The Great WHL Journey #7: Lethbridge Hurricanes

Both have been die-hard Calgary Flames fans for decades and have gone to many Flames games over the years. They’ve even seen the odd Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) game, driving over to watch the local Brooks Bandits. But never a WHL game. Not even when Connor Bedard was selling out arenas. However, my journey to see every WHL team play in their home arena sparked their interest, giving me a rare opportunity to do exactly what I set out to do with this journey – show people why junior hockey is worth seeing.

Hurricanes History

Lethbridge has long been considered a hockey hotbed. The Native Sons, the city’s first junior club which began playing in 1946, were undefeated in league play from 1947 to 1949 and captured the Southern Alberta and Provincial championship in back-to-back seasons. The city also hosted the Lethbridge Maple Leafs, a senior team which won a gold medal at the 1951 World Hockey Championship in Paris, and helped found the AJHL in 1963-64 with their team, the Lethbridge Sugar Kings, which is where Hall-of-Famer Lanny McDonald got his start in 1969-70.

However, Lethbridge is also strangely unlucky when it comes to junior hockey. The Native Sons folded in 1956 along with their league but managed to return four years later and claimed the 1974-75 Canada Winter Games gold medal, a feat which got them inducted into the Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame. The Sugar Kings folded just nine seasons after they started to make room for the WHL, and although they were resurrected for the 1973-74 season as the Lethbridge Longhorns, they couldn’t compete with major junior and folded just two years later.

That major junior team was none other than the Lethbridge Broncos, who arrived in town in 1974-75 after Swift Current reluctantly admitted that they could no longer support a WHL team and agreed to sell. The Broncos had been in the small Saskatchewan locale since 1967-68 alongside the Winnipeg Jets, Brandon Wheat Kings, and Flin Flon Bombers, but failed to finish higher than second-last in their Conference for six straight seasons. Swift Current finally posted a winning record in 1973-74, but it was too little too late, and with few fans and even less money, the organization had to find a new home or cease operations.

Lethbridge, on the other hand, had a brand-new 5,000-seat arena built specifically to host the Canada Winter Games and a fanbase hungry to upgrade from Junior A to Major Junior. The transition was flawless; in their first season, the new Broncos were an instant hit, with Bryan Trottier, Dave Williams, and Dave Schultz lighting up the lamp and their opponents. Things were especially heated when the Tigers were in town. Not only was the game filled with fights, but the fans got especially rowdy, too, making each matchup a must-see event.

The Broncos played 12 seasons in Lethbridge and never missed the playoffs. Their best season came in 1982-83 when they won the WHL’s President’s Cup and made their first Memorial Cup appearance. The team’s performance dipped the following season – not unexpected in junior hockey – leading to back-to-back first-round exits. That was all it took for the city to turn on their team. Suddenly, the Broncos were bleeding money and by 1985-86, the organization was in dire straits. Seeing an opportunity to get their team back, Swift Current successfully applied to buy back their beloved team. Yet Lethbridge hardly seemed to care. My dad was going to college in Lethbridge then, and he remembers going to their final game before the move. “Hardly anyone was in the stands,” he said. “Lethbridge gave up on their team.”

Lethbridge didn’t wait long for a second chance. Over in Winnipeg, the Jets struggled to find both success and fans. They partnered with a local beer in 1973 to help make ends meet, changing their name to the Clubs to reflect their new sponsor, but continued on-ice failure led to the end of the sponsorship after three years. Then the Clubs became the Monarchs, drawing on the team that played in the city since 1934 and had recently been given up by the previous holder, but the team remained poor, leading to their departure in 1976-77 to an interested party in Calgary, who changed the team’s name to the Wranglers. The team performed much better in Calgary, but like the Calgary Buffalos and Centennials before them, the Wranglers failed to generate consistent interest from fans, and in 1986, they moved south to Lethbridge.

Instead of keeping the old name like they did with the Broncos, the new ownership set up a fan vote for the new team name. The city settled on “Hurricanes,” due to the strong Chinooks that make Lethbridge one of the windiest cities in Canada. The new logo, however, had much less connection with the city; the original uniforms used a red, white, and blue colour scheme decorated with stars not dissimilar to the Washington Capitals, but included a central hockey stick which made it distinct from the NHL team. The team wearing it made it iconic, though, after they captured their first WHL Championship in 1996-97 on the shoulders of Byron Ritchie, Bryce Salvador, and Chris Phillips, who was a trade deadline acquisition from the Prince Albert Raiders.

That’s when Lethbridge’s luck ran out. The team unveiled a brand-new logo for the 1997-98 season which darkened their primary colours and featured the Looney Tunes’ Tasmanian Devil wearing a hockey helmet and brandishing a stick. It took six years for Warner Brothers to catch on, and when they did, they quickly issued a warning to the team to change their logo or else. A hastily redesigned logo was created that kept the darker colours and featured a swirling hurricane radar image, which stuck with the team until 2011-12, when they once again redesigned their entire look, this time brightening everything and returning to a Capitals-inspired motif. Unfortunately, this time it was almost identical to the NHL’s new Reebok uniforms, and the league immediately stepped in and forced Lethbridge to change it.

After considering a design featuring the British Hawker Hurricane fighter jet from World War II, which was used to train pilots in Lethbridge in the 1940s, the team instead went with a simpler swirling ‘H’ logo for the 2013-14 season, which they’ve kept ever since. The team has now gone over a decade with the same logo, the longest they’ve ever stuck with one design. So what’s different this time?

It likely all comes back to another fan vote in 2014-15. The team was losing money and struggling to fill their arena, and in order to save the team, the WHL proposed the community sell the team to a private owner who could provide more financial stability. However, the community rejected the proposal, and even though it wasn’t a true win with 68% of shareholders voting to sell, it didn’t hit the 75% majority needed. Although there was no threat of moving, it was a moment of realization for the city and they came back to their team in a big way. Attendance jumped up from an average of 3,000 fans per game to over 3,600, and while it helps that the Hurricanes didn’t miss the playoffs for eight straight seasons, they haven’t been nearly as successful since their big win in 1996-97. It was a conscious choice by Lethbridge to prove that their beloved team wasn’t going anywhere.

Other Franchise Leaders:

VisitLethbridge.com Arena

The VisitLethbridge.com Arena was built in 1974 to host the aforementioned Canada Winter Games, which led to its original name, the Canada Games Sportsplex. It replaced the Lethbridge Arena, which was built in 1922 and was the city’s first indoor ice rink. Unfortunately, it burnt down in 1971 during a game between the Sugar Kings and the Edmonton Maple Leafs, forcing the teams and 1,800 fans to evacuate during the third period.

Suddenly without an arena, Lethbridge worked quickly to come up with plans for a new building. Securing the 1975 Canada Games helped speed things along, and the state-of-the-art facility was completed on time while staying on its $4.25 million budget (about $23.75 million in 2025). With the games still a year away, Lethbridge was eager to fill it, and it just so happened that the WHL was looking for a new home for the Swift Current Broncos. Sports were always the Sportsplex’s top priority, but given its size, it became a premier location in Southern Alberta for attracting bigger concerts and events than its competition.

In 2000, the Sportsplex was renamed the ENMAX Centre after the rights were sold to the utility company. But a new name wasn’t all the city had planned for the arena. In 2009, the ENMAX Centre underwent significant renovations to update some of its aging infrastructure and prepare the arena for a potential Memorial Cup bid sometime in the future. Eighteen luxury suites were built along with a new restaurant overlooking the ice and many general facilities were refurbished. The three-year project cost the city and team $33.7 million but the upgrades were more than justified. Although the Memorial Cup bid hasn’t come yet, the ENMAX Centre hosted Taylor Swift and Brad Paisley in 2007, as well as Cirque du Soleil and Professional Bull Riding.

Despite the relatively recent upgrades, more changes may be on the way. The naming rights were sold again in August 2024 to a local organization, which changed the name to its current iteration to help boost local tourism, but it remains one of the oldest arenas in the WHL. A ‘master plan’ was revealed in 2024 that proposed three options: maintain the arena, add more seating and restaurants, or build a new one. No updates have been shared since the initial announcement, but I wouldn’t hate seeing the arena get rid of the black curtain at the far end in favour of more stands, which has been there since I was going to games in 2007 and gives the arena a half-finished look. The big screen is a newer addition and helps, but not a lot. It’s also the only arena outside of Calgary that has paid parking.

Still, despite being one of the oldest arenas in the league, everything inside is in good condition. The concourse is easy enough to navigate and the views are solid from anywhere in the building. It’s likely why no updates have been shared on the master plan since last year, especially after the arena celebrated 50 successful years. The VisitLethbridge.com Arena is an iconic WHL venue and hopefully will be maintained for many more years to come.

Food and Extras

Summary

Lethbridge has pretty typical offerings for fans. There are two main concessions stands, with the first offering your typical arena fares such as burgers, pizza, hotdogs, and fries, but also had cheese smokies, and something called Potat-O rings. I went for the taco in a bag, which was pretty good for $6.50, as well as an order of fries for $5.25, which were fine. The other main concession stand was much smaller and offered hotdogs, nachos, warm pretzels, and novelty ice cream. There are also kiosks selling mini donuts and lemonade, coffee, Hawaiian shaved ice, and ice cream dots. My only complaint was the time it took to get any food. Despite a below-average attendance of 3,101, it took a whole intermission for an order of pizza and mini donuts.

The souvenir shop was tucked into the side of the concourse and felt very cramped due to its narrow setup, and it also didn’t offer too many unique items. The one specialty they did offer, however, was one of my favourite things I’ve seen in any arena so far. For $15, you could buy a game-used puck signed by the player who scored with it. Better yet, the proceeds went back to the player. I dug through the bin to see who I could find, and after debating about grabbing one from Nashville Predators’ 2024 third-round pick Miguel Marques, I instead went with Kash Andreson. While not the biggest star, he’s a Saskatoon kid, and I worked with his mom for about a year. I even ran into her at the game while purchasing the puck. Overall, while there weren’t too many specialties, the few that Lethbridge offered were incredibly unique.

Oct. 12, 2024 – Hurricanes vs. Wheat Kings

A lot of my journey so far has required significant planning. Even the game I attended for my hometown Saskatoon Blades required a couple of weeks of coordinating to ensure the person I wanted to go with was available. Others have required me to ask months in advance, especially when my window to see a game with someone was small.

I had made none of these extensive plans before my wife and I left Saskatoon to see her family in central Alberta for Thanksgiving, but as soon as we arrived, I was asked if I’d be interested in going to a Hurricanes game. I was initially caught off guard, but my brother- and father-in-law had been enjoying my WHL Journey articles and wanted to come along. I’d never seen a hockey game in person with my in-laws before, and with Lethbridge just a couple of hours away, it seemed like the perfect Saturday road trip. The only problem was that there were less than 12 hours until the puck drop, which was the most last-minute ticket purchasing I’ve ever done. Thankfully, plenty of seats were available, and a few hours later we were headed to the game.

It had been years since I had seen the Hurricanes play in the ENMAX Centre and I was excited to relive those memories. My junior high youth group went to a handful of games in the mid-2000s, where we not only got to watch future NHLers Zach Boychuk, Dwight King, and Colton Sceviour but also Ben Wright, whose father taught science at my school. Before that, my Atom (now U11) hockey team played a scrimmage during a Hurricanes’ intermission. Of all those experiences, the one memory that stuck out was how much bigger and fancier Lethbridge’s arena was compared to the old Medicine Hat Arena. It felt like the pinnacle of junior hockey.

But my excitement only grew when I learned that my in-laws had never seen a WHL game before. Suddenly, this wasn’t just going to be another game in my journey – it was their first game in their journey, and they had chosen me to be their WHL tour guide, leading them through the ins and outs of the league and showing them the best of junior hockey in the prairies.

No pressure.

Thankfully, the VisitLethbridge.com Arena was sure to give them a great experience, since I’d never had a bad time watching games in Lethbridge. However, when we walked into the newly renamed building, I was surprised at how small everything looked. I guess it made sense; my memories were from when I was a much smaller person. No matter, though. We had good seats, which is really all that matters.

But as we watched the warmup, we were hit with our second disappointment – top 2025 Draft prospect and Wheat Kings’ star Roger McQueen, who my brother-in-law James wanted to see, was still out with an injury. That also ended up being okay because the Wheat Kings still had Columbus Blue Jackets’ prospect Charlie Elick and top import Dominik Petr, while the Hurricanes had Marques, Noah Chadwick, and Shane Smith, a 20-year-old veteran from my in-laws’ area.

The game got off to a wild start. Less than six minutes in, Lethbridge already had two goals, and about six minutes later, it nearly became 3-0 after the Wheat Kings missed a pass in the Hurricanes’ end on a delayed penalty, which bounced off the boards and went straight for their empty net. One of Brandon’s forwards rushed back to save the own-goal in the nick of time, which was an incredible effort from him, but I was hoping to see a rare delayed call goal for the first time. The Hurricanes erased the impressive save just a few minutes later, though, giving them a dominant 3-1 lead heading into the second.

The second period was much more even, with the Wheat Kings getting within one goal twice and finishing the period at a score of 4-3. Both teams refused to give either any leeway in the third period, but Brandon just didn’t have enough star power to get by Lethbridge, and with an empty-net goal from Hurricanes’ veteran Logan McCutcheon, the home team sailed to a 5-3 win.

There have been few games as exciting as the one I just watched, but I grew more annoyed as time passed. Just like in Medicine Hat, the jumbotron played commercials during stoppages in play and the intermission, and the big screen behind the Hurricanes’ net displayed advertisements throughout the game. The sound system was weirdly echoey, making announcements difficult to hear, and the graphics for in-game moments were inconsistent and poorly timed. Additionally, the Hurricanes played a Mario mushroom sound effect when they returned to full strength after a penalty kill – something that I first heard the Tigers use. While I’m not sure who did it first, given the Hurricanes’ penchant for copying jersey designs, I had my suspicions.

As we piled back into the truck, I was underwhelmed with my trip to Lethbridge. This was supposed to be an excellent first WHL game, and I felt I had let my in-laws down. I was supposed to show them the best junior hockey could offer, yet Lethbridge fell short compared to the other incredible venues I’d seen throughout my adventure. The food was just okay, the seating was fine I guess, and the in-arena entertainment left something to be desired.

Still, I needed to know for sure, so as we hit the road again, I nervously asked if they had a good time, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. After all, their experience came primarily from the NHL, and this was no pro hockey game.

Once again, I was caught off guard. Not only did they have a great time, but they were very impressed with the show Lethbridge put on. The camera played fun games with the crowd, the in-arena host held giveaways and tossed free things into the stands, and a remote-controlled hot air balloon circulated the arena. It was engaging, exciting, and so much better than their previous junior hockey experiences in the AJHL, which didn’t do any of that. But would they go back?

“Yeah, I think so!” James said as he thought back to the game. “It’s really good hockey and I liked seeing some young players that could make the NHL. Also going to new arenas is cool. Helps that I like hockey as well.”

Their response was not only a huge relief but also humbling. Here I was, their “WHL guide,” ready to criticize the Hurricanes for a poor arena experience, yet the people I was guiding had a fantastic time. Our seats were right up against the action, the hurricane siren to start the game and after the home team scored was fun, and the big video screen I had been so critical of was admittedly used very well to present additional information while not detracting from the on-ice product. Yet I had become lost in the details, nitpicking the minor issues while forgetting the big picture. I spent so much time comparing that I almost missed out on having a fun time with my in-laws.

When I started this journey, I wanted to showcase the communities that support local hockey teams. It’s one reason why I don’t pick up the same souvenir or eat the same food at every arena – I don’t want to find the best and the worst (although I realize that’s inevitable), I want to try to have the best possible experience and then share that with anyone who cares. I want to find unique and interesting features in every location to prove that this team is worth seeing, no matter how small or out of the way. I got an opportunity to do that with my in-laws, and in my excitement to lead them through a WHL arena, I got lost in the weeds. Their excitement at seeing a great game in a neat arena reminded me of my original goal and that, no matter the place, it’s always fun to go watch hockey.