One thing I definitely want to avoid doing while I reminisce about the Bentley Generals is to disrespect the League the Gens’ belonged to: The Chinook Hockey League. As The Army rose to national prominence, they got more attention than any other SR hockey team in modern history

But as dramatic and pressure packed as it was to be on the big stage, competing for Allan Cups in April. I can honestly say I miss those mid-winter/early Spring Chinook League games as much/more than I do the Championship moments. I grew up on the Chinook Hockey League.

Maybe it’s the fact I’m sitting here in the 9th week of March, on lockdown, making me extra-emotional but I just got flooded (I do that a lot haha) as I started typing this out...I’ll start again...Ya...I grew up on the Chinook Hockey League. Me and my buddies back in Bentley...

We didn’t have much for hockey on our TV’s in the early to mid 80’s. Maybe two games a week. And Saturday nites...we were in our hometown rinks...In Eckville, Lacombe, Olds, Innisfail, Drumheller, Rocky, Enoch, Ponoka and Bentley. Actually, a common mistake amateur historians

Make is they forget that back in the day...there were 2 leagues operating around Central Alberta: The Chinook League & The Central Alberta Hockey League. The original Gens’ who went defunct in 1984-Ish, played in the CAHL. They played Provincial Games against CHL incarcerations.

And when the original Gens’ folded, our best hometown Bentley players jumped to Eckville Eagles & formed a strong alliance for a few years. Looong before the Chinook League was ever known as an Allan Cup feeding ground it was already at the forefront of Alberta’s SR circuits

The names won’t mean much to some of my readers...but... if you’ve been around rinks in Central Alberta...you recall Butch Smith, Bull Mayan, Wendell Gyroi, Gord Olson, The Laflamme Brothers, Dick McClusky, Dwayne Mofford, Jeff Gosselin, Bernie Haley, Ray Marsh, Bob Clarke...

I used to fight for a spot close to the dressing room door when these big, bearded fucking hillbillies would be quizzing me and my buddies out about where we managed to get our chewing tobacco from or which one of us scored goals earlier that day in our Pee Wee game. Most of em

Worked in the patch’ or farmed or both. Very few of them played any higher level than Jr A. But if they wore CooperAlls and used a Canadien 6001, fibre-wrap & Bauer Supremes’ then that’s what we had to have under our Christmas trees. Us kids all chased pucks around the bleachers

When they came over the boards. This was back before plexi-glass. Most of the end boards were beneath 8’ high chain link fencing. It would turn neon white with frost and between periods our parents snuck out to start cars and warm up with a stiff whiskey. Sometimes, road games

Would mean you chartered one of the county school busses and those trips were explorations into the deep dark space of rural Saturday nites in Alberta. I don’t remember many other kids getting to take those trips. I guess I was too hard for a baby sitter to handle so I got thrown

On the bus with 20 or 30 adults and when we hit town and the road pops went into pockets...I’d duck past some old toothless Fucker standing inside a plywood walled ticket booth where he was stamping hands and putting $5 bills into a cash into a tin coffee can & I’d start looking

around at the trophy cabinets in those lobby’s that every rink had. Start at one end and work your way all around...the pics ran in chronological order...early 1900’s...black & white...sometimes there were no names, sometimes just a first letter and a last name. Sometimes

A name would appear in a team pic from 1945 and then you’d see that same last name and a different first name 20 years later and then another first name 20 years after that. Hometown Stalwarts. Still got the home quarter 10 miles east of town, eh.

Senior Leagues...and railroads... were the two things that tied the countryside together. But nobody ever got their teeth knocked at the grain elevators.

The Bentley Generals were very proud members of the Chinook Hockey League. Ray Marsh presided over our league for over 40 years. He came from England and started helping shape modernized amateur hockey in Central Alberta in the 1970’s. He passed away on Christmas Day, 2012.

And AFAIC, some of HIS Chinook Hockey League went with him that day. End Thread.