But if it wasn’t for one of this year’s inductees and his fellow forward-thinkers back in the late-70s and early-80s, none of it – the Western Hockey League team, the Hall of Fame, Mosaic Place – might not even exist.
Lorne Humphreys, one of the original founders of the community-owned franchise, was joined by a pair of standout defenceman in Chris Armstrong and Harlan Anderson as the 2019 inductees on the Wall of Fame located on the north wall of the Mosaic Place concourse.
Humphreys led the original group of founders who petitioned the WHL for a new or relocated franchise in June 1982. Things didn’t look good at first, as Edmonton and New Westminster had also applied for teams, but dogged determination proved positive, and the WHL announced on Dec. 3, 1983 that team governors had approved the sale and transfer of the Winnipeg Warriors to Moose Jaw.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“I’m so happy that it’s gone on well and stuff and this is an incredible honour,” Humphreys said. “You look back then, we weren’t playing Regina and Saskatoon and P.A., and if you don’t have those cities, you’re missing out on a big gate… we knew it would be more expensive, but we had the doubt, the black wolf and the hope, the white wolf. And which one wins out in the end? It’s the one you feed. So we kept feeding it that way and things turned our way. We got the franchise and it turned out well.”
Armstrong played for the Warriors from 1991-92 through 1994-95, playing 240 games for the Tribe and emerging as one of the league’s top defencemen. After putting up 68 points in 1993-94, Armstrong was named a WHL First Team All-Star and CHL Second Team All-Star before going on to finish his career with the Warriors with 41 goals, 192 points to sit third all-time in Warriors defenceman scoring.
Armstrong was drafted in the third round by the Florida Panthers in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft and had a long pro hockey career covering more than 800 games over 14 years in the AHL, IHL and German professional league.
“You never expect to get that call, so I was very honoured and humbled to be included with this,” Armstrong said of receiving the phone call from his former captain, Derek Kletzel. “It had been years since I talked to Kletz and I went from a state of ‘oh no, what had happened’ to a place of real speechnessless. You never expect to get something like this and it almost instantly took me back to a time where I was here, and you start going through all the players you played with and the things we experienced. I thought about a lot of things I hadn’t thought about for a long time, a lot of great memories of my time here in Moose Jaw.”
Anderson’s career covered the 1999-2000 season through 2002-03, serving as the 19th captain in Warriors history in his overage season. The offensively gifted rearguard finished with 32 goals and 139 points in 258 games – but it was his post-WHL career where things became really interesting.
Anderson quickly made use of his four years of scholarship money, signing with the University of Alberta Golden Bears and playing five seasons with the USports powerhouse. He would win three national championships, and was named the University Cup MVP in 2006 to go along with the Canada West Most Outstanding Defenceman and Most Valuable Player in 2008.
“I was pretty surprised, I was proud of the career I had here, but I wasn’t expecting to go into the Hall of Fame any time soon,” Anderson said of his nomination. “I’m honoured to be here… I was happy to play here and I was proud to play, any time I asked where I played and I said ‘Moose Jaw’ people were very interested. It’s amazing what’s been done here and that I was able to be a part of it.”
