Almost three decades have gone by since a team from North Bay has won the Ontario Hockey League Championship and was represented in the Memorial Cup. One of the players that had the opportunity to play in that tournament says the fact that it hasn’t been done since is a testament to how hard it is to accomplish that goal.
Steve McLaren was just 18 years old when he was part of the North Bay Centennials squad which defeated the Detroit Junior Red Wings in a thrilling seven game OHL Championship final, ending in overtime at Memorial Gardens, and paving the way for a trip to the Memorial Cup in 1994.
“We were a young team and Bert Templeton was a strong coach and so we all bought in to his coaching and his systems,” says McLaren.
“We all listened and did what we had to do to make those things happen. When you have a bunch of people who buy in to a system, it doesn’t take long before a team starts coming together. We had a lot of rookies on the team and some great veterans that really glued everything together.”
Just like many players who make it to the pro-ranks, McLaren was skating at a young age and says he played a lot of sports growing up, but “What I liked about playing hockey was the degree of challenge and with every challenge that you overcame, you felt good about yourself. I played house league here in North Bay and that’s where I gained my confidence in that sport. I started skating faster than other players, and shooting harder and I kept moving up from there.”
He also started moving ahead physically. At one point, McLaren says he was a smaller kid but once he hit that growth spurt he was all of a sudden a lot bigger and stronger than all his friends.
“But I still carried that mentality of having been the smaller kid that got picked on and so I started standing up for everybody that meant something to me; not only in hockey but in life too. I think that’s the lesson everyone could learn from this, you stand up for the people you love and care about.”
And his teammates loved having him on the ice, as he was truly built for the enforcer role that was a mainstay in the era of hockey he played in.
“Bert said to me once, ‘pick one thing, whether its penalty killing, fighting, blocking shots, if you pick one thing and show that you’re the best at doing that, it’s going to get you somewhere.’ It just so happened that under Bert the thing that I was good at was being aggressive and doing things in a way where you are still having an impact on the game,” says McLaren who still resides in North Bay and works for the City of North Bay. But back in his playing days he says, “I knew that it was my job to protect my teammates and the only way I could do that was if I was on the ice, and not making mistakes that would cost us the game. You weren’t going to get playing time if they knew you were a liability.”
McLaren focused on being tough to play against and someone who was never shy about dropping the gloves.
“I won most of my fights. In all honesty I probably wouldn’t have minded having social media back then,” he says. “There was a game where I got into a fight with two players from the St. John’s Maple Leafs and there was some heckling at me on the internet at that point. You live for that kind of stuff, you want people talking about you, but you mostly want them to be talking about good things about you.”
McLaren adds, “It would be interesting though to go back and study some of the fighting styles of the other players so you could see their tendencies and figure out how you would approach them in a fight. I was an all or nothing guy, I wouldn’t grab on. As soon as some guy wanted to grab an arm, I would come back with the opposite arm. That was one of the advantages I had was being able to do a lot of damage with both sides.”
McLaren might never have gotten the chance to be featured on hockey fights or hear that message from Templeton had it not been for an injury scare that not only cost him a long layoff in hockey, but also could have cost him his life.
“In my first year playing U18 AAA I had a player take a dive at me, almost like a football tackle from the side and he hit right at my knee and ended up breaking my femur. I had to be lifted in an air ambulance back to North Bay because the worry in that kind of injury is that the bone could cut the artery and if that happens, that’s potentially it for you,” says McLaren.
“Because I had to miss so much time due to the injury, it just made me want to get on the ice more. I had that drive to get back to the game I loved. I ended up going back to the U18 AAA team for a second year and because I didn’t get drafted by a Major Junior team, I could be signed by my local OHL team without having to go back into the draft. Bert had a chat with my dad and my dad said he would absolutely love to have Bert coach me. I went in to training camp and had to prove my worth but from that point I was looking forward to being with the Centennials.”
While he was born in Owen Sound, McLaren says North Bay is his home as his family moved to The Gateway City when he was just a year old. He says having an OHL team in the city he grew up in was an advantage.
“Not every town had a team that you could get up close to at your local rink. Watching the game live, you get a better idea of how the game is played and I think that became an advantage for me,” he says.
“I loved going to the games, and being a part of the crowd and getting fired up when everyone else did. North Bay was great for getting fired up about big hits and big fights and it was a great town to grow up in.”
McLaren adds, “Playing in my hometown was fantastic. I would get a real charge out of the noise the crowd made in those big moments. I had a lot of friends and family who would go to the games and so it ended up being an excellent opportunity for me. If I could’ve stayed and played professional hockey in North Bay, I would have.”
But of course, a pro team didn’t exist in North Bay and McLaren was looking at his professional hockey prospects following the ‘94 season.
“After our championship season, Bert left the team and started to act as an agent for me. He started calling around and letting NHL teams know about me and he pitched to them that I was the type of player that teams would want,” says McLaren. “I ended up going to Washington a week before the draft and working out for them. This was an opportunity for teams to get a good look at players before drafting them – they put you through tests to look at your strengths and weaknesses.”
McLaren says he had a good feeling when he left Washington and was looking forward to what could be a big couple of days in Hartford, where the 1994 NHL entry draft was taking place.
In the fourth round, after five of his teammates with the Centennials were already selected (Brad Brown 18th overall to Montreal, Scott Cherrey 41st overall to Washington, Lee Jinman 46th overall to Dallas, Corey Neilson 53rd overall to Edmonton, and Vitali Yachmenev 59th overall to Los Angeles) with the 85th overall selection Steve McLaren heard his name called by the Chicago Blackhawks.
“Washington had a jersey with my name on it on their table and when I walked past them after Chicago called me, they showed it to me and then put it under their table,” says McLaren. “The Blackhawks liked the player I was and took a shot and got me before the Capitals did.”
After being drafted, McLaren returned to the Centennials for another season in the OHL, but it was a season that only lasted 27 games as he was given a lengthy suspension for a hit, forcing him to miss the remaining 41 games that season.
McLaren says he was looking for places to practice so he could stay in shape while serving the suspension.
“I was allowed back in when the Centennials got in to the playoffs – but we only played six games and didn’t go on a deep run that year,” he says.
From that point his Major Junior career was in the rear view mirror and pro hockey was on the horizon.
“Bert then reached out to the South Carolina Stingrays who were being coached by Rick Vaive at the time, and asked if I could skate with them and I ended up playing in two of their playoff games in the ECHL,” he says.
The following year McLaren found a home with the Blackhawks affiliate team, Indianapolis Ice of the International Hockey League which was a minor league that ran parallel to the American Hockey League from 1945 – 2001. He remained in that system from the 1995-96 season through the 1997-98 season, suiting up in 178 games and accumulating 687 penalty minutes – with a career high 309 of those PIMs sustained during the 1996-97 season.
“It wasn’t until I signed with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1998 that I played in the AHL with their affiliate team, the Philadelphia Phantoms. That helped me get a little more notoriety in Canada and in hockey itself because that was the league that was more recognized as the league that was developing the next wave of talent. But I learned a lot from the veteran guys in the IHL,” says McLaren.
“Playing in the minors, you’re always trying to push and show NHL scouts and teams that you’re worthy of getting that call. You have to go out and do that every single night. I wasn’t getting the most ice time in my roles and so I had to prove my worth to the teams by sticking around after practice and putting more work in and going in on days off and getting a skate in. You actually end up working out more than the other guys because you have to show that you really want to be there,” he says.
“It was a grind, but you had to show you were willing to work on being the best at whatever you were asked to do. Every year I would come home to North Bay and my buddies would want to see the fight tapes. There were a couple of goals and some nice hits in there to though.”
In 2003-2004, McLaren was with the Worcester IceCats, the AHL affiliate of the St. Louis Blues, his third affiliated team. Ten years after winning the OHL championship and spending nine seasons enduring the ups and downs of life in minor pro-hockey, McLaren finally got the call that he was going to the show.
“It was an emotional roller coaster,” says McLaren after learning that he would be suiting up for the St. Louis Blues in December of 2003.
“I had waited nine years to get that call and was just trying to prove that I deserved to be there. I was training hard and making some plays and doing well that season – I think I was leading the league in fighting majors when I got called up. Reed Low got hurt and the Blues called me and said they needed a player of my style to come play with them for a little while,” recalls McLaren.
“You’re trying to get family out and involved and you’re calling your buddies and telling them to make sure they watch the game because you want to make an impact. I loved every minute of it. It was a rush for sure, I wish it could’ve gone on for a little while longer, but I loved it.”
McLaren says being in the NHL over the next few weeks was something he will never forget, getting into six games and accumulating 25 PIMs, five of those assessed on his first shift.
Watch: Jody Shelley vs Steve McLaren
McLaren says “I wasn’t afraid to be judged and fighting in hockey is just one-on-one judgement. Everyone’s watching you because the play has stopped, and you are in there trying to prove your worth.”
