Darrell Davis: Raiders in Cooperalls

Thirty-four years. That’s quite a drought, particularly for the Prince Albert Raiders, who were a downright dynasty in the 1980s and are trying to get back their mojo in this year’s WHL championship series against the Vancouver Giants.

The Raiders last won the Memorial Cup in 1985, which is also the last time they advanced to the league championship. It’s so long ago, the team wore Cooperalls when it played — those horrendous, long hockey pants that fortunately had a short life span when Raiders boss Terry Simpson built a team that dominated at the Junior A level before advancing to the Western Hockey League.

One of the players on that ’85 squad was defenceman Curtis Hunt, who is now Prince Albert’s general manager. His head coach is Marc Habscheid. This is the fourth WHL franchise Habscheid has coached and he’s only 15 years removed from winning a Memorial Cup with the Kelowna Rockets. Their team is tied 1-1 in the best-of-seven league final. The next three games are in Vancouver, but it wouldn’t be horrible if the series returned to P.A. for games 6 and 7, just for old times’ sake.