The first in a series looking back at the Wolves’ five league championships.
By Chris Kuc and Danny Karmin
As the 1997-98 International Hockey League season progressed, Chicago Wolves players came to the realization that something magical was happening.
“During that season, our team got a little more confident throughout the year and pretty soon you’re getting into January and February, and you’re thinking, ‘hey, we can make a run at the Cup,’ ” forward Chris Marinucci said.
In just the fourth season of the franchise’s existence, the Wolves had developed into a juggernaut that had them on track for a Turner Cup—the first of five league championships throughout the organization’s storied history.
“We grew as a team as that season went on and realized that, ‘hey, we have a special team here,’ ” defenseman Tom Tilley said. “Over the last 20 or 25 games and then certainly when we went into the first round of the playoffs, everybody felt that we had a winning group.”
The key to the run that resulted in the Wolves hoisting the Turner Cup was a roster built by general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff that was stocked with veterans whose sole focus was on winning.
“There wasn’t any complaining about ice time or anything like that,” said Tilley, who was 32 during the ’97-98 season. “We were all grown men, we’d all been around for a while so whatever we needed to do to win we were going to do it as a team.”
Helping keep that focus was legendary coach John Anderson, who was able to mesh the veterans into a cohesive unit that finished 55-24-0-3 in the regular season to capture the first Midwest Division title in franchise history.
Offensively, the ’97-98 Wolves were led by 28-year-old Steve Maltais (46 goals, 57 assists), 25-year-old Marinucci (27 goals, 48 assists), 31-year-old Alexander Semak (26 goals, 35 assists), 25-year-old Steve Martins (20 goals, 41 assists) and Tilley (nine goals, 49 assists). Along with Tilley on the back end, standouts included Bob Nardella (29 years old) and Matt Martin (26). Current Wolves Vice Chairman/Governor Wendell Young was the No. 1 goaltender at age 34.
“We had a lot of really good older players on that team who led the way for us all year,” Martins said. “It was certainly just a great experience getting to know Johnny Anderson, who I thought was one of my best coaches of all time, in terms of how he deals with players and teams that made him the epitome of what a player’s coach is.”
Added Tilley: “They put a lot of good guys together who were good hockey players. Most of us were nearing the end of our careers and that was one of the most fun teams I ever played on.”
The most fun came during the postseason, which began with a three-game sweep of the Manitoba Moose in the first round, continued with victories over the Milwaukee Admirals in the quarterfinals and Long Beach IceDogs in the semifinals—each series going six games. That set up an epic Turner Cup Finals against the Detroit Vipers.
After falling behind three games to two in the best-of-seven series, the Wolves stormed back with a victory in Game 6 to set up a winner-take-all Game 7 at the then-called Rosemont Horizon.
The atmosphere, to put it lightly, was electric as 16,701 boisterous Wolves packed the arena.
“You could always tell when you took warmups if you were going to get a good crowd and Game 7 was certainly that,” Maltais said. “Everybody was in their seats and then there was a brawl. The place was probably the loudest I heard it in my 11 years there.”
Oh yes, the brawl that started it all.
As players were leaving the ice for warmups, a melee broke out—there are conflicting reports on who instigated it—to set the tone for the evening.
“I’m not sure exactly who started it, but we ended up having half the Detroit Vipers on the ice, some without skates and some without equipment,” Martins said. “We had a handful of our team on the ice trying to keep the peace, and it ended up not only getting rink security, but police officers on the ice trying to break it up.”
Vipers general manager Rick Dudley was so incensed that he was eventually kicked out of the arena.
“After that calmed down, one of the highlights of that night was the national anthem,” Martins said. “It was packed and all the people were screaming during the anthem. I had never seen something like that before. It was just a great atmosphere to be a part of.”
The crowd was rewarded with a tense contest that remained scoreless into the third period when the teams were whistled for coincidental penalties. Skating four-on-four, Nardella flipped the puck toward the Detroit net and Marinucci redirected it home 5 minutes, 4 seconds into the third.
“It was a tight game and could have gone either way,” Marinucci said. “Bob Nardella came down the middle of the ice, made a move on the defenseman and launched a shot on goal. I went straight to the net and tipped it in. We were lucky to put the first one in.”
With the sell-out crowd still in a frenzy, the Wolves struck again :24 later when Semak took a feed from Martins and shoveled a backhander into the top of the net to make it 2-0.
With the clock winding down and Wolves fans roaring while waving rally towels, Semak capped the scoring with an empty-net goal. The tally was Semak’s 10th of the playoffs and coupled with 17 assists in the 22 contests earned the forward the N.R. “Bud” Poile Trophy as postseason MVP.
Wolves netminder Stephane Beauregard stood tall the rest of the way to record the shutout with 29 saves.
After the final horn sounded, the on-ice celebration was on and included owner Don Levin hugging Wolves players before captain Maltais hoisted the Turner Cup.
“I just remember the clock winding down and everybody was running up and down the bench, hugging everybody,” Marinucci said. “Johnny Anderson was hugging people and the crowd was going nuts. It’s quite a memory.”
It is a memory that will remain etched in franchise history as a major milestone for a team that was in its fourth season.
“When you win a championship, everybody in the city notices,” Tilley said. “With how Don Levin and leadership built around a family environment and with all the youth hockey things they did, winning that Turner Cup gave us a larger core fan base. The fans that we had were fantastic. They were there all the time.”
Maltais said the closeness of the entire organization made winning all the more special.
“Everybody was close—players were close, ownership was close and the coaching staff was close,” Maltais said. “It was a big moment in Chicago hockey, especially Wolves history.”
The 1998 Turner Cup champions
Players: Steve Maltais, Chris Marinucci, Steve Martins, Alexander Semak, Tom Tilley, Ravil Gusmanov, Scott Pearson, Bob Nardella, Jamie Baker, Tim Breslin, Matt Martin, Doug Barrault, Steve Larouche, Tim Bergland, Kevin Dahl, Alexander Godynyuk, Marc Potvin, Marc Rodgers, Jeff Bes, Paul Koch, Dave Paradise, Dennis Vial, Craig Binns, Matt Oates, Wendell Young, Jeremy Mylymok, Jason Hehr, Chad Remackel, Rick Emmett, Stephane Brochu, Hugo Proulx, Bobby Marshall, Dave Craievich, Shawn Reid, Brad Barton, Mark Richards, Bruce Bell, Ray LeBlanc, Stephane Beauregard.
Coaches: John Anderson, Richard Kromm.
Coming soon: Part Two, the 2000 Turner Cup.
