A pillar of Flin Flon Bombers history will be part of the next induction class of the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame.
Alex Shibicky, a former professional hockey player who came to Flin Flon to coach the Bombers in the 1950s, is part of a special veteran induction into the Hall of Fame, including 28 people and 15 teams.
Originally from Winnipeg, Shibicky played eight seasons in the NHL in the 1930s and 1940s. He spent his entire big league career with the New York Rangers and won a Stanley Cup Championship in 1940. Shibicky played most of the Stanley Cup finals that season with a broken ankle, with team doctors anesthetizing his leg and sending him out to play.
Some sources list Shibicky as the first NHL player to ever use a slap shot during game play, stating he used it for the first time in 1937.
During his time as a pro, Shibicky stepped away from the NHL and enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1942.
Following his retirement from on-ice play, Shibicky stepped behind the bench in junior hockey, making his way to Flin Flon for the 1950-51 season to coach the Bombers, the first season the team played in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL).
Shibicky presided over two winning seasons and two consecutive league titles in three seasons as Bomber bench boss. After ceding the coach’s whistle to the legendary Bobby Kirk for the 1953-54 season, Shibicky left the north and went on to coach the New Westminster Royals in the Western Hockey League.
According to his obituary in the New York Times, Shibicky would later get involved with coaching minor hockey and running hockey schools as well as other business ventures, including a grain farm in southern Manitoba and a restaurant chain with his former Rangers linemates, Mac and Neil Colville. Shibicky died at his home in British Columbia in 2005 at age 91.
Shibicky was honoured as a member of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame and was named number 57 in a book ranking the top 100 players in New York Rangers history.
