Though Willi Plett may have seemed a bit thinner, the former 1973 Niagara-on-the-Lake Kinsmen Junior B Warriors player still looked like he could have stepped onto the floor to throw his weight around.
The 6’3” right winger who played 834 NHL games, scoring 222 goals for the Atlanta and Calgary Flames, Minnesota North Stars and Boston Bruins between 1975 and 1988, was among 12 former members of the lacrosse team who gathered at the NOTL Kinsmen Club to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their amazing accomplishment.
With coach Monty Slingerland and former professional player Stan Ingatczyk behind the bench, that 1973 Warriors team won gold medals at both the Ontario and Canada Games, then closed out their Junior B season by winning the Ontario Lacrosse League championship that same year. No other team has matched that feat in the last five decades.
“We were underdogs through it all,” Slingerland said earlier that evening during his NOTL Sports Wall of Fame induction speech, his gold medal from those Ontario Games draped over his neck.
To qualify for the Ontario Games, the Warriors, who started the season slowly, needed to beat Brantford by 10 goals. They beat them by 15 and punched their ticket to Oshawa.
“Then we went out there and beat Whitby in overtime,” said Slingerland. “The guys just gave the ball to Willi, went over to the other side and watched him score. And Jojie (Engemann) won all the faceoffs.”
Next was Hamilton, who had beaten the Warriors twice during the season. The Warriors won 12-7 and qualified for the Canada Games in British Columbia.
“Right after the game they brought us into a room to measure us up for suits,” Slingerland said. “Funny thing about the shoes, they had to be white. So we had to spray our black shoes with white paint.”
After playing some scheduled league games, soliciting NOTL businesses for donations and holding a fundraising dance, they headed out to Burnaby, where they defeated Manitoba 25-5, Quebec 21-8, and an all-star team from Nova Scotia, who they beat in overtime.
“Then we beat Alberta 17-11, " Slingerland went on. “But in that game Jojie got hit in the eye with a stick. He had a hemorrhage in the eye and couldn’t play the gold medal game.”
“I was going to play anyway,” Engemann, who was the team’s faceoff specialist, said Saturday, “but the doctor told me if I got hit in the head I’d lose sight in that eye.”
Slingerland inspired his team to win the game for Jojie. They went out and beat Nova Scotia again, 8-6 this time, to win the Founder’s Cup and the gold medal.
A few short weeks later they finished second in league play and faced off against Kitchener in the first playoff round. They dropped them four games to two.
In the second round, they fell behind Oakville three games to two. Slingerland, in an attempt to motivate his players, offered them $5 per goal.
"Someone asked me if it worked,” laughed Slingerland. “It sure did for Willi. We came back and won the series.”
They faced a tough Whitby team for the championship and dispensed them quickly four games to one to capture the Junior B title.
Having been through all of that together as young men made for some great memories, and with the help of a display from the Ontario Lacrosse Hall of Fame and a collection of news clippings from the old Niagara Advance newspaper, the reminiscing came easily.
“Winning those championships as a teenager was awesome,” said Plett, who calls Atlanta home these days. “And reminiscing about it tonight is awesome, too. I haven’t seen most of these guys for 50 years, so catching up with them is great.”
Mike French and Plett spent some time poring over the score sheets from some of those games.
“Plett insisted he had more assists than me,” French said. “I always thought that he didn’t get too many. He was trying to convince me that he did.”
French, whose younger brother Paul was inducted along with Slingerland into the NOTL Wall of Fame Saturday, has kept in touch with Plett, but was seeing a number of his former teammates for the first time in decades.
“Dave Parsons came up to talk to me and I didn’t even know he was,” French laughed. “He didn’t have any hair. I had to apologize to him, because he had hair all over the place back then.”
French was one of two players, the other being the late Gary Hill, whose athletic accomplishments earned them scholarships to Cornell University in 1973. Both had to drive four hours from Ithaca to NOTL and back that fall to help their team win that Junior B title.
When told that Engemann was still playing hockey at 71 years old and known for throwing hip checks in a non-contact league, French wasn’t too surprised.
“He was always all over the place, and he looks like he’s still in good shape,” said the member of the National Lacrosse League board of directors. “But I know a lot of people who go out there and play lacrosse and end up black and blue with a pulled hamstring.”
Slingerland led a solemn moment, asking for silence in the hall while reading the names of team members and contributors no longer with them. Stan Ignatczyk, Garry Hill, Bobby Taylor, Steve Miller, Bruce Morgan, John Skubel and Russ Hodgkinson were all members of that 1973 Warriors squad who have passed away in the ensuing years.
With most members now either in or approaching their 70s, there wasn’t much talk about a future repeat of Saturday’s gathering. They were just happy to be at the Kinsmen Hall soaking it all in.
“This doesn’t happen very often, all of us in the same room together,” said French. “”I am really enthused by the level of participation.”
“It’s been years and years since I’ve seen them or even heard about some of them,” Slingerland added. “We all went our separate ways, we all have our own lives I guess. But we have a lot of good memories.”