A long and impressive list of current and former players will renew acquaintances and celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Red Deer Rebels Memorial Cup championship Friday and Saturday.
The 18 players and former Rebels head coach Brent Sutter will host a golf tournament Friday at Alberta Springs and will take on a team of other Rebels alumni in a game Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Sylvan Lake Arena.
“Dad (Brent Sutter) wanted to do something for the 10th anniversary,” Rebels senior vice-president/alternate governor Merrick Sutter said Wednesday. “The staff started working on it early this year, sending e-mails and contacting guys.”
The players will also tour the Rebels locker room, which was extensively expanded a few years ago to include several new offices, a larger dressing room and a gym.
“A lot of these guys haven’t seen each other since that year (2001) and certainly haven’t seen the rink or the locker room, which were both different back then,” said Merrick Sutter.
The list of returning Memorial Cup champions includes four NHL players — Colby Armstrong (Toronto), Boyd Gordon (Phoenix), Jim Vandermeer (San Jose) and Jeff Woywitka (Dallas).
Four players — Ross Lupaschuk (Germany), Jeff Smith (England), Justin Mapletoft (Germany) and Doug Lynch (Austria) — skated overseas last season, while Bryce Thoma is an assistant coach with the Rebels and Andrew Bergen and Justin Wallin are employed in the commercial real estate business in Calgary.
Cam Ondrik is a real estate representative in Red Deer, Devin Francon and Diarmuid Kelly are local carpenters and Joel Stepp is also employed in Central Alberta. Rounding out the list of visiting 2001 Memorial Cup champs are Shane Bendera, who is employed in Edmonton, Joel Rupprecht and Shane Grypiuk, who is a Calgary-based chartered accountant.
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com