chance to help you. At the SR AAA level...they aren’t poster candidates to promote the next Bauer stick. Grey beards, beer guts, elbows that make clicking sounds and big thick asses, folks.

I’m thinking specifically of guys like Eric Schneider and Imper’ and Brandon Smith. Look em up on HockeyDB. These guys were coming through the doors, among many & helping The Army become a dynasty. But they were also coming for the beer. And the beer fridge had a funny way of...

Always being full of high test stuff like Coors Banquet whenever the team was really cooking hot and always being barren with nothing but a 15 pack of Labatts Ice on the rare occasion where things weren’t going well. Bet your ass it was message sending, perfected. Haha ;)

So, the dressing room area was painted (for whatever reason) in kinda Halloween colours. The cubicles were pretty decent size. 18 in all, I think. A ping pong table in the middle, which I don’t think got much use other than buried under organized piles of hockey laundry & gear.

The Team Captains always had corner stalls. Of course. And Ill be honest...I never once stood in that room any closer than 30 mins prior to a game. In practice nites & after games...the whole clubhouse transformed into a beer house. But at 30 mins prior to warm up...everyone but

Players & Coaches get the Fuck Out and lets let the boys get prepared for the game. It was a very tight detail, I’d say. The conversations slither down to silence. The sponsors and friends & family file out and the room falls sacred & silent. Just the squawk of sock tape and

Twisting plastic of shin pads and blade chassis under the weight of those minutes before you go out past the trainers room, grab your stick from its spot on the rack and rumble into the notorious frost of the Bentley Arena. And yes...it was as cold as your Grandpa said it was!

And from the start of the 09-10 season through to the completion of the 10-11 season...The Bentley Memorial Arena was a wood chipper where 100+ opposing players came to town, got chopped down, de-limbed and fed to the coyotes in frozen slivers of meat, composite stick and plastic

The Chinook League played 20 game regular season schedules both those seasons and the Gens’ went 19-1 both times. They never lost a home regular season game and they lost (off the top of my head) 7 total games in 2 years = around 60-70 total games. Unfortunately, 2 of those loss’

Were Allan Cup Finals in 2010 & 2011. And ya’...Stick Taps to the Fort St John Flyers & Clarenville Caribous’. They have the Allan Cup banners from those seasons. But for me...those losses don’t undo the magic of what The Army had become back home in the Chinook League. They were

putting together line ups in November & December of those seasons that most teams couldn’t generate in April. Most teams, that is. Fort St John & Clarenville stood up to the tests & ultimately prevented what came very close to being just the second 3-Pete in Allan Cup history

I think I’ll close this thread off and go into a different rabbit hole to talk about those back to back Allan Cups in 2010 & 11.