Rota (
from an interview on The Sport Market with Tom Mayenknecht
) - Everything just came together. We had talent, we had toughness and we had great goaltending with Richard. We got hot at the right time. It was a team that was one for all and all for one. The guys really bought into the system that Roger was doing, he was before his time using video, were prepared so good for every series we played and Roger was such a great coach and strategist. He was fun to play for. We were loaded with character players and if you look at that regular season, we finished below .500. But the interesting thing about it was that in the last nine games of the season, we had six wins and three ties. We did not play overtime back then. So we went into the playoffs feeling really good about ourselves.
Smyl- We played the Calgary Flames in the first round and it was close. It was a best of five and that benefited us. Calgary had the better team at that time, but we matched up well and we made it really miserable on their best player, that being Lanny McDonald. Tiger Williams and Lanny were best of friends, but Tiger, he made it as tough as possible on Lanny; I didn't think it was possible to be friends after how they treated each other that series.
Snepsts - It was the first time the Canucks ever hosted the opening playoff game, and to win it, that was special. They were all close games in that series. We were missing three of our top defencemen too. We didn't have Kevin McCarthy, Jiri Bubla or Rick Lanz for the entire playoffs.
Delorme - We were set to face the winner of LA and Edmonton, and we were lucky that LA won. Edmonton had a great team, they became a dynasty right after that. So we beat Calgary and ended up playing LA.
Smyl - I remember being at home and I had family at my house and they were excited we had got past the first round and everyone was trying to figure out who we'd meet in the 2nd round. The Oilers were the dominant team, they could beat you any way they wanted to, that offence led by Wayne and Mark was intimidating, but somehow the Kings beat them. I didn't watch a lot of games, but I did watch that final game. When we realized we were going to face the Kings, we knew as a group we could beat those guys. And we did in five games.
Snepsts - Richard Brodeur provided us with great goaltending. Fantastic goaltending actually. We won the first game, then I remember we lost the second game against LA, then went to Los Angeles and I remember the one game, either game 3 or 4, in the 3rd period, we only had three defencemen - there was Doug Halward, Colin Campbell and myself through the whole 3rd period. You don't see that everyday. We were just holding on.
Smyl - We faced the Black Hawks next and we knew we had a chance to beat them. I always liked it where you started in the visitor's building because you had no distractions. Our game plan was to make it as tough as possible for Tony Esposito to see the puck and to put tons of pucks on him. We went in and won the first game in double overtime, Jim Nill scored the winner. We thought it would never end. Winning that one was big.
Rota - The first two games of that series were played in Chicago and of course I had spent six seasons as a Black Hawk, so going back to play there was pretty special for me. In fact I brought my dad from Prince George down for those first two games, so it was special to have dad there too for it. We won Game 1, Jim Nill scored the overtime game-winner. In Game 2 the officiating wasn't going the way that Roger felt it should and he was very upset. So partway through the 3rd period, I was just coming off the ice when I saw this taking place: Roger grabbed a stick and then a towel on the bench and he raised it and I was thinking what's going on here, then of course I realized it was a towel of surrender. It was unbelievable.
Snepsts - It was a physical game. In the 3rd period I got a misconduct for going at it with Doug Wilson, then when the towels came out, I can't remember if I was in the penalty box or watching from the dressing room because I had another roughing misconduct after that too. There was a lot of roughhousing on the ice at those times. When I saw the towels in the air, I didn't know what was happening, I'd never seen this before. I know more players were trying to put towels on their sticks too, but they ran out of towels!
Delorme - It was all Chicago, power play, power play, power play, and that's when Roger did that mock surrender. He had had enough. I was surprised, I just kept looking and thinking what are you guys doing, what are you guys doing?? I was on the bench, looking at Roger. Stan and I think Tiger had towels on their sticks too, all of them in surrender. It was a mock surrender. He asked Larry Ashley, our trainer, for towels, and not just one towel, but all the towels, like let's all do this together guys.
Smyl - The officiating was that noticeable, we deserved some of it, but it just got worse and worse. We got off our track as a team and it threw us off and I think Roger could see that. I think I just came off from a shift and we were getting another penalty. I was sitting there and I look behind me and Roger is asking our trainer Larry Ashley for a stick and he was kind of like what do you want with a stick? So the towel went up and then Tiger and a few other players picked up on it and put towels on their sticks, like we surrender. I tried to put a towel on my stick and my towel fell on the ground. I couldn't get it to stay, it just kept falling. Bob Myers, I think was the referee at the time, well he saw all this and gave us another penalty for doing that. It was a good lesson for us as a group and Roger was sending a good message to us that he has our backs in that situation. I never talked to Roger about it. I remember talking to Tiger a bit about it and he said 'that's Roger, he's always thinking of something.'
