‘Minor’ guys in Las Vegas rooting hard for Calgary

Nick Christensen

Tuesday, May 25, 2004 | 9:30 a.m.

When the Las Vegas Wranglers signed on as the Double-A affiliate of the Calgary Flames last summer, some wondered about the impact of being affiliated with a "minor" team in the "major" leagues.

Calgary had spent most of the preceding three seasons in the cellar of the NHL's Northwest Division, and its smaller Canadian market was often blamed for its on-ice struggles. With not much on-ice success and no regional tie to Las Vegas, aside from being 1,300 miles away via I-15, the affiliation didn't leave much room to market the team.

But now, the Flames are four wins away from being the unlikeliest of Stanley Cup champions, in the final year before labor issues are likely to temporarily end the NHL.

The Flames are also the first Canadian team in 10 years to reach the Stanley Cup final. They face Tampa Bay, an expansion team that symbolizes the change in the NHL dynamics that prompted two Canadian teams to leave for the United States, and eventually led to the labor strife.

The Wranglers have no players under contract for next season, as ECHL contracts are for one year only. But some have stayed in Las Vegas through the early offseason, including defenseman Jason McBain and goaltender Marc Magliarditi, who both are working at the Orleans.

McBain, from the town of Kimberley, British Columbia, about 250 miles from Calgary, said it can't be underestimated how passionate Canadians are about hockey.

"It's huge; it's one of those things where people don't quite understand how meaningful it is to that country. It's a hockey-driven country," he said. "When you watch sports out there compared to down here, the first half-hour is dedicated to hockey, where you get the first hockey highlight a half-hour into SportsCenter."

Wranglers coach Glen Gulutzan, who is also working to extend the team's affiliation with the Flames past its expiration next Monday, said he thinks all of Canada is rooting for the Flames.

"I haven't been up there but I know Calgary's just a zoo as far as excitement in that city; it's just a very exciting time to be there," Gulutzan said. "Canada's kind of embraced Calgary; I think a lot of people are. It's small-market club well below the salary norm for league; they're doing it all on grit and determination. I don't know anyone that doesn't like that."

It's that small-market, low-budget energy that has McBain rooting for the Flames.

"I don't really like the big market teams in any sport. I don't like teams that go out and buy their team. I don't really have much respect for those teams," he said. "I think it's great that a team like Calgary had to battle its way through the minors, and now they're coming to the forefront. Beating a team like Detroit that's full of superstars, for me, it's great to watch."

Both McBain and Gulutzan predicted Calgary would win the series, likely in six or seven games.

For Magliarditi, both the Flames and Lightning remind him of a team he knows far too much about -- the Idaho Steelheads, who last week won the ECHL championship 4-1 in a best-of-seven series against the Florida Everblades. The Steelheads lost only five games through the four rounds of the Kelly Cup playoffs, including two to the Wranglers.

"I think you've got two teams that have skilled, talented guys, role players and hard workers; the bottom line is they're all jelling together and playing 60 minutes, sometimes more, nonstop as if it's the last game they'll ever play," Magliarditi said. "It's what Idaho did to us -- they key in on key players and never stop working, and got the result that paid off."

After seeing the Steelheads win the championship, Gulutzan was still frustrated that his team couldn't pull through and beat Idaho in the first round of the playoffs after leading 2-0 in the best-of-five series.

"Watching Boise win it all, that kind of bugs me. ... It's just painful. At the end of the day the most painful thing to deal with is, I felt like we got outworked in that series, I felt Boise deserved to win the series; that's the most disturbing part. ... I think that if we come to really get dirty and play hard that we could have won that series," he said. "The one solace was I talked to (media relations director) Josh (Fisher) today and he talked to (Idaho's) radio announcer. ... They were saying the toughest series they had was against us. It just gives me fuel to make sure our team's better for next year."