Fans for 50 years... with the Tigers all the way


RYAN MCCRACKEN


rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com Twitter: MHNMcCracken


In 1970, a new level of hockey worked its way into the heart of the Gas City. Fifty years later, that love affair is still burning strong — just ask Val and Harold Leitch.


The pair of lifelong Medicine Hat Tigers fans got in on the action early and have held season tickets since Day 1, back when clamouring fans were spending the night in line outside Black’s Hardware just to get a taste of the Western Hockey League.


“It was quite a thrill because we’d never had hockey like that,” Harold said ahead of last


year's playoff run. “They’d line up and sleep all night to get tickets for some of the games, and then when we got to the playoffs, that was unreal. They were sleeping out there so


Harold are still proud season ticket holders.


From the early underdog days, to the glory years of Lanny McDonald and Tom Lysiak through to the team’s newest


we’d never had hockey like that.


It was quite a thrill because


they could be first to get the few tickets that were left.”


Half a century later, Val and


chapter inside the Canalta Centre, they’ve been right there with the Tigers, watching from the edge of their seats.


“One great thing about being a season ticket holder for all those years is that we’ve seen a lot of great hockey players come and go through the system, whether it was for the Tigers or opposition. You’d see a lot of players who went on to play in the NHL. I’ve always loved that,” said Harold. “Of course you go to Tom Lysiak and Lanny McDonald, Jimmy Nill, Kelly Hrudey, Pete Peeters. And the years we went to the Memorial Cup with Trevor Linden, things like that.”


While they’ve been known to travel for important games, Val and Harold have relied on one consistent voice to relay road games through all 50 seasons — the incomparable Bob Ridley.


Ridley joined up as the team’s play-by-play announcer for their inaugural season in 1970, as well as their bus driver, and he’s been at the mic for all but one game ever since.


22 | MEDICINE HAT TIGERS


“He’s our personal superman,” said Val. “He’s so caring and those kids, as they grew up, still respected him and always had good things to say if they were ever interviewed. It was all, ‘Bob, Bob, Bob,’ they didn’t have enough that they could say about him. He is phenomenal.”


“The day he says goodbye is going to be a sad day for play- by-play. Whoever takes over better be damn good,” added Harold. “Somebody that could drive for 40 years and haul them millions of miles and then broadcast the game, get on the bus and take them to the next place or home, it’s just totally amazing.”


The majority of the memories Val and Harold made through the Tigers — whether parked in their seats at The Arena or huddled around the radio listening to Ridley — came alongside Harold’s late mother, a diehard Tigers fan named Gladys, but affectionately known by the team and its fans as Grandma Leitch.


For Grandma Leitch, no distance was too far for her beloved Tigers, and no superstition too strange.


“My dear mother traveled to both Memorial Cups out east and they won,” said Harold. “We went to Kelowna and they lost. She was 90 years old at the time and she told me I couldn’t go anymore because they lost.”


Grandma Leitch was outspoken to say the least. In fact, during one of the team’s first trips to the Memorial Cup, she made sure everyone knew in advance that Medicine Hat was about to earn its place on


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