photo courtesy ross dettman/chicago wolves - Head coach Rocky Thompson directs Chicago Wolves players during a May 18 game against the San Diego Gulls at Allstat Arena in Rosemont, Ill.
srooney@medicinehatnews.com@MHNRooney
As the Medicine Hat Tigers enter their 50th anniversary season, the Medicine Hat News talked to five players – one from each decade of the team’s existence. There are differences in their stories to be sure, but read between the lines and we hope you’ll see some similarities, too.
He was the ultimate teammate, the guy who always had your back and galvanized both a dressing room and a fan base with a gap-toothed smile.
As it turns out, the traits that made Rocky Thompson a team captain for the Medicine Hat Tigers might also be why he’s become a great coach.
The 42-year-old never won a playoff series in his time with the Tigers, part of the least-successful decade in team history. But the ’90s are full of positive memories, and as he points out, those teams were actually pretty good.
“The years I was there we had winning records, but didn’t have much playoff success,” said Thompson, now the coach of the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. “By the end of that, in ’97, Josh Green and myself ended up getting traded, they looked for the rebuild coming in. Then it went a little bit further south.
“We were always in the middle of the pack, making playoffs every year, but we didn’t have that powerhouse team we had in the late ’80s when they were coming out of the glory years.”
The team won two playoff series in the entire decade, and only two playoff games while Thompson wore the orange and black. He’s been more successful behind the bench, leading the Windsor Spitfires to a Memorial Cup win two years ago and now knocking on the door of an NHL job.
“It’s how I played, that was always the focus as a player was the team was first, it wasn’t about my individual success,” said Thompson. “I always found success when our team was succeeding, that’s how I felt I was contributing, and that’s transitioned really well as a coach.”
Originally from Calgary, Thompson and his older brother Jeremy cracked the Tigers roster in 1993, under coach Bob Loucks. They combined for 409 penalty minutes, which was common for the era. Medicine Hat’s 2,119 penalty minutes weren’t even in the top five for the WHL.
The big issue was a lack of coaching consistency.
“We never had a coach stay longer than a season. We had Perry Pearn in my second year, made good strides that year.
“Then Perry left to go to the NHL and we had a lot of turnover. It was such a rotation of coaching, it was like we were never able to truly get traction.”
The team was a big part of the city’s fabric, playoff success or not. Named captain as a 17-year-old, Rocky still remembers where the players would hang out together.
“We always went to this one pool hall, they would just take care of us there. Back in those days it was half arcade, half pool hall. We’d just go there and it was just like Cheers, that was our place.
“We had a lot of good times, a lot of laughs.
“As far as a team we were always together… which was so important. You care about each other and you do that when you spend a lot of time around each other, you have each other’s backs.”
Not one for social media, Thompson last saw many of his old teammates in 2005 at a reunion centred around legendary team broadcaster and bus driver Bob Ridley. But he saw Pearn recently when his daughter was trying out for Canada’s under-18 women’s hockey team, as Pearn coaches the national senior team.
He’s not even the only Tigers enforcer-turned-head coach. Craig Berube finished his WHL career in the Gas City in 1986 and won a Stanley Cup coaching the St. Louis Blues this year.
“He was a physical player, a guy who had to work hard and sacrifice every single day when he played,” said Thompson. “You see guys like that, I’m working with Gerard Gallant, he was in the trenches for years in the National Hockey League. He’s an outstanding coach and an outstanding leader. Those are guys I look up to, try to emulate and learn from and grow, and at the same time I am who I am too. I’m going to be myself and I’m going to try myself to get better.”
It’s been a long time since Thompson was lighting up opponents, the fans in Section 2 egging him on. He came through town as an assistant coach with the Edmonton Oil Kings in 2010, but hasn’t been since.
“In one breath it feels like it was yesterday, then the next thing you look at, holy smokes, ’93, it’s 25, 26 years ago right?
“It’s incredible how long it is, but you remember some of these things like it was yesterday.
“But a lot of good times, I’ll tell you what.”
