Yorkton Stories

The long forgotten Terrier junior hockey team

Dick DeRyk Season 4 Episode 4

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0:00 | 53:49

In 1997 Gene Krepekavich, the longtime Yorkton Terrier booster, volunteer and club president for six seasons published the history of the first 25 years of the junior Terriers hockey team. It starts with the 1972-73 season. 

But what few, if any, remembered then and now, and what is not recorded in recent official histories of junior hockey in Yorkton, is an earlier team, also known as the Yorkton Terriers, which also played in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. It played one season, 1955-56, and hosted that season's SJHL all-star game. It was managed and coached by Bill Hunter -- THE Bill Hunter of World Hockey Association and Edmonton Oiler fame which came a decade later.

On it was one player who still lives in Yorkton, Merve Kuryluk. He was 18 at the time and on his way up the hockey ranks. It was covered for CJGX Radio by a rookie reporter, also 18 years of age, Linus Westberg.

We talked with both of them 70 years later, and listen in on interviews Linus did with hockey and media luminaries who attended the game, and the preceding dinner at the Yorkton Hotel.

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Transcript to come.