Bruce Campbell...... Okotoks Western Wheel

The Blackie Bobcats were doing something on Saturday that they were well known for when they joined the Ranchland Hockey League back in 1981.
They were playing Canada’s national game and there were plenty of smiles at the Bobcats Alumni four-on-four hockey tournament Saturday at the Blackie Arena.
“We weren’t all that good that first year,” said Jerry Ellice, a centre for that 1981 team. “We won maybe six games all year, but we had more fun than anybody. When we played out of town, after the game we would go to the other team’s home bar and some of the guys would play in the band and we would dance with the other team’s girlfriends. But we never caused a scene.”
Some of the characters include Bob Macgillivray, Kirk Davies and Kevin LeMoal, who on Saturday was wearing what may be the only official pair of Blackie Bobcat Cooperall pants ever made.
“Everyone had the Cooperalls, but I went out and had someone stitch the ‘Blackie Bobcats’ down the side,” said LeMoal, who was such a dedicated Bobcat that while he was working in Leduc, he drove to Blackie so he wouldn’t miss a practice.
“Kevin was always doing something to get the fans going,” former Bobcat Bob Harde said. “He used to skate with clown’s feet — the skates heel-to-heel — while he skated sideways.”
But it wasn’t all laughs for the Bobcats, in the mid-1980s, they beat the High River Flyers in the final game of the season, to earn a seven-game playoff against their biggest rivals, the Okotoks Oilers.
“We ended up losing in an eight-game series,” Ellice said with a smile. “We had lost Game 7, but then we got a call the very next day, that the Oilers had an ineligible player in the game – and they wanted to play us that night.
“We had thought the playoffs were over, so after Game 7, we went out and partied. We were in no shape to play the eighth game.”
Of course, playing in Okotoks was never a tea party for the Bobcats.
Former Bobcat Kim “Cooks” McLean said there were times the Blackie team would need an RCMP escort out of the old Okotoks Arena, which was located at the current site of the Okotoks library, after a heated game with the Oilers. Apparently an Oilers-Bobcats game used to make roller derby look like croquet.
“They used to have these big steel poles about 10 feet apart that were attached on the other side of the boards,” McLean said. “You would get slammed into that part of the boards, and you’d feel it the next day.”
The class of the Ranchland Hockey League in the 1980s was the Nanton Palominos, who were led by the McMasters brothers, Tom, Jim and Boyd.
Jim, who is the Nanton town foreman, was a former Calgary Centennial and played for the Cleveland Crusaders of the World Hockey Association. (Johnny ‘Pie’ McKenzie, who won two Stanley Cups with the Big Bad Bruins in the 1970s, was a Palomino before playing in Boston.)
But Macgillivray said one of his fondest moments of being a Bobcat was beating the Pals on a Friday night.
“After the game, we went to the bar and I played (harmonica) with the band,” said Macgillivray, rehashing Ellice’s earlier comments. “Then our guys danced with their girlfriends.”
Pointing to the ice, Macgillivray said, ”That guy right there, Craig Ellice, who just scored two nice goals, got the game-winner against Nanton.”
While Macgillivray was rejoicing Craig Ellice’s two goals at the Bobcat Alumni tournament, his son Collin wasn’t too happy about it.
“My dad has two goals and I don’t have any,” Collin said. “I am never going to hear the end of this.” (The players at the Bobcat tournament are a classy bunch. Collin, his brother Court and Bruce Clingman are all former Kings at the High River Spring Ball. The king is recognized for his etiquette, dance and sparkling personality at the annual ball for Grade 11 students.)
Having sons playing with their dads is all part of the Bobcat Alumni tournament. And Cooks McLean is proud to be playing with the younger players.
“There is so much hockey talent in this area,” McLean said. “It’s a pleasure to play with such good kids.”
The Bobcats folded in the late 1980s as did the Okotoks Oilers soon after. The Palominos continue to play in the Ranchland Hockey League.