Great Falls Americans

Hockey team
team = Great Falls Americans
city = Great Falls, Montana
league = Western Hockey League
operated = 1979–80
arena = Four Seasons Arena
name1 = Flin Flon Bombers
dates1 = 1967–78
name2 = Edmonton Oil Kings
dates2 = 1978–79
name3 = Great Falls Americans
dates3 = 1979–80
name4 = Spokane Flyers
dates4 = 1980–81The Great Falls Americans were a junior ice hockey team in the Western Hockey League who played in the 1979–80 WHL season. The team was originally the Edmonton Oil Kings. They played at the Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls, Montana. The team only lasted 28 games and won two games. After the season, the franchise would be revived as the Spokane Flyers.

The Great Falls Americans name was later used by an American Frontier Hockey League team.

eason-by-season record

Season statistics [ [http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/teamseasons.php?tid=1887 hockeydb.com statistics] ]
"Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties Pts = Points,
GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against"

The Junior Team

The Great Falls Americans Junior B Hockey Club spawned out of a couple Great Falls Youth Hockey board members, including Jeff Cunningham.

The team, composed of older boys in the 19- 20-year-old range from Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as several from the east coast, joined the International Junior B Hockey League that had five other teams from southern Alberta, Canada. The teams included the Medicine Hat Cubs, Lethbridge Bridge City Barons, Brooks Rangers, Kainai Chiefs and Taber Golden Suns. The Taber Golden Suns soon disbanded after a 1-33 start to the American’s first season.

Despite a raucus and rowdy brand of hockey, which was quite commonplace in the league, the Americans struggled to win. But what they lacked in skill on the ice to win games they made up for in scraps and winning the hearts of the Great Falls faithful, most of them looking for things to do on the cold winter nights in Montana.

The tunes of “Bad to the Bone” and “Bad Boys” rung off the Four Season’s Arena walls on weekend nights as brawls ensued and fans guzzled beer delightedly in large amounts.

After missing the playoffs in the team’s inaugural campaign, the Americans gathered some steam and quite literally fought their way into the post-season, but came up short against the Medicine Hat Cubs in the first round of the playoffs.

With attendance doing admirably and many local fans enthralled with the team, the next season’s turn of events quite possibly silently murdered junior hockey in Great Falls.

The local group of investors smartly decided to sell the team while the stock was high to a local businessman who lived on a spacious ranch south of the city in Craig, Montana. The man, James King, bought into a decent product, but quickly made several gaffs that turned the scrappy, and admired Americans, into the laughing stock of junior hockey across North America.King quickly moved the Americans from the quaint and familiar, yet rowdy and bloody, International Junior Hockey League based out of Canada, which many hockey playing youths and their parents related to since the youth teams traveled north every weekend for games. Instead, the Americans joined the American Frontier Hockey League, which had teams in Billings, a short time later Helena, Vail, Jackson Hole, Central Wyoming and Pueblo. The league also had the sublime idea to play week-night games because it was after-all a “Junior A League.”

King then made a second drastic change that further alienated his strong fan base by tweaking the name of the team to the Great Falls King’s Americans. When asked by a local media outlet why he named the team after himself, King responded, “I didn’t name the team after myself, I named it after the Almighty King himself, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Trying to instill Christian values on a team that was based more on fisticuffs than skating and scoring was a more difficult task than King had imagined. The team’s attendance slowly dwindled as the team suffered from bus lag and the inability to keep up with better competition.

Things hit rock bottom when the Great Falls King’s Americans, in front of a reported paid crowd of 202 loyal fans on a Wednesday night (by actual account there were 18), lost 22-1 at the hands of the Vail Avalanche. Former Michigan goalie Josh Blackburn scored the only goal for the team as he skated as a player in the game.

Other notable comedic adventures included a game against the Billings Bulls when an intoxicated fan dumped beer from the newly-built mezzanine over the visiting teams crease. The goalie exited the playing surface, ran up the stairs and attempted to clobber the fan.

Then, in another incident, following a most-common line brawl on the ice, a Great Falls Americans player was choked by owner James King as the young brawler left the playing surface. King was upset with the player’s on-ice antics and tried to give him a stern talk that escalated into an embarrassing incident, one of many, for the aspiring junior hockey owner.

King, seeing he had decimated a somewhat profitable venture, sold the team to a businessman who promised to restore order to the once proud franchise. The man brought back the old jerseys and colors, and word spread around town the King regime had ended.

To kick off the season, the team had planned to burn the old jerseys at centre ice and a large crowd of close to 1,000 fans packed Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls to see the spectacle. However, the city nixed the idea due to fire code restrictions and the team instead was driven onto the ice by a large army truck.

What seemed like a novel idea turned into another embarrassing episode for the team as the players struggled getting down from the truck as they were announced by popular public address announcer Chris Purcell, who had been brought back after getting nudged out by King during the King’s Americans days. The opening ceremony took so long, the fans lost interest and momentum had been lost.

The new owner had promised to help the local youth hockey with tryouts and getting involved in the community. It looked like the team would make a turnaround, but that hope quickly faded. The team did not perform well on the ice, and it didn’t take long for the owner’s credibility and credit to go downhill. He would soon file for bankruptcy and it appeared the Americans were finally dead.

However, the league, seeing that teams in Helena, Bozeman, Billings and Butte at the time, all were solid markets who were buoyed by one another, swiped up the Americans and kept them afloat while waiting for a new owner.

The team then made the turnaround on the ice and even made an appearance in the USA Hockey Junior A National Championship after winning the America West Hockey League. But after 10 seasons in Great Falls, the team could not sustain a fan base after all of the turmoil and turnover, even with the winning season, and was moved to Minot, North Dakota, for the 2002-2003 season.

With a new arena in the works, some local hockey nuts have interest in starting a Junior B team that could play in the Heritage Junior B Hockey League, but that has not gained traction yet. Until then, we can remember the memories and the comedy for years to come.

NHL alumni

List of alumni who also played in the National Hockey League. [ [http://www.legendsofhockey.net:8080/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/SearchPlayersByTeam.jsp?team=Great+Falls+Americans www.legendsofhockey.net] ]
*Dave Barr
*Ken Daneyko

NHL alumni from the Modern Day Junior Team

List of alumni who also played in the National Hockey League.

* Josh Langfeld [http://www.legendsofhockey.net:8080/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/SearchPlayer.jsp?player=11309]

* David Printz [http://www.legendsofhockey.net:8080/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/SearchPlayer.jsp?player=20401]

References