EVERETT — Kevin Constantine was there in 2004.
When the Everett Silvertips shocked the WHL by winning the 2003-04 U.S. Division championship as an expansion team, it was Constantine who was behind the bench pulling the strings.
Therefore, Constantine speaks with ultimate authority when he compares this season’s division title to the one the Tips won in their inaugural campaign.
“I think in many ways it compares to the first year,” Constantine said Tuesday following Everett’s first postseason practice at Xfinity Arena. “It compares because we won in Game 71, so it took the whole season, and it compares because there was no recent history of success — the first year there was no history, and this year there’s been no recent history. There will only be that one first Cinderella year, but this compares to that in that way.
“On the other hand, this team scored the most goals in franchise history, and that first year’s team had to win 2-1 to have any chance of winning, so they’re not necessarily the same in that regard,” Constantine continued. “But in terms of it happening in Game 71 and with no recent history of success, it felt like the first year.”
Everett clinched the division title with the point it earned in its 4-3 shootout loss against Victoria on Saturday at Xfinity Arena. The Tips finished the season with a 43-20-3-6 record and 95 points, three ahead of second-place Portland, which had won the previous two division titles and three of the past four. It was Everett’s first division championship since 2007, and the fourth in the franchise’s 12-year history. The previous three all came during Constantine’s first four-season stint as Everett’s head coach.
Constantine directed the most happiness about winning the division title toward the players who suffered through the lean years. Everett finished eighth in the 10-team Western Conference three straight seasons from 2010-13, never winning more than 28 games and barely scraping into the playoffs. The most tenured Tips, including overage center and captain Kohl Bauml, spent two seasons with Everett during those dark days.
“For me, Kohl Bauml represents the team,” Constantine said. “I don’t mean to diminish any effort of any guy, but he’s our captain and our leader and has been here the longest. It meant a lot to him because he hadn’t had the kind of success the first couple years we had this year, and he’s had to watch Portland win it every year he’s been here. So he’s kind of, in a personal way, the representation of what it meant to a lot of our guys.
“When you work with a group of athletes every single day for a year and you’re grinding out with them, it becomes kind of personal,” Constantine added. “We of course also attach the importance to the organization and the season ticket holders who support us — they’re the ones who bring us a lot of emotion and energy for the games and support us. But Kohl represents to me the personal part of it. That kid sacrificed from year one without any real significant thing to show for it. This will forever now be hanging there as a testimony to the legacy of the work that was done by the guys in the room this year.”
Before the season began, Everett was not considered part of the conversation for the division title. Portland was largely expected to win again because of it’s returning high-end talent, and if any team was going to challenge the Winterhawks it was believed Seattle would be the likeliest candidate. Everett was largely expected to battle for third with Tri-City.
But that didn’t deter the Tips from targeting the division championship themselves right from day one.
“We won the division title with a group of expansion players that were discarded by other teams,” Constantine said. “That didn’t happen that long ago, and anybody who’s been around the organization certainly doesn’t need many history lessons to know lots of things are possible if you put your nose to the grindstone and work at it.
“We talked about it in the beginning of the year, we talked about it last year,” Constantine added. “Our coaching staff talks about developing young men who will succeed in life through some of the lessons learned here. We talk about developing players in terms of maybe moving people on to pro hockey. And we talk about doing something as a team for the fans and the city and the organization, and that’s hanging a banner. We get to hang a banner this year. A lot of effort went into it. At times we might have been too absorbed in worrying about it. It took a great finish because of how well Portland was playing, as well as Portland coming in here in a key game and really demolishing us. So the guys’ ability to rebound from that and kind of hang in there was fantastic.”
And no one knows better than Constantine the effort the players had to exert to pull the division championship off.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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