BRANDON — On a day he celebrated the crowning achievement of his professional life in his hometown, Kelly McCrimmon also remembered the source of his most personal pain — the death of his older brother, Brad.
It can be a difficult thing, almost 12 years later, to welcome the Stanley Cup to your home like McCrimmon did Friday when your most fervent wish would be to celebrate the accomplishment with your only sibling.
“(Thinking of) Brad brings a lump to my throat every time I talk about him almost,” said the general manager of the Vegas Golden Knights as he looked out at a throng of family and friends in his Brandon backyard. “But you know these accomplishments are emotional.
Mike Sawatzky / Winnipeg Free Press
Vegas Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon and his wife, Terry, celebrated the Knight’s Stanley Cup victory with friends and family Friday in Brandon.
“One of the things that I said right after on the ice was, ‘You maybe think you know what it’s going to feel like when you win the Stanley Cup (but) you have no idea. And just when you get out there, the emotion that goes through you and then you see the absolute joy on people’s faces… It’s just unbelievable.”
On Sept. 7, 2011, Brad McCrimmon, recently hired as the head coach of Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, and the members of his Kontinental Hockey League team were heading to their first game in Minsk when their plane crashed upon takeoff. Forty-four people died, including the 52-year-old former NHLer.
The brothers had been close, fully immersed in the game. Brad, a tougher than nails defenceman, played 18 seasons in the NHL. His brother didn’t make it to the bigs as a player but honed his coaching and managerial craft with the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings for more than three decades before getting his big break in 2016.
“We were (born) a year apart, we played hockey together every other year growing up and then we played together a year with the Wheat Kings,” said McCrimmon, 62. “And we were always each other’s biggest supporter, right? So him being (inscribed) on the Cup with ’89 Flames, this many years later, what are the odds that was gonna happen and that in 2023 I join him.”
McCrimmon’s wife, Terry, said Brad was there in spirit.
“We felt Brad was there right from the start,” said Terry McCrimmon, Kelly’s wife of almost 41 years. “We talked about it before about how how proud Brad would be of him and yet I think Brad was so proud Kelly here (in Brandon), too.”
Rick Dillabough, who worked for 31 years in marketing and communications with the Wheat Kings, said his old boss’s latest success was predictable.
“It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest because of his work ethic,” said Dillabough. “When I left the Wheat Kings years ago, I talked about the fact that when I started with Kelly we worked like 16 hour days and we loved it. We were both passionate. I said the difference between Kelly and myself now is he still works 16 hours a day and I don’t. He’s passionate, he’s hardworking. He knows how to get from point A to point B, and he’s so good with people.”
Sharing the Cup with so many at home — McCrimmon also signed autographs and posed for pictures for 4 1/2 hours with approximately 2,000 well-wishers that showed up at the Keystone Centre earlier in the day — was something he relished.
“I’ve always felt my whole professional career that any accomplishments are only special because of the people around you and the people that you share them with. And, in this case, it was my family who were there but you know, also (Golden Knights president of hockey operations) George McPhee. We’ve been (working) shoulder to shoulder from August, 2016. Every single thing we’ve done, we’ve done together. From no employees to what we are as a Stanley Cup champion today.”
Tim Smith / The Brandon Sun
McCrimmon also signed autographs and posed for pictures for 4 1/2 hours with approximately 2,000 well-wishers that showed up at the Keystone Centre.
McCrimmon, who built his Brandon franchise into a perennial powerhouse by closely adhering to a draft-and-develop credo, has flipped the script in Vegas with his bold deal-making.
“You manage the team in front of you,” said McCrimmon when asked about the perception of his philosophical change. “And it’s such a good question, because when I went to Vegas, one of the things that really appealed to me was I love building teams, I love drafting, I love player development, I love scouting. All of those things that was really fascinating to me that that would be so much of what we were going to do. Well, it all changed. It all changed when we went to the final in Year 1.”
Since winning the title, McCrimmon hasn’t shied away from making tough choices. He decided to re-sign pending free agent goaltender Adin Hill and forward Ivan Barbashev while trading forward Reilly Smith due to salary cap concerns.
“We made a lot of… really hard decisions and made hard decisions on good people,” said McCrimmon. “It’s difficult and yet, if you’re doing your job well, you don’t have a choice. If you know what you need to do and you’re not doing it because you’re faint of heart, then you’re not in the right business.”
Twitter: @sawa14
