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Memorial Cup Flashback: Jeff Larmer sets tournament points record with powerhouse Kitchener

May 27, 2017 | 6:15 AM

Most players would be disappointed to return to junior after starting a career in the NHL.

But Jeff Larmer considered it the best demotion of his life.

Larmer, from Peterborough, Ont., was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in 1981 and began the following season with them but was sent back to the Ontario Hockey League’s Kitchener Rangers after eight games. Kitchener would go on to win the 1982 Memorial Cup while Larmer put himself in the tournament record book with numbers still standing 35 years later.

“I know sometimes you’ll hear stories of guys being sent back and being unhappy but that wasn’t the case,” said Larmer. “I was going back to a really good team and we knew we had a great opportunity in front of us.

“I was thinking ‘even if I go back I get a shot at the Memorial Cup.’”

The Rangers made the 1981 Memorial Cup before falling to the Cornwall Royals in the championship game. They returned the following season with a deep roster consisting of soon-to-be NHLers and a couple defencemen that would one day make the Hockey Hall of Fame.

They were on a mission to not let the previous season’s disappointment happen again.

“Our will to win it was outstanding,” said Larmer.

“First time on the ice everyone was talking Memorial Cup. It was a phenomenal group of guys. It was a whole year where we thought about one game. We had a taste of it the year before and felt we should have won that one. Everything else didn’t matter.”

Larmer, who was 19 at the time, played on a line with 18-year-old Brian Bellows and 19-year-old Grant Martin, while 18-year-old Al MacInnis and 17-year-old Scott Stevens manned the blue line. Wendel Young, 18, was Kitchener’s starter in net.

MacInnis was already a weapon with his point shot and ran Kitchener’s power play. Stevens was a natural force, still learning that laying a devastating bodycheck on the opposition could come at a cost.

“It was funny with Scott because he had a quick temper and wasn’t one to waste any time to drop the gloves,” said Larmer. 

“Early in the year he was losing a few fights and went to our tough guy Mike Moher and asked, ‘why am I losing?’ He said, ‘Scotty you’re talking when you should be swinging.’ After that he was a machine.”

The 1982 edition of the Memorial Cup was the last year of only having the three league champions competing, with a host team making it a four-team event the following year. Round-robin play consisted of two games against each of your opponents.

Kitchener opened the national junior championship with a 10-4 loss to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League champion Sherbrooke Castors, but bounced back with a 9-2 win over the Western Hockey League champion Portland Winterhawks. All three teams finished round-robin 2-2 and the Rangers advanced to the final by goal differential.

The OHL champions jumped out to an early lead en route to a 7-4 victory over the Castors in the championship. Larmer felt a title coming his way when Mike Eagles came through with a pair of goals while on the penalty kill in the third period.

“When Mike scored those short-handed goals, we knew they weren’t coming back from that far back,” said Larmer.

Larmer finished the tournament with 16 points in five games, a record that was matched in 1986 by Guy Rouleau but has yet to be broken.

“There’s a lot of incredibly great players at that tournament and it’s surprising to see it’s held up but I haven’t really been thinking about it,” said Larmer. “All those points, it’s a product of the environment I was in.” 

The core of the 1982 Rangers played close to 8,000 combined games in the NHL. Larmer played 158 NHL games before finishing his career in 1994 with the IHL’s Milwaukee Admirals. He balanced his final year as a pro by completing his degree at Wilfred Laurier University.

Larmer, now 54, is a teacher of 19 years living in Collingwood, Ont., with his wife Joanne and four children, including triplets. 

He found it fitting that MacInnis and Stevens would be inducted into the Hall of Fame together in 2007 and stays in touch with many of his Rangers teammates who went on to be life-long friends.

“There’s a core of us who stayed together. We usually run into each other quite often,” said Larmer.

“My kids like to text my buddy Moher and ask him about his penalty minutes. We have a good chuckle.”

Kyle Cicerella, The Canadian Press