It was the SJHL Hall Of Fame Weekend in Flin Flon this past weekend, and there were plenty of ways to celebrate the kickoff to the Bombers historic 100th season.
It all began with the Flin Flon Bombers Home Opener against the Laronge Ice Wolves on Friday night.
After spotting the Wolves the first goal, Flin Flon roared back with the next 4 and sent the home town fans home happy with a solid 4 to 1 victory.
Jack Martin scored his first of two, when he fired a nice shot over the right shoulder of Laronge netminder Riley Zezel on the powerplay to tie the game at the midway point of the first period.
The Bombers kept coming and scored two more goals in the opening frame from home town product Ryder Mucha and Jared Miskiw.
Martin would get his second of the night this time short handed, when he converted a nice pass from Nathan Lalumiere from behind the Wolves net.
Martin can really shoot and he scored another nice goal just under the cross-bar to make it 4 to 1.
This was the only goal scored in the second period and neither team could score in the third with the Bombers out shooting the Wolves 37 to 18.
Finn Werner collected his second win of the season with 17 saves, while Riley Zezel suffered the loss, but played very well making 33 saves including some highlight reel glove saves.
The Bombers improve to 2-0 on the season while Laronge will fall to 1-3.
There were plenty of other great events on the weekend including the Alumni game on Saturday afternoon with Team Maroon battling Team White.
There was a great crowd on hand with over 500 in attendance and Team White was able to come back and beat Team Maroon 6 to 5.
I thought it was going to be an easy time for Team Maroon who built up the early 3 to 0 lead, but Team White got stronger as the game went on.
It was so much fun to be part of this game and I was honored to Coach Team Maroon against the SJHL Legend Norm Johnson. Even though we came up a little short it was fun to get a chance to hang out with lots of great Bomber players from the past.
The list includes the likes of Clayton Amos, Don Peichel, Jason Brown, Andrew Skrabek, Nolan Weir, Todd Heck, Randy Rice, Clark Funk, Darren Johnson, Kelly Spook Davis, Mark Davidson and many more.
It was great to see Flin Flon Bomber legends from all the different era’s including the WCHL, Norman League and SJHL.
A big thanks to Dwight Stallard and Ron Burwash for helping me coach on Saturday, as it was great to be joined on the bench by these two gentlemen.
The best part of the weekend was the Hall Of Fame induction’s on Saturday night at the Flin Flon Community Hall.
The night was hosted by Leah Hextall who works for ESPN and returned to Flin Flon for the first time in many years. Leah lived in Flin Flon back in the late 90’s for about 6 years and was an amazing host and appreciated the great support for this hockey team.
Once again congratulations to all the inductees including Tim Madarash who is the Bombers all time leading scorer in the SJHL, including a 100 point season in his last year with the Bombers in 1988-89.
Rob Beck, who was nominated twice, was a standout with the 92-93 Championship Team. Beck led the team in scoring that season with 84 points in 64 games including 34 goals. Rob still has the Bomber record for 8 short handed goals in a season.
Larry Feszczyn went into the builder category. Larry has been a permanent fixture at the Whitney Forum since arriving in Flin Flon in the mid 80’s. He owned the local Home Hardware for decades and gave lots of the players jobs and helped out the club financially and has been one of their best supporters.
The 92-93 Championship team, who up until this past Spring were the only Bomber team to win the League Championship. Flin Flon went right through Humboldt and Nipawin before getting ready to take on the powerhouse Melville Millionaires.
Melville was the top dogs that season only losing 12 times and were heavily favoured against the Bombers in the League Finals.
The Mills jumped out to a quick 2-0 series lead before Flin Flon would get things in check at the Whitney Forum. Both teams were perfect at home in the series til game 7, when the Bombers stunned the Mills 4 to 2 to win one of the most exciting League Finals in history, 4 games to 3.
It was great listening to Captain Chris Hatch and Head Coach and GM, Norm Johnson reminiscing about that unbelievable team and their rise to glory.
Long time Head Coach and GM, Mike Reagan was also inducted and sent a heart warming message via Zoom since he wasn’t able to be there in person. After 19 seasons and winning it all this past Spring, Reagan moved on to the WHL with the Kelowna Rockets just before the season started.
Reagan leaves behind an incredible legacy with over 600 coaching victories which makes him the winningest Coach in Bomber history. Mike was finally able to guide the Bombers to the League Championship after 6 trips to the finals in the last 8 years. He is definitely deserving on being inducted to the SJHL Hall Of Fame and will be greatly missed in Flin Flon.
There are obviously a lot of differences between the 92-93 Bombers and the 2025-26 edition which won the title this past Spring, but there is one common denominator.
I believe both these teams won when the community desperately needed it. In 92-93, there was a lot of uncertainty with what was going to happen with HBM&S. The Company was threatening to strike and a lot of people didn’t know if they were going to have a job.
The community rallied around the hockey team, packing the Whitney for all the playoff games with over 2500 in attendance for every game. They also took 7 bus loads down to Melville for game 7.
There was also a lot of uncertainty in Flin Flon the last few years with the mine relocating to Snow Lake and the population starting to see a large decrease. Once again, the community rallied behind the Bombers with all kinds of great support and well over 300 fans in Yorkton to see the Bombers once again climb the mountain with their 4 game sweep of the Terriers this past Spring.
It was a wonderful weekend and I would like to personally congratulate the Flin Flon Bombers organization and 100 Committee on a job well done, with a perfect way to officially kick off their 100 year celebrations.
I am proud to be from Flin Flon and my 27 years with the Hockey Club and again want to thank the Bombers for nominating me to the SJHL Hall Of Fame. It is a weekend I will never forget.
Like the saying go’s, once a Bomber, always a Bomber.
