November 11, 2011
Pucks From The Past
Catching Up With The Saskatoon Westerns

by Iain Fyffe

For seven "seasons" now, we've been following the saga of the fictional Saskatoon Westerns, the team that arose when the proposed (but never completed in reality) sale of the St. Louis Blues to interests in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan went through. General Manager Ardal Ekrub has built his team up using his objective draft ranking system, and the club has gone from mediocrity in 1983 to a Stanley Cup championship in 1990. If you need to catch up, here's a complete list of articles to date:

Introduction and Preliminary Roster Moves
1983 Entry Draft and 1983-84 Season
1984 Entry Draft and 1984-85 Season
1985 Entry Draft and 1985-86 Season
1986 Entry Draft and 1986-87 Season
1987 Entry Draft and 1987-88 Season
1988 Entry Draft and 1988-89 Season
1989 Entry Draft and 1989-90 Season

It's been a steady climb up the standings for our imaginary team, built with the expectation that a certain level of success cannot only be achieved, but sustained long term, by drafting well and using older players to acquire draft picks when they reach their near-decline years, which is also when they tend to get expensive to keep.

Saskatoon Westerns Season Results Through 1989-90

Season	GP	W	L	T	GF	GA	Pts
1983-84	80	32	39	9	314	324	73
1984-85	80	34	36	10	311	313	78
1985-86	80	40	32	8	321	309	88
1986-87	80	40	32	8	328	297	88
1987-88	80	41	31	8	345	307	90
1988-89	80	45	26	9	365	297	99
1989-90	80	45	27	8	344	277	98
Total	560	279	219	62	2325	1814	620

The purpose of this article is simply to add some color to the story of the Westerns, to make them seem a bit more real by adding some details that have been lacking to date. To begin with, we'll be adding some more details to the yearly summaries, such as listing how each player was acquired, and their numbers as well. To get caught up, here's a listing of each player's number by season, to date:

Saskatoon Westerns Jersey Numbers, By Season

Player			1983-84	1984-85	1985-86	1986-87	1987-88	1988-89	1989-90
Albelin, Tommy		-	-	-	-	23	23	23
Anderson, Perry		12	-	-	-	-	-	-
Audette, Donald		-	-	-	-	-	-	18
Beaupre, Don		33	33	33	33	33	33	33
Bodger, Doug		-	3	3	3	3	3	3
Bradley, Brian		-	-	12	12	12	12	12
Brooke, Bob		11	11	-	-	-	-	-
Brown, Jeff		-	-	28	28	28	28	28
Brown, Rob		-	-	-	-	44	44	44
Brownschidle, Jack	16	16	-	-	-	-	-
Callander, Jock		-	37	-	-	-	-	-
Chernomaz, Rich		-	17	17	17	17	17	-
Conroy, Al		-	-	-	-	-	-	20
Crawford, Bob		18	18	-	-	-	-	-
Delorme, Gilbert		27	27	27	27	27	-	-
Derkatch, Dale		-	-	-	-	36	36	-
Dore, Andre		2	2	2	-	-	-	-
Federko, Bernie		24	24	24	24	24	24	24
Fenton, Paul		29	29	29	29	-	-	-
Fleury, Theoren		-	-	-	-	-	14	14
Galarneau, Michel	17	-	-	-	-	-	-
Ganchar, Perry		25	25	25	-	-	-	-
Giles, Curt		6	6	6	6	6	-	-
Gilmour, Doug		9	9	9	9	9	9	9
Graham, Dirk		21	21	21	21	21	21	21
Hawgood, Greg		-	-	-	-	-	38	38
Heinz, Rick		31	31	-	-	-	-	-
Helminen, Raimo		-	-	18	18	-	18	-
Jooris, Mark		-	-	-	-	15	-	-
Julien, Claude		-	-	20	20	-	-	-
Keskinen, Esa		-	-	-	-	-	29	-
Klassen, Ralph		28	-	-	-	-	-	-
Klima, Petr		-	-	16	16	16	16	16
Kron, Robert		-	-	-	-	-	-	19
Laaksonen, Mikko	-	-	-	-	-	-	22
Lemieux, Alain		23	23	23	-	-	-	-
Lebeau, Stephan		-	-	-	-	-	-	47
Lomow, Byron		-	-	-	-	22	-	-
Lubina, Ladislav	-	-	-	-	-	-	15
Maciver, Norm		-	-	-	37	37	37	37
Markell, John		19	19	-	-	-	-	-
McCrimmon, Brad		10	10	10	10	10	10	10
Michayluk, Dave		13	13	-	13	-	-	-
Mullen, Joe		7	7	7	7	7	7	7
Nieuwendyk, Joe	-	-	-	25	25	25	25
Norwood, Lee		4	4	4	4	4	-	-
Numminen, Teppo	-	-	-	-	-	27	27
Parro, Dave		30	-	-	-	-	-	-
Paslawski, Greg		5	5	5	5	5	-	-
Pettersson, Jorgen	22	22	22	-	-	-	-
Posavad, Mike		-	-	-	27	-	-	-
Propp, Brian		26	26	26	26	26	26	26
Recchi, Mark		-	-	-	-	-	8	8
Reeds, Mark		15	15	15	15	-	-	-
Riendeau, Vincent	-	-	-	30	30	30	30
Sands, Mike		-	-	35	-	-	-	-
Stewart, Bill		20	20	-	-	-	-	-
Tikkanen, Esa		-	-	11	11	11	11	11
Tookey, Tim		8	8	-	-	-	-	-
Torkki, Jari		-	-	-	-	-	13	13
Tudor, Rob		36	36	-	-	-	-	-
Wickenheiser, Doug	14	14	14	14	14	-	-
Wilson, Rik		34	34	34	34	-	-	-

Another question that should be addressed is: who leads this team? Who is the captain? Ekrub believes that consistency is important in these roles. As such, for all the seasons above, Bernie Federko is captain of the team, and Brad McCrimmon and Doug Wickenheiser are alternates. In 1988-89, when Wickenheiser leaves the team, Doug Gilmour becomes an alternate. However, as will be revealed in our next installment, Federko will be calling it a career before the 1989-90 season. This leads to Doug Gilmour becoming captain, with Joe Nieuwendyk taking his place as alternate.

But what do the Westerns look like, anyway? To see the team on the ice (which is what really matters, after all), we need to visualize them. So here you go: below is the Saskatoon Westerns' uniform from 1983-84. You'll no doubt take note of its decided eightiesness.

This uniform is basically the Blues' sweater from 1982-83 with the colors replaces by the colors of the Saskatchewan flag, and the music note crest replaced by the Westerns' simple but effective W. But this uniform only lasted one season. Partly to update the look to a more modern one, and partly to establish more of a team identity (rather than just aping the previous team's look), a brand new sweater came into use for the 1984-85 season, as seen below.

GM Ekrub insisted on a simple, clean look for his team. And you don't need to worry about frequent updates to the uniform (which a cynic might attribute as an attempt to boost sales of replica sweaters). The Westerns will use this uniform from 1984-85 until 2007-08, when a league-wide change in sweater design finally prompts a slight revision. The team will have a throwback third sweater as well, introduced in 1998-99. But you'll have to wait until the years in question to see those new designs.

Finally, we come to the subject of salaries. In the pre-salary cap era, detailed tracking of salaries on a year-to-year basis isn't really necessary. However, it would still be interesting to see how much the Westerns would be spending on player salaries at this time. Also, it would be fun to have a look at 1989-90 salary numbers. They bear absolutely no resemblance to the economic conditions of the NHL in 2011-12. Seriously, have a look at these numbers, they're each player's actual salary for the 1989-90 season, as near as I can determine them:

Saskatoon Westerns 1989-90 Player Salaries

Player			GP	Salary ($)
Gilmour, Doug		78	375,000
Tikkanen, Esa		79	345,000
Federko, Bernie		73	335,000
Brown, Rob		80	310,000
Nieuwendyk, Joe		79	260,000
McCrimmon, Brad		79	250,000
Propp, Brian		54	250,000
Beaupre, Don		48	225,000
Mullen, Joe		78	200,000
Graham, Dirk		73	190,000
Brown, Jeff		77	185,000
Bodger, Doug		71	160,000
Klima, Petr		76	150,000
Bradley, Brian		67	135,000
Riendeau, Vincent	32	135,000
Numminen, Teppo		79	130,000
Lebeau, Stephan		50	115,000
Fleury, Theoren		80	110,000
Hawgood, Greg		77	110,000
Maciver, Norm		71	110,000
Total				4,080,000

Pretty trippy, right? An entire Stanley Cup lineup in 1989-90 for less than the cost of a single top-flight center in 2011-12. Is this a realistic amount to be spending on salaries at this time? To determine that, let's have a look at the salaries for the real-world 1990 Stanley Cup champions, the Edmonton Oilers:

Edmonton Oilers 1989-90 Player Salaries

Player			GP	Salary ($)
Messier, Mark		79	855,000
Kurri, Jari		78	435,000
Tikkanen, Esa		79	345,000
Simpson, Craig		80	315,000
Anderson, Glenn		73	285,000
Fuhr, Grant		21	270,000
Gregg, Randy		48	240,000
Lowe, Kevin		78	225,000
Murphy, Joe		62	225,000
Smith, Steve		75	180,000
Huddy, Charlie		70	175,000
MacTavish, Craig	80	175,000
Brown, Dave		60	170,000
Muni, Craig		71	155,000
Ranford, Bill		56	155,000
Graves, Adam		63	150,000
Klima, Petr		63	150,000
Lamb, Mark		58	125,000
Buchberger, Kelly	55	90,000
Beukeboom, Jeff		46	80,000
Gelinas, Martin		46	80,000
Smith, Geoff		74	80,000
Total				4,960,000

So there's nothing out of the ordinary in the Saskatoon player salaries. The economics of the game at this time are simply a world away from the conditions we're used to now. When the salary cap does come in, it may restrict our fictional GM's ability to keep the players he wants on a year-to-year basis. That remains to be seen, and we have a number of "years" to go before we can begin to investigate this aspect of today's NHL. Hopefully, the details provided here help you "get into" the Westerns, and make the wait that much easier.