Durham Huskies - The Final Years

The Final Years

In 1982, the Huskies joined the Major Intermediate A Hockey League. For the first time, the Huskies would compete for the Hardy Cup and the league was fairly local with some teams as close as the Owen Sound Greys and Collingwood Shipbuilders. The new level would prove too challenging for the Huskies and they would finish last in the league.

In 1983, the Huskies jumped down to the even more local Northern Intermediate B Hockey League with neighbouring franchises like the Shelburne Muskies, Tavistock Royals, Kincardine Kings, and Port Elgin Suns. The Huskies would find their niche, winning three straight league titles and the 1985 Paxton Cup as OHA Champions. That final season, most of the rival teams had fled to the WOAA Senior Hockey League for more local governance and better regulated refereeing, leaving only Durham and Shelburne to duke it out. To fill the season with games, the OHA told the two teams to integrate their season with exhibition games in the OHA Intermediate C Hockey League -- these games resulted mostly in massive blowouts (19-3, 12-2, etc.) which kept Durham and Shelburne from truly becoming "battle hardened" for playoffs. This showed in the 1986 OHA Final when Durham forfeited a 2-games-to-none and 3-games-to-2 series lead to the Dunnville Mudcats to lose the series.

The summer of 1986 saw restructuring. The Northern League and OHA Intermediate C League, combined with Collingwood fresh out of OHA Senior A, were reorganized into Georgian Bay Senior A and Senior B. This came at the end of the "Intermediate" era and happened 2-3 years after the rest of the country got rid of the designation. Durham and Collingwood dominated the Senior A league, with Durham winning the provincial Senior AA crown to move into the Hardy Cup playdowns and Collingwood winning the provincial Senior A crown. This structure faltered after one season as more teams defected to the WOAA in 1987 and Collingwood took a year off to build a new Junior B team (Collingwood Blues). The remaining teams were reorganized back into the Northern Senior B Hockey League and a new rival league called the Central Senior B Hockey League. Durham would compete in the Central for 1987-88 before returning to the Northern in 1988 for good.

In 1989, the Huskies would again win the OHA Senior AA crown and advance into the Hardy Cup playdowns. They also defeated the Almonte Centennials of the Ottawa District Hockey Association to win the Ontario/Quebec championship 3-games-to-1 in Durham. Their trail would end in the Eastern Canada final, in contention for the Col. J. Bourque Trophy against the Port-aux-Basques Mariners of Newfoundland and Labrador. Durham would be swept 3-games-to-none, but in the face of an opponent that was allowed to cherry-pick the top five players from their league to come play for them against Durham and a budget of near $400,000 compared to Durham's $20,000. This was Durham's last attempt at a national championship. This team was honoured in 2009 at the Hockey Day in Durham festival.

In 1990, their league was declared Senior A. The Huskies put together consistently good teams, but kept failing to win their league championship in the face of the Creemore Chiefs and Elora Rocks. In the summer of 1992, the Huskies declared themselves folded due to lack of interest.