The night the game stopped at the Arena in Medicine Hat

During a stoppage in play, I began to fill time until the next face-off by rattling off a useless statistic I had found, suggesting the Broncos were especially successful in winning games on Wednesday nights with 10 wins in 11-midweek games.

Forced to give out all the out-of-town scores, with what seemed to be a longer than normal delay on the ice, I could hear longtime Tigers public address announcer Jim Duce make a long statement over the loudspeakers, but simply brushed it off as an organizational promotion of a player’s autograph signing after the game or something to that equivalent.

Continuing to kill even more time, now going through the scores in the NHL, with play yet to resume, I noticed both the players from the Broncos and Tigers beginning to head to there respective dressing rooms.

What was going on? Was there an injury or an ice issue that I hadn’t noticed?

In an effort to multitask by reading out more scores for the listening audience, while trying to determine why there was such a long stoppage, I looked across the ice surface, and to my amazement the paying public in unison stood up and appeared to be headed for the exits.

Why are the fans leaving? The game isn’t over. We still have a period of hockey to play, I said to myself.

Suddenly, behind me, I heard an urgent knock on the door, leading to my broadcast location. I typically locked the door at the Medicine Hat Arena, with fans so close by and zero security. I found taking the proactive measure in hostile territory was best with an over aggressive, and in some cases over-served fan(s) having a chance to join me, unexpectedly, in the radio booth.

I quickly turned off my microphone, and sheepishly leaned back in my chair to open it to see who was on the other side.

“What are you doing”, Dave Andjelic said, the longtime Tigers public relations director with his head only visible to me, with his body shielded by the door.

“Dave, I am doing a radio broadcast”, I retorted annoyingly.

Andjelic replied, “You need to get out fast. There is a bomb in the building.”

Shocked at his statement, I fired back, “A what?”

“A bomb. You have to leave immediately,” Andjelic said, shutting the door quickly and exiting the broadcast location.

Still trying to absorb what I had just heard, before realizing I was still live on the air, I quickly turned my microphone back on and told the listening audience back in Swift Current with a sense of panic in my voice, “There is a bomb in the building…..the Broncos lead 2-0….good night from the Arena in Medicine Hat.”

I quickly got up from my chair, looked one more time around the now vacant arena, before grabbing my coat and fleeing for the nearest exit.

Leaving my radio broadcasting equipment behind, I went out into the snowy, dark night looking for the Broncos bus as a refuge from the bitterly cold prairie wind.

Once inside the bus, with the coaches and players still trying to make sense of the situation, after waiting an hour, it was determined the remainder of the game would be played the next day. We ended up busing home to Swift Current, only to return to play the third period, a game in which the Broncos won 2-0.

I will always remember that game at the Medicine Hat Arena, not for the score, but for the bomb hoax.

The headline in the local newspaper the next day said it all.

‘Luckily the game wasn’t a blast’.

by Regan Bartel

The night the game stopped at the Arena in Medicine Hat

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