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2019 Articles


THE CURSE OF THE BULLIES

(CBL Newswire) - by Captain Morgan of the Fort McMurray Today

After starting the 2019 season with 6 straight losses, the Fort Mac Roughnecks looked well, exactly like the franchise has looked for a good part of the last two decades, cursed!

This organization, which started as the Edmonton Vikings, has not finished with a record above .500 or higher than 4th place in their division since that 2001 inaugural campaign, when then owner Mike, took the Vikings to the playoffs with a wild card birth. With a playoff bound team raking in some serious cash, an ownership group led by millionaire businessmen David Gonzalez, Dan Kozera and Mark Givler came calling and bought out the franchise and relocated them to the Rocky Mountains of Banff.

From 2002 to 2005, the team was known as the Banff Barons. They played at the stadium which was fittingly called The Sunken Diamond as the team’s record sunk faster than lead falling into the sea. The team finished 4th in their division every single year.

By 2006, the businessmen decided that the Barons were not a good investment and they sold the team to a local man, Mr Steve Webb, who thought that he could turn the team around by changing the club name to a more intimidating name, alas, the Banff Bullies were born. The only problem was that the ownership before sold off all of the team’s assets to try and salvage some of their money back and left Mr Webb with nothing but a last place team, an empty stadium, and creditors which forced him into bankruptcy. The franchise had hit rock bottom, not only did they finish last in their division but a “Save Our Bullies” rally was unsuccessful and the team was within days of folding and being disbanded.

The Bullies were saved however, when Sherwood Park’s own Brendon MacGranachan agreed to purchase the team and had wanted to move them to his hometown after the following year. Part of the ownership agreement stated that the team must stay in the Rocky Mountains, but MacGranachan wanted no part of that and found a loophole in the contract and decided to bring the team back to his hometown. Brendon soon found out that this was not going to be as easy as he had hoped as the franchise seemed to be struggle both on the field and off the field. In 2007, The Igloo’s construction was halted as one of the support beams on the retractable roof collapsed, killing 13 workers and injuring many more. A police investigation lasted nearly a year, but there was no evidence of any wrong doing, their report was noted as the incident being labelled “just bad luck”.

The police investigators, however, were wrong. The construction accident was not to be blamed on bad luck. Some say that witches in the mountains cast a terrible curse on Brendon for not honouring his word and keeping the team in Banff. The curse was set upon the team for everyday that he owned them and with each new day it was to get worse and worse.

As franchise bid adieu to Banff and the Bullies in April 2009 and the Sherwood Ice threw their inaugural pitch at The Igloo, the bad experiences followed MacGranachan wherever he went. The Ice lost 110 games or more in all 4 seasons that the team played at this stadium under MacGranachan. And it was during the winter of 2013, that people started to believe in this witchcraft as Brendon MacGranachan had disappeared. While nobody has ever seen him since, some people claim that his voice can be heard every so often in the Pub. The curse lives on as he tries to claim that he would like to purchase another team, but no team has been available for him to claim.

to be continued

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