DES MOINES' ONLY PRO HOCKEY CHAMPS CELEBRATE ANNIVERSARY

Jan 30, 2014

By Tom Witsoky

Follow Tom @toskyahlwild

CELEBRATING 40 YEARS LATER

Today, Dave McLelland, Bob Bilodeau, Steve Coates and Frank DeMarco are just names on a roster of an old professional minor league hockey team that played 40 years ago in a ramshackle arena where heavy wire not fiberglass protected fans from flying pucks.

But back in 1973-74, the four of them along with the rest of the Des Moines Capitols were the toast of Des Moines. They were members of the only team to ever win a professional hockey league championship for the city.

Ironically, the team won the Turner Cup exactly 40 years before the inaugural season of the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League. The Wild’s goal each season will be to bring the Calder Cup to Des Moines, but they won’t be the first to bring a professional hockey championship to central Iowa. 

Forty years ago, the Des Moines Ice Arena, the small Urbandale arena now home to the Des Moines Buccaneers of the United State Hockey League, was the center of hockey in Iowa. The 3,400 seat arena had been home ice for Des Moines Oak Leafs from 1963 through 1972, but that team – despite attracting good crowds for its tough and rowdy play and players like Ivan “The Terrible” Prediger – never won a championship.

The following year the team, under the ownership of Crawford Hubbell, a Des Moines businessman and member of the influential Hubbell family, became the Capitols and set-up an affiliation agreement with the Atlanta Flames and also became a place where the legendary Broad Street Bullies, the Philadelphia Flyers, placed minor league players. Both teams had a number of prospects who were sent to Des Moines after the Capitols lackluster first season in 1972-73.

“It really was the place where the toney, toney crowd of Des Moines and the guys from the tire plant would meet,” Charlie Edwards, a former president of the USHL Des Moines Buccaneers and now  Drake University’s dean of business, public administration and journalism. “The funny thing is that most of the people didn’t know anything about hockey.”

Players were paid from $10,000 to $15,000 back then, McLelland said. Not much compared today’s AHL minimum of $41,500, but enough for young men just of college or Junior A hockey.

“What I remember the most was just how physical and tough we were. We were pretty young, but we would get after it,” Bilodeau said. “We also had several really good goal scorers and Dave McLelland was a top notch goalie.”

Coates, now the long-time color commentator on Flyer broadcasts, said that the team was a special combination of grit and hockey skill.

“We had everything,” Coates said. “We could fight you, we could outscore you, and our goaltending was great. It was a great combination of players for a team in the IHL.”

Coached by Danny Belisle, the team won the IHL regular season championship with a 45-25 record then sliced through the playoffs quickly, defeating the Saginaw 4-2 in the best of 7 championship series.  Not only did the Capitols win the league championship, but DeMarco was named the IHL’s Rookie of the Year and Pete Mara, a forward, won the league’s scoring title winner with 44 goals and 71 assists.

While all four remember the championship year fondly, they also mentioned the biggest downside to the season  – Des Moines was at least 470 miles away from each of its IHL opponents  The closest cities were Fort Wayne, IN, 476 miles and Muskegon, MI, 500 miles.

“It seemed like we were always on the bus for 12 hours, 14 hours,” said McLelland, adding that those travel demands -- all by bus -- wore every player down.

DeMarco, who arrived in Des Moines after four years at Michigan State with a newlywed wife, remembered that the team bus driver’s name was Smitty and “he was a trooper.”

“He would drive and drive and always made sure we got there, He really took care of us,” DeMarco said.

Coates said that the long bus trips actually made the team play better. He said that the team flew just once during the season and lost the game.

“That was it,” Coates said. “We never flew again the entire season. We just rode the bus.”

Coates also said that fact also created one of the funniest moments of the season.  Coates said that Hubbell and Jim Lane, the team’s general manager, rode the bus with the team to a game in Saginaw.

“We beat them on their home ice, got on the bus and left town,” Coates said. “We didn’t realize we had left the owner and the general manager back in Saginaw until about an hour later. We didn’t even go back to get them.”

 The players also talked fondly of the arena -- a place that used a heavy mesh wire to keep pucks in play, but also had one of the most unique features any of the players ever saw.

“I still remember that bar they had on the south end of the arena overlooking the rink,” Bilodeau said. “I had never seen that before anywhere and I haven’t since. I actually thought that was a great idea.”

They also knew how to play the boards, according to McLelland. “We knew where the boards stuck out a little further than they were supposed to. You’d be amazed how many passes off the boards would end up in front of the opposing goalie with one of us there to stuff it in,” McLelland said.

The place was also where the players saw a few unusual things fitting to the great hockey movie “Slap Shot, according to Edwards and the players.

“You had to be careful where you sat because you’d probably get beer thrown on you,” Edwards said. “Most of the folks didn’t know that much about hockey, but they sure like to be entertained.”

DeMarco said one night players stayed on the ice between periods so they could line-up with raised sticks like swords to allow two members of the Capitols booster club to walk to center ice to get married. “Coach told us that they were big fans and wanted to get married. What could we say?” DeMarco said.

Then there were the nights of fights – not on the ice, but in the stands.

Coates said that one of the best fights he ever saw at a hockey game was during warm-ups when a woman began “beating the hell out of some guy.”

“She knocked him down a bunch of rows and then when he went back after her, she kicked him backed down,” Coates said. “In 40 years of hockey, that was one of the best I ever saw.”

DeMarco remembered another night.

“We were playing a really tough game and all of a sudden, everyone stopped playing,” DeMarco said. “We all stood there and watched a fight in the stands. It ended when one guy cold-cocked a guy down four rows.”

McLelland remembered a different night. “The fight started on the ice, but then went into the stands, then out into the lobby,” he said. “I still can’t remember what caused it.”

But there were also special moments and friendships that grew among team members.

Bilodeau, now a retired after 22 years as a firefighter and captain for the Fort St. John’s Fire Department in British Columbia, said that the Capitols gave him his only opportunity to skate on the same team as his brother, Yvon.

“He belonged to Philly and at the time I belonged to Atlanta,” Bilodeau said.  “I wasn’t quite good enough to play for Atlanta’s first minor league team in Omaha so they told me to report to Des Moines. I get there and Yvon was there too.”

He said the two were often on the ice for penalty kills, but played on separate lines for most of the season.

DeMarco, who is now a retired speech pathologist in Sudbury, ON, said the Capitols booster club gave him and his wife, Terri, a chance to meet a lot of people from Des Moines. “My wife and I really liked it there. The weather was a bit better than up here and folks in town were always around to help us out,” he said.

Bilodeau also acknowledged that there was fun to be had for a group of young guys -- many of them away from home for the first time.

“It was a great place to play for a young single guy out of Junior hockey and away from home for the first time,” he said.

All four players spent a few more years playing hockey with Bilodeau finishing his hockey career with four seasons in Hershey of the AHL and DeMarco playing four more years in the CHL and IHL.

Of their teammates, the one who has stayed closest to hockey is Coates, who played his rookie season in Des Moines after four years at Michigan Tech. Coates is a long-time announcer and color man for Philadelphia Flyer broadcasts.

During the 73-74 season, Coates scored a career high 31 goals and added 39 assists in 70 games despite being only 5’ 9’’ and 172 pounds. Coates also managed 167 penalty minutes – second highest on the team.

“He was the smallest guy on the ice usually, but I never ever saw him lose a fight and he had a few,” McClelland, who now spends his time as an excavator and backhoe operator mostly installing vineyards in British Columbia, said.

DeMarco described his teammate this way: “He was without fear. He’d skate into the corners, get into to it with someone and come out laughing. He’s still that way,” DeMarco said.

All four said that they haven’t been back to Des Moines since that year, although Bilodeau said he got close one time with a trip to Omaha to buy fire trucks for his department.

“I bet the town has changed a lot,” he said.

McLelland said that it had been a long time since he had even thought about that year. “Thanks for stirring up some great memories. It was a great time,” he said.

Coates also has strong feelings about the time he spent in Des Moines.

“I loved playing there,” he said. “One of the best years of my life.”