ESTON — Al Macpherson spent much of his career far away from the spotlight, instead committing his time to cold highways and colder arenas in search of the next great junior hockey player.
Tuesday, however, his legacy was front and centre as Macpherson was warmly welcomed onto the Western Canada Professional Hockey Scouts Foundation’s Wall of Honour at the organization’s second annual induction dinner in Okotoks.
Born in Eston and raised near Lacadena, Macpherson joined the Brandon Wheat Kings as a part-time scout in 1986. He was promoted to a full-time position as the team’s director of player personnel in 1998 and served in that role for 15 seasons before retiring after the 2013 bantam draft.
“It’s a great honour and he was such a humble person that just loved hockey and loved being part of the Wheat Kings, and he was just a good person and that’s why, for me, it’s great for him to get recognized,” former Brandon player, assistant coach, scouting director and general manager Darren Ritchie told SaskToday in a recent phone interview.
“He did find a lot of hockey players and he also made a lot of friends with their families. He was such an easy person for families to approach. At training camps, he knew every family, all of their names and everyone was so comfortable talking to him, and I think that really helped people feel comfortable sending their kids hundreds of kilometres away to go play hockey in Brandon, Manitoba.”
The Wheat Kings made the WHL championship series three times in four years from 1995-98, winning the Ed Chynoweth Cup in 1996.
But a more complete measure of Macpherson’s impact is evident after his promotion to director of player personnel following the 1997-98 season.
With Macpherson leading the team’s drafting and recruitment charge, Brandon made the playoffs in 13 of 15 seasons – including 12 straight postseason appearances from 2001-12, cementing Brandon’s place as an East Division powerhouse.
Those years also yielded a who’s who of junior hockey superstars in Brandon – many of whom went on to find professional success as well.
There were first-round draft picks like Eric Fehr and Brayden Schenn.
“Al fought really hard for Brayden Schenn,” longtime ex-Brandon executive Kelly McCrimmon told SaskToday in an interview Friday. “He really felt that’s the kind of player you win with.”
Macpherson’s intuition paid off as Schenn went on to record 315 points in 224 WHL games – all but 27 of those with Brandon – and was later traded to Saskatoon for a package that included forward Tim McGauley and draft picks the Wheat Kings later used to select forward Jayce Hawryluk and goaltender Jordan Papirny. (More on that later.)
There were later-round picks like Mark Stone (fifth round), Ryan Pulock (seventh round), Danny Tetreault (eighth round) and Burke Henry (10th round) who punched well above their draft-day weight.
And there were list players like Micheal Ferland and Matt Calvert, who shared the ice with Schenn and Stone in 2010 when Brandon (as host team) reached the Memorial Cup national championship game before falling to a Windsor Spitfires club led by future NHLers like Taylor Hall, Adam Henrique, Philip Grubauer, Ryan Ellis and Cam Fowler.
Macpherson’s crowning achievement, though, came in 2016 – three years after his retirement from full-time scouting – when the Wheat Kings won their third league championship.
Though no longer with his hands on the wheel, so to speak, the 2016 roster had Macpherson’s fingerprints all over it, with a lineup that included the aforementioned McGauley and Hawryluk, along with 2013 bantam draft picks Nolan Patrick and Kale Clague, 2012 pick Logan Thompson, and 2011 pick John Quenneville.
“He knew the players and did, I thought, a really good job recognizing what the important traits were,” said McCrimmon. “You had to have talent, you had to be able to skate, but you also had to have hockey sense, and character.
“He would know a player inside and out. He didn’t guess. He kept doing the work until, like he always said, if you watch them long enough, they make the list for you.”
Now the general manager for the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, McCrimmon joined the Wheat Kings as an assistant coach in 1988 and began a 27-year run as Brandon’s GM the following season, working hand-in-hand with Macpherson for much of that time.
“We were like brothers in terms of the time we spent together,” McCrimmon said, explaining that the two men spoke “pretty much daily” during their shared time in Brandon.
“I scouted a lot as well, so we watched a lot of hockey together. We travelled to a lot of different places, put a lot of miles on and he would know the players that he needed me to see. That would be how he prepared it.
“I had complete confidence that he knew who the best players were and could project how guys were going to develop and those types of things, so we had a really close relationship. I probably scouted more than a lot of general managers do, so in doing that, I had even more respect for Al because I saw how smart he was at his work and how hard he worked.”
Upon Macpherson’s retirement in 2013, McCrimmon described the occasion to The Brandon Sun as equivalent to “losing your right arm.”
For Macpherson, though, it was an opportunity to return to his roots.
“I thought it was time that I did some of the things that I haven’t been able to do when you are doing that job,” he told The Brandon Sun in 2013. “I don’t see my grandsons play hockey often enough, all of those things that happen in the winter that you don’t have time to do … but I enjoyed every minute of it and I have no complaints. I just thought it was time to see how the other half of the world lives.”
Post-retirement, Macpherson returned to farm life at Lacadena before moving to Lacombe, Alta., in 2020. He died of cancer in October 2024.
“He was such an easy person to talk to,” said Ritchie, who was added to the Wheat Kings’ player list by Macpherson ahead of his own WHL debut during the 1990-91 season. “Any time you saw him, he was so happy to talk to the players and be around the players and I always enjoyed those conversations even when I was coaching. I loved talking hockey with him and would call him often when I was on the road scouting to talk hockey. He just was a genuine, good person and had a great eye for hockey talent.”
Added McCrimmon: “When I think of Al, he was just so humble, so full of humility, so hardworking, and just a guy that really was respected by everybody in the industry.”
