The Bulls have been fortunate to have many players in the lineup over the years that were good leaders. Players like Darren McCarty, Craig Mills and Greg Bignell proudly earned their role as captains of the team.
But ask anyone who was there and the person that defined the club’s personality from Day 1 was Dunc MacIntyre.
The Bulls had a veteran lineup that was clearly underachieving early in the 1984-85 season. They won just four times in their first 12 games and when they dropped out of first place after losing three in a row in early February, MacIntyre had seen enough.
“We hadn’t been playing well and we knew it,” MacIntyre said in an interview with The Intelligencer.
He called a player’s only meeting to make sure that everyone was ready to work together as a team.
“We just felt that we had to start to take things a little more serious.”
The next day, the Bulls routed the Toronto Marlies 9-3 to set a new team record with 35 wins and -more importantly moved one point ahead of the Petes for first place.
MacIntyre had a goal and two assists in the win.
Sophomore Season Leader
If a casual observer didn’t know why MacIntyre was the heart and soul of the upstart Bulls, they would understand completely if they watched the feisty centre when the Bulls traveled to Brantford late in their second season.
Needing just one win to clinch their first ever playoff spot, the Bulls were anxious to score early.
MacIntyre was crushed into the end boards in the first period and needed 13 stitches to close a gash over his eye.
He returned later in the game and tipped in the tying goal in the third period to help the Bulls rebound from a 3-1 deficit.
The Bulls secured the playoff berth and MacIntyre put his name among the team’s first heroes.
“It was truly an honour for me,” MacIntyre reflected. “I probably put a lot of pressure on myself at the start of that second year just because it was a big responsibility.”
He was looking for players that would help earn the fledgling club’s place in the league.
It didn’t take long for Mavety to realize that the person who would define their personality was an 11th round afterthought named Dunc MacIntyre.
MacIntyre approached his first training camp with the Belleville Bulls the way he had approached everything in his life.
He was smaller than most of the other draft picks and didn’t command the spotlight the way stars like Dan Quinn did. So he grabbed his figurative hard hat and went to work.
“It was a good opportunity for a lot of us because other than a few players like Dan Quinn and Darren Pang, pretty much every spot was open,” MacIntyre said.
“It was a clean slate, everybody had a chance to get in there.”
MacIntyre played his way into the Bulls’ exhibition lineup as a rookie and scored a goal and an assist in a 7-5 win over the Kingston Canadians in their second pre-season game.
It was club’s first win as an OHL team.
A Pleasant Surprise
He piled in two goals and four points in their 12-7 win over Kingston in their inaugural home opener and then tipped in the winning goal in overtime against the Ottawa 67’s to give the Baby Bulls a 2-0 record to start the season.
Mavety said that MacIntyre was a pleasant surprise.
He had a hunch that MacIntyre would be available late in the draft because of his small stature. It didn’t turn out to be much of a gamble.
MacIntyre cleaned up the Bulls year-end awards after his rookie season. The Brantford native also finished second in the OHL’s rookie-of-the-year voting to Sudbury’s Pat Verbeek.
Mavety made MacIntyre the captain at the start of his sophomore season.
He was the type of player that the phrase “heart and soul” was coined for.
MacIntyre is the longest serving captain in team history. Luke Judson also wore the “C” for three seasons from 2009-2012.
“It was truly an honour for me,” said MacIntyre, who admitted that there were many players on the team in the early years that were leaders.
“I looked a lot upon Ben Kelly my first year and he was certainly a big part of helping me through the first season.”
Wore His Heart on His Sleeve
MacIntyre had a knack for raising his performance level when the club needed it the most.
He was the epitome of what a captain should be. He led by example with clutch goals.
He wore his heart on his sleeve, just below the horned “B” on his jersey.
Despite playing a physically demanding style, MacIntyre missed just seven games in four seasons. He made it his job to set the work ethic example for his teammates.
There is no question that MacIntyre helped shape the mold that future Bulls’ teams would be made from.
He was the first -and only -player to have his number retired by the Bulls.
As much as MacIntyre meant to Belleville, the city and team meant as much to him.
He was selected the team’s MVP again at the end of his third season and in his overage year, MacIntyre won the Molson Cup for leading the OHL in three star selections.
He was also recognized as the hardest working player in the OHL Coaches Poll. MacIntyre truly earned the respect of his coaches, teammates and peers.
“He did extremely well,” Mavety said.
“He just wanted to play and he worked at it and it showed that you didn’t have to be the most talented player in the world.”
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
Excerpt from 25 Years with the Belleville Bulls (Bell, Aaron 2005)
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
After nearly making the Playoffs with a record-setting run as an expansion team, GM-coach Larry Mavety was crystal clear in what he planned to do for an encore in the 1982-83 season.
He expected the second-year Bulls to continue to buck tradition and immediately compete for a playoff spot.
Mavety knew that he had a more experienced club after making several trades during the inaugural season and that sophomores like Dunc MacIntyre -who he named captain -and former first overall pick Dan Quinn would be much better prepared to lead his club into the post-season.
“Unbelievable Natural Skills…”
For his part, Quinn felt that he left a little on the table as a rookie. He put on 15 pounds of muscle during the summer expected a much better season as a sophomore.
“Dan had unbelievable natural skills,” said captain Dunc MacIntyre.
“That was very evident. That first year he had a lot of pressure, and put a lot of pressure on himself to perform. The second year, I think he settled into the type of hockey player that Dan Quinn knew he could be and that everyone else knew he could be.”
Dan Quinn (right) was one of the Belleville Bulls early stars
Quinn was strong in the first half of the season -he scored three goals in the Bulls’ 7-1 win against the Sudbury Wolves for their third straight win in November and then lifted the team with a spectacular goal on an end-to-end rush that lifted the Bulls to a 6-5 come-from-behind overtime win in Kingston in early December.
But it was the second half of the season that was clearly the difference in Quinn and the Bulls from the year before.
Quinn scored another hat trick and added five assists to set a new team record for points in a game, leading the club to a 10-2 win against the expansion Guelph Platers in early January.
He also scored five times in a pair of late January wins against the Kingston Canadians that all but locked the Bulls into a playoff spot.
Quinn was the first star in three straight wins that brought the Bulls to within three points of the Cornwall Royals for fifth place in the division.
He scored four goals, including the winner in overtime to give the Bulls a 7-6 win over the Peterborough Petes on the Global OHL Game of the Week in March.
Wayne Gretzky, who purchased 45% of the Bulls from Bob Dolan and became Dr. Vaughan’s new partner, was in attendance when the Bulls defeated the Brantford Alexanders 4-3 on March 3 to clinch their first OHL playoff berth.
Quinn, a finalist for the most underrated player in the season end-ing OHL coach’s poll, had a goal and four assists in Belleville’s season-ending 7-3 win over the Kitchener Rangers.
Forward Mike Clayton was one of two players brought over from the Kitchener Rangers in a trade for star forward Dave Nicholls in the 1981-82 season.
Clayton emerged as a solid OHLers during his time in Belleville.
“Mav gave me the chance to play here and by showing confidence in me I gained some confidence in myself,” Clayton told The Intelligencer.
Clayton combined with linemates Quinn and Mark Hegarty to score 10 goals and 22 points in a three-win stretch in November.
Heart and Soul
If a casual observer didn’t know why Dunc MacIntyre was the heart and soul of the Belleville Bulls, they would understand completely if they watched the feisty centre when the Bulls traveled to Brantford late in the regular season.
Needing just one win to clinch their first ever playoff spot, the Bulls were anxious to score early. MacIntyre was crushed into the end boards in the first period and needed 13 stitches to close a gash over his eye.
He returned later in the game and tipped in the tying goal in the third period to help the Bulls rebound from a 3-1 deficit.
Dunc MacIntyre (left) was an early leader for the Belleville Bulls
The Bulls secured the playoff berth and MacIntyre put his name amongst the team’s first heroes.
“It was truly an honour for me,” MacIntyre reflected. “I probably put a lot of pressure on myself at the start of that second year just because it was a big responsibility.”
The Bulls drew a tough card in the opening round of the playoffs -they faced the Oshawa Generals, who rolled through a 24-game undefeated streak earlier in the season.
The Bulls had won just one of six games against the Generals in the regular season and managed just one tie in the six-point playoff loss.
The Bulls returned to the ice for a curtain call from the capacity crowd of 3,300 fans.
“They were guys that just wanted to play the game,” Mavety said. “They loved hockey and if you were going to beat them, you were going to pay the price. There was very few games that those guys didn’t show up to play.
“Quinn might have got the points, but everybody contributed.”
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
Excerpt from 25 Years with the Belleville Bulls (Bell, Aaron 2005)
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
They got it quickly, winning their second game when captain Dunc McIntyre tipped in the winner to give the home team a 4-3 overtime win over Brian Kilrea’s Ottawa 67’s.
After that pair of home wins, the Bulls traveled to Kitchener to face the defending OHL champions.
16 fights and 314 penalty minutes later, the Bulls were handed their first defeat -an 8-2 loss to the Rangers.
The game started with a fight between Craig Kitchener and Mike Moher in the warm-up and escalated to the point where fans were throwing pop cans at the bench, At one point, coach Larry Mavety tore off his jacket and was ready to go into the stands after the culprits.
Cooler heads prevailed; the cops charged the can thrower and the Bulls left with their first loss.
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
Future Bulls’ coach and Belleville native Lou Crawford scored Kitcheners sixth goal and then ended the game with a fight with Crocock.
The club skated to an impressive 9-3 record at home to start the seaon, but Mavety was concerned with their play away from the Quinte Sports Centre – the Bulls were winless in 10 road games.
Mavety challenged his squad to start looking for better results on the road.
Nicholls responded with a pair of goals against his former team to lead the Bulls to a 6-3 win in Windsor in late November.
It was their first win on the road and Nicholls took a great amount of pride in helping the Bulls achievement while giving the Spitfires cause to consider why they left him unprotected in the off-season.
First round pick Dan Quinn had trouble finding the net early in his rookie season, but caught fire in November and had 30 points by early December including a hat trick and an assist in a 6-5 win over Kingston on December 12.
One week later, the Bulls picked up a 4-2 win against the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.
It was the Bulls 15th win and set a new record for an OHL expansion team.
“I think it was a very exciting time for the Bulls, not only for the players themselves, but also for the city,” MacIntyre said.
“By the second half of the season, we were legitimately contending for the playoffs and teams knew that when they came in to Belleville to play or when we traveled to their hometowns that it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park for them. It was going to be a tough game.”
“At a major level of hockey, Belleville is probably the most successful expansion team in the history of expansion,” Branch was quoted in The Hockey News. “That is because a lot of preparation went into having them join our league.”
After some roster shuffling before the January trade deadline that brought in overager Tony Butorac and defencemen Scott Defoe and Ian Macinnes, the Bulls hit a rough stretch in January.
They started the month tied with the Cornwall Royals for a playoff spot, but lost MacIntyre -the club’s top scorer -with a concussion and Defoe briefly left the club to ponder his future in the game.
Nicholls was sent to Kitchener for Mike Clayton, who brought playoff experience to the Bulls’ blueline.
The highlight of the month was back-to-back wins over the Rangers – who went on to win the Memorial Cup including a 6-5 overtime win in Kitchener. They lost two straight games in February when the winning goal bounced in off of a Bulls’ defenceman.
They also dropped a 5-4 overtime win to Kingston despite outshooting them 42-24.
Mavety told the local media that for his team to win games, they would have to be a lot tougher than they had been of late.
He assembled his squad for a meeting in late February to tell them as much. He wasn’t looking for bench clearing brawls as much as aggressive work in the corners and making their opponents pay a physical price.
Two days later, Mavety and four players were suspended after a brawl with the Toronto Marlies at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Goalie Ken Porteous was one of the players suspended he would miss the remainder of the season for his part in the incident.
The loss of players gave the Bulls the opportunity to call up “Cowboy” Joe McCallion from the Brampton Warriors. McCallion was instrumental in the Bulls Tier II win and scored a pair of goals in his first two OHL games.
A 2-1 loss to Sudbury on February 28 officially eliminated the Bulls from the playoffs. The team closed out the home schedule of their first OHL season with a 4-3 win over Kingston.
The 2,200 fans in attendance at the Quinte Sports Centre gave the club a standing ovation at the end of the game and called the players out to skate a final lap around the ice. The Bulls’ 50 points doubled the previous record for an expansion team.
“We were small and we were young and we had some battles,” said rookie Marty McSorley, who earned his spot in the roster after an invitation to training camp.
“We had teams that would try to take advantage of us and I think they found out that they had opened up a hornet’s nest. They had their hands full.”
“I think that team set the tone for Belleville teams in the future,” Mavety said.
Excerpt from 25 Years with the Belleville Bulls (Bell, Aaron 2005)
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
With Dan Quinn, there was never any question that he would be a dominant player in the OHL. But as the Bulls’ first ever draft pick first overall in the 1981 midget draft would Quinn become dominant in time to help the expansion Bulls?
As a rookie, Quinn put up solid if unspectacular scoring numbers. He managed just one goal and six points in his first 14 games but then emerged as a bona-fide scorer with 13 goals and 22 points in the next 17 games.
He finished his rookie year with 19 goals and 51 points in 67 games.
“He was going to be a hockey player…”
“He was going to be a hockey player, that was in his mind,” Bulls GM/coach Larry Mavety said. “I think in his first year, he got by on talent alone. He was a very talented hockey player. When he first came in, he was living on being the first overall pick more than anything else.”
Not satisfied with the results of his rookie year, Quinn went to work in the off-season to add 15 pounds of muscle that would help him compete in every game during the long season.
“I was brutal at the start of the season and the end of the season,” Quinn admitted to The Intelligencer. “I played pretty well in November and December but that was about it. I saw other players that were drafted early doing better than me and I think that made me put some pressure on myself.”
“Came out flying…”
Quinn came out flying as a sophomore; he led the team with 59 goals and 147 points and was among the finalists for the Red Tilson Trophy as the OHL’s top player.
His breakout season was noticed by the NHL scouts and Calgary Flames took Quinn with their first round pick in the 1983 draft.
He enjoyed an extended stay in Calgary’s training camp the next fall and was leading the OHL in scoring with 59 points games when he was summoned to return to Calgary to replace injured veteran Jim Peplinski.
NHL Debut…
Quinn picked up an assist in his NHL debut against the Toronto Maple Leafs and scored his first NHL goal two weeks later in a 5-5 tie against the Edmonton Oilers.
In that same game, Bulls’ co-owner Wayne Gretzky scored to extend his point scoring streak to 36 games. Gretzky went on to set a 51-game streak that still stands as an NHL record.
For Quinn, it was the start of an NHL career that lasted more than 800 games.
“He’s smart and clever with the puck,” Flames’ coach Bob Johnson said about Quinn, who was runner-up to Steve Yzerman as the NHL’s rookie of the month that December.
“He’s playing well for an 18-year-old. Actually, he’s playing well period.
Quinn’s situation helped shape the new agreement with the OHL and NHL clubs ability to call up junior-aged players during the season.
Excerpt from 25 Years with the Belleville Bulls (Bell, Aaron 2005)
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
Marty McSorley needed to make a quick impression and he had a pretty good idea how to do it.
More than 70 players were suited up at the Bulls’ first training camp before their inaugural season in 1981 and McSorley -a free agent invitee – would have to give GM/coach Larry Mavety a good reason to keep him around.
McSorley made an impression all right.
He scored and then got in a fight in his first exhibition game, a 9-4 loss to the Kingston Canadians.
McSorley, who grew up on a farm in Cayuga, Ontario, had a solid season with the Hamilton Kilty Jr. B’s and was invited to the Bulls’ camp by team scout John Mowat.
Mavety had a board in his office that had a card with each player’s name on it. He used the board to figure out who was going to play and who was going home.
After one of the training camp sessions, Mavety was looking at the board and knew that someone was missing. He realized that it was McSorley. The other observers with the team had already dismissed McSorley as a candidate for the team and had trashed his card.
Long time Belleville Bulls coach and GM Larry Mavety overlooks the team’s first trsining camp in 1981
“Unfortunately, I coach the hockey club, not you,” Mavety told the others. “I say he stays and he stayed.”
Mowat had a heart-to-heart with McSorley during training camp that gave the young player some insight into what he needed to do to make the team.
“They needed to know that there are some guys that could protect the other guys,” McSorley reflected.
“Being a farm boy, he didn’t have to tell me twice. I went out there and got into quite a few scraps in that training camp. It opened the door for me to continue on. I really wanted to make the team.”
Mavety liked what he saw in McSorley – he probably reminded Mavety of himself nearly 20 years earlier.
“He was proving to everyone that he belonged.”
“Let’s face it, he was tough,” Mavety said. “But he worked. He was proving to everyone that he belonged.”
McSorley made the Bulls’ opening game lineup, but was a healthy scratch for several games early in his first season. He missed more time with a back injury midway through the year, but worked hard to develop into a solid contributor by the end of the season.
Defenceman Marty McSorley emerged as one of the first fan favourites of the Belleville Bulls
He spent his mornings on the ice at the Sports Centre.
“I really think that Mav knew that I was going to keep working on trying to get there,” McSorley said. “The guys in the rink were so great to me. I know there were people that called to rent the ice and those guys who worked in the rink would say ‘sorry it’s booked’ because they knew that I was going on the ice in the morning.
“For me, coming from the farm, going out on the ice was fun.”
“I’d get my skates and just go and skate. When the ice was booked I’d go and skate on the outside rink. For me, coming from the farm, going out on the ice was fun.”
The next summer, the Penguins were looking for an extra defenceman for their training camp. Mavety suggested that they bring in McSorley. He made enough of an impression that the Penguins signed him to a pro contract.
McSorleydeveloped with the Bulls and became a force in his second season. He had six goals and 43 points through February and was selected to play in the all-star game on home ice in Belleville.
Marty McSorley fearlessly patroled the Belleville Bulls’ blueline as a rookie in 1981
He was one of the club’s most dependable blueliners and finished the year with 10 goals and 51 points to go along with 183 penalty minutes.
McSorley was a key ingredient that helped the Bulls make the playoffs in their second season. He and Dan Quinn were the only Bulls to play in all 70 regular season games that year, but McSorley suffered an ankle injury in the first game of their playoff series against Oshawa.
He wasn’t 100% for the series finale, but refused to end his OHL career watching the game from the seats.
After two seasons, McSorley had made his mark on the Belleville Bulls.
He became an inspiration to other players who were never drafted, but made the most of their opportunity.
He spent most of the next 17 years playing in the National Hockey League. McSorley won the Stanley Cup twice.
Not bad for a walk-on.
Excerpt from 25 Years with the Belleville Bulls (Bell, Aaron 2005)
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
1981 was a year of change for the Ontario Hockey League. Commissioner David Branch was entering his third season at the helm and was poised to make a lasting impression on the junior circuit. The league officially separated from the Ontario Hockey Association to take more control over scheduling, officials and player discipline.
They also streamlined the league’s name from Ontario Major Junior Hockey League and introduced a new logo to coincide with the name change.
The league also looked at expansion for the first time since granting a team for Windsor in 1975.
After an aborted attempt to purchase the Niagara Falls Flyers and move them to Belleville, an ownership group spearheaded by Dr. Robert Vaughan made a formal application for the league to add Belleville as its 13th franchise.
Groups from North Bay, Guelph and Sarnia were also interested, but the Belleville bid was the only one accepted by the OHL’s Board of Governors. On February 3, 1981, the Board unanimously voted to grant the Belleville franchise to principal owners Vaughan and Bob Dolan.
One of the first pieces of business for the league’s newest owners was to solidify the hockey program. As part of their expansion package, the Bulls were permitted to select a roster of players that were left unprotected by the other clubs and were given the first pick in each round of the midget draft.
Vaughan and Dolan turned to Larry Mavety to usher in the new era of hockey in Belleville.
Mavety knew that despite nearly winning it all the year before in Tier II that the OHL was a much different animal. He would need to find as many players as possible with OHL experience to have any chance of competing in the top junior league in the country -and possibly the world.
Mavety took 23 players from the cast-off lists from the other teams, including Joe McCallion and Steve Slaughter, who played with the Bulls in the Centennial Cup. Mavety then set his sights on the midget draft where he used the first overall pick on talented centre Dan Quinn, who tore up the Jr. B circuit with London.
He also pegged future Bulls Darren Pang, Noble Carlton, Rob Crocock and an undersized centre from Brantford named Dunc MacIntyre.
Mavety brought more than 70 players into camp the first year. Some of the faces were familiar to local fans, but most including five players invited from Finland – were as new to the team as the team was to the OHL.
“Everybody that came to training camp had a legitimate chance of making the team,” MacIntyre said. “Guys were literally fighting for spots on that team that year. They knew that they had a legitimate chance to make that team.”
Intelligencer photos courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
Mavety brought in another familiar face early in the pre-season. He made a trade with the Sudbury Wolves for Napanee native Ben Kelly, an alternate captain with his Tier II Bulls the previous year.
The Bulls lost their first exhibition game -9-4 to the Kingston Canadians – and finished the pre-season with a 2-5-1 record.
Mavety refused to panic. He was offered the coaching job for the much more experienced Brantford Alexanders but turned it down for the opportunity to build something from scratch in Belleville.
Prior to the season opener, Mavety shipped second round pick Mark Paterson -who refused to report to training camp to Ottawa for Ali Butorac and a draft pick. Mavety liked the experience that Butorac brought to the club, but the veteran balked at playing for the expansion team and went back home to Sault Ste. Marie.
Just prior to the season opener, Mavety made a deal with the Oshawa Generals that sent Butorac west to the Motor City in exchange for Ray Flaherty, Jack Woods, Craig Kitchener and Scott Cooper.
The move brought in two players – Flaherty and Kitchener -with much-needed OHL experience.
After pre-season predictions that the youthful Bulls would be hard pressed to win 10 games all season, the group shocked Kingston with a 12-7 win in the season opener.
The Bulls looked nervous early and were down 2-0 after the first period, but came out flying in the second period. Woods scored 44 seconds into the middle frame and the Bulls piled in three more second period goals before exploding for seven in the third period for their historic first win.
Excerpt from 25 Years with the Belleville Bulls (Bell, Aaron 2005)
Intelligencer photo courtesy Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County
