It was a defining moment in Prince George sports history, and the ripple effects are still being felt 40 years later.
In the summer of 1974, the Molson Oldstylers sent shock waves through the lacrosse world by winning the President's Cup. In claiming the senior B Canadian title, they gave the city its first team national championship and a reason to do a little chest-thumping.
Sure, Prince George was a backwoods, northern B.C. town that most folks in Canada's urban centres couldn't locate on the best of maps. But, it was also home to the Oldstylers, one of the top lacrosse teams in the land.
Suddenly, people were asking questions about this mysterious place called Prince George, where, against all odds, a collection of sublimely-skilled and dedicated players found a way to rule the senior B floor.
"It was crazy - we had people phoning from all over, phoning from back east, phoning from Alberta, phoning from Vancouver. They all wanted the story," said Dave Jenkins, a longtime local lawyer who was the Oldstylers' starting goaltender. "They couldn't believe a team from Prince George could win. Even today when you see that President's Cup trophy, people can't believe that some place way up in northern B.C. won a lacrosse championship and they wonder how we did it."
The provincial-champion Oldstylers had come oh-so-close to a President's Cup victory in 1973 in Halifax but lost in the final to the Windsor Warlocks, a team that had most of its players turn pro the following season. The loss stoked the fires of Jenkins and his mates and made them even more determined to get back to the big game in '74 and win it.
And that's what they did. After beating Vernon and New Westminster for the provincial title, they went to nationals in New West and dominated. The Oldstylers were untouchable in round-robin play, dumped the host team in the semifinal round and then defeated the Winnipeg All-Stars 9-7 in the final.
"We had a hell of a lot of talent and that became kind of a chore because, obviously, talented players have egos and sometimes it was a tough job to hold them together," said local resident Tony Ciolfitto, who captained the 1973 Oldstylers and was their coach in 1974. "As a coach you have to try to get everybody on the same page."
Jenkins, known then and now as The Wall, said team chemistry was actually a huge factor in the success of the Oldstylers.
"The boys spent all their time together," he said. "As a matter of fact, I sometimes wonder if I had a job back in those days because we spent so much time together. I think the [law firm] partners I had, Heather and Sadler, wondered whether I thought my job was lacrosse or practicing law."
Most of the Oldstylers players were Prince George boys - including people like Jenkins, Greg Bennett and Barry Williams. Other locals on the national-championship team included Ron Edgar, Al Erricson and Dave Fulks, who were "picked up" from the Labatt Blues and the Junior Sabres of the city league.
The Oldstylers were rounded out by some key imports, guys who were lured to town by Doug Moffat, the team's GM. Moffat, a manager at B.C. Tel, offered jobs to those who were willing to come north, and star players like Ciolfitto, Gordie Jakubec, Al Lawson and Al Watt took advantage of the opportunity.
Jenkins still remembers the welcome the Oldstylers received at the Prince George airport when they touched down as President's Cup champions.
"When we came off that DC3 airplane, there had to be a thousand people at the airport, which was a lot for a small place like this at that time," he said. "Everybody went to lacrosse games back then. The Coliseum was nearly always full, and 2,000 people, standing-room-only, for playoff games."
This summer, Jenkins is hoping to have a reunion for the Oldstylers, who were inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame in 1998.
"It's in the works," he said. "We don't know where it's going to happen or how it's going to happen but it's going to happen."
While the 1974 Oldstylers will forever have a place in the Prince George history books, they are still a living and breathing entity when one considers the legacy they left behind.
After the team won the President's Cup, local minor lacrosse experienced a boom and many of the Oldstylers - Jenkins and Ciolfitto included - started teaching the game to youngsters. Among the players Jenkins and Ciolfitto coached over the years were Jeff Moleski and Brandon Atherton, both of whom rode their skills all the way to the National Lacrosse League. Then there's the fact that tons of other players who received instruction from Jenkins and Ciolfitto are still active in the Prince George Senior Lacrosse Association.
"I spent the next 25 years coaching so from that perspective, [the 1974 national championship] built the game in Prince George," said Jenkins, who was inducted into the P.G. Sports Hall of Fame as a lacrosse coach in 2012. "It gave kids and parents a chance to see what a great game it is. And the coaching was as much fun as the playing because nothing was better than to take a bunch of young kids out of here and have them win."
