Drumheller Miners - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Drumheller Miners were a senior

Senior ice hockey

Senior hockey refers to amateur or semi-professional ice hockey competition for players too old to play junior ice hockey. The top senior amateur teams in Canadian leagues compete annually for the Allan Cup....

ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

team based in Drumheller

Drumheller, Alberta

Drumheller is a town within the Red Deer River valley in the badlands of east-central Alberta, Canada. It is located northeast of Calgary...

, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Two incarnations of the team existed. The first was a member of the Alberta Senior Hockey League

Alberta Senior Hockey League

The Alberta Senior Hockey League or ASHL was a senior level ice hockey league that operated between 1936 and 1941 in Alberta, Canada. In 1941 the league ceased operations due to World War II....

(ASHL) in the late 1930s. The Miners playing in the ASHL featured the five Bentley brothers, Doug

Doug Bentley

Douglas Wagner Bentley was a Canadian ice hockey left winger who played 13 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Chicago Black Hawks and New York Rangers as part of a senior and professional career that spanned nearly three decades...

, Max

Max Bentley

Maxwell Herbert Lloyd Bentley was a Canadian ice hockey forward who played for the Chicago Black Hawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, and New York Rangers in the National Hockey League as part of a professional and senior career that spanned 20 years...

, Reg

Reg Bentley

Reginald Bentley was a Canadian ice hockey player who played 11 games in the National Hockey League for the Chicago Black Hawks as part of a 20-year senior and professional career...

, Roy and Wyatt. Doug, Max and Reg went on to play in the National Hockey League

National Hockey League

The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

(NHL), while Doug and Max were both elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame

Hockey Hall of Fame

The Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dedicated to the history of ice hockey, it is both a museum and a hall of fame. It holds exhibits about players, teams, National Hockey League records, memorabilia and NHL trophies, including the Stanley Cup...

.

The second Miners team existed in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1966, the Miners captured the Allan Cup

Allan Cup

The Allan Cup is the trophy awarded annually to the national senior amateur men’s ice hockey champions of Canada. It has been competed for since 1909. The current champion is the Clarenville Caribous hockey club of Newfoundland and Labrador.-History:...

, Canada's national senior championship. The team was then selected to represent Canada in a tour of Europe in the winter of 1966-67. The Miners are believed to be the first free-world hockey team to compete in East Germany during the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

See also