Vasteras Iron Eagles

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VASTERAS IRON EAGLES

SEASON 1

The defining moment for the Vasteras/Madrid/Stockholm Viking franchise was what some would call its pinnacle. Coming into the series against the 69-3 Calgary Wranglers (who had manhandled the team all season), they weren't expected to win a game. What ensued was one of the most epic upsets in VHL history. The win, perhaps undeserved, was subsequently followed by many years of tumultous unrest in both Vasteras and Madrid. Vasteras was cursed, or so they said. The Season 1 team was one of the greatest ever assembled, as you'll soon see. With the likes of the VHL Gretzky in Scotty Campbell and one of the greatest first generation goalies in Matthew Pogge, the team was utterly talented. Unfortunately, the ill-advised trading of Campbell led to several seasons of misfortune as General Manager Pensfan101 hung tough until Season 14. For that one glorious season, the Vasteras/Madrid/Stockholm franchise was the greatest and ever since then the team has been fighting to re-gain that first sip of VHL glory. Season 1 was definitely the defining moment for the franchise, as it took four real-life years and 25 seasons to break the longest curse in league history.

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Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

There was a time when the Vasteras IK club was the toast of the league: Season 1. Season 1, as you may recall, was actually dominated by Brett Slobodzian and the Calgary Wranglers. It was Calgary, not Vasteras, who was both favoured and expected to take home the Continental Cup. However, Vasteras was able to match Calgary’s firepower. The Wranglers came with Slobodzian, Boulet, and Janssen, but the Black Eagles came back with Campbell, McKelvie, and Clarke. While the Wranglers had Sterling Labatte, the Black Eagles had Ljunggren and Lidstrom. However, the biggest difference was in goal. Calgary’s Drew Barclay was simply no match for Vasteras’s Matthew Pogge, and it was Pogge who shutout the Wranglers in Game 6 to help Vasteras clinch the first ever Continental Cup.

”I think the Season 1 win in Calgary was possible for two reasons: one was Scotty Campbell. Had Amstel not passed on him in the draft, I really doubt the team gets as far as it did. The second was balance. Lidstrom was a great pickup and Ljunggren had yet to stagnate in his development, so he was on par with good, but not great, VHL defenders for that season. Plus, Matthew Pogge was unbelievable in net. While VIK didn’t quite have the guns to keep up with Calgary's high-octane offense, it had more balance.”

– Lucas Tannahill

Hall of Fame Players

Team Pioneers

Scotty Campbell opened up his VHL career with Vasteras IK as he was drafted second overall in the S1 VHL Dispersal Draft. During this season, there were two real competing teams in the VHL, the Calgary Wranglers and Vasteras IK. With these two teams competing, there were two competing players for the top offensive player in the league, Scotty Campbell and Brett Solobodzian. Campbell lost the point title in his first season, as well as the goal title, but in the end he had the last laugh as Vasteras IK was able to win the inaugural Continental Cup, beating the Wranglers in six games. Campbell won two awards in S1, the Messier Trophy, as the league’s top leader, and the Francis Trophy, as the league’s most sportsmanlike player, while being an Eastern Conference All-Star.

Matthew Pogge’s first season in the VHL was a memorable one as the Switzerland native was outstanding for Vasteras. Pogge finished second in the league in both wins and goals against average while leading the league in save percentage as well as shutouts en route to Tretiak Trophy after being recognized as the league’s top goaltender in S1. Pogge was exceptionally strong in the playoffs and played a major role in Vasteras upsetting the heavily favoured Calgary Wranglers in 6 games to earn Vasteras claim to the league’s first Continental Cup. Pogge also went on to be recognized with the Howe Trophy as the league’s Playoff MVP. All in all,Pogge was able to put together quite possibly his best season in S1.

The Start of a Curse

After Season 2, it would be quite a while before the franchise would return to the Continental Cup finals to even get a chance at ending the drought and winning a 2nd Continental Cup. As time went on, the league went under some major changes. Every other team in the VHL won the Continental Cup, with some teams winning as many as 4 while Vasteras fans continued to wait for their turn. Eventually, GM Lucas Tannahill stepped down, and Zach Arce was brought in to replace him. It was Arce who decided to move the team to Madrid in Season 16, hoping the aura of failure that seemed to permanently hover around the team would die along with the Vasteras team name.

So why has Vasteras had so much difficulty in reclaiming the Continental Cup? Well, for whatever reason, players just don’t want to play for that franchise. Perhaps the most well known example is Kevin Brooks, who has publicly come out as being anti-Vasteras on several occasions. People like Alex McNeil have followed suit. This definitely gives the Vasteras organization a poor reputation amongst other players in the league. Despite not exactly knowing what problem Brooks has with the team, they are still not as excited to go to Vasteras knowing that he disapproves of them. It’s a silly thought, but it’s also quite true.

Despite some players being stubbornly opposed to playing in Vasteras, the team has still been able to attract some notable players to the team. Scotty Campbell, Matthew Pogge, Mike Szatkowski, Matt Defosse, Brannan Anthony, Ginzou Fujiwara, Anton Ingberg, Carl Jacobs, David Henman, and many other players have called Vasteras their home team at one point or another. Still, despite the highly popular theory of a cyclical league, they simply haven’t been able to make it back to the finals very often – only 3 times in the entire history of the VHL.

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Scotty Campbell

What Wayne Gretzky was to the NHL, Scotty Campbell was to the VHL. Campbell holds the records for; most career goals, most career assists, most career points and highest career plus minus. There is no doubt that Campbell is the most dominant offensive player to ever touch a VHL ice surface.

Matthew Pogge

At a distant point in the future many may look back in hindsight and see Matthew Pogge’s name as the most successful goaltender statistically to ever play in the Victory Hockey League. Opting to pursue a career in the NHL at the conclusion of S4, Matthew Pogge announced his retirement from the VHL on February 22nd, 2008.

Lucas Tannahill

The Vasteras Iron Eagles are the infamous franchise of the VHL and the team that everyone loves to hate. Nevertheless, it would be very hard to imagine the league without this iconic team and it was never the same during the brief stint in Madrid. We can thank Lucas Tannahill for building this legacy and creating a massive chunk of what Vasteras is today, even now that he seems to have finally moved on from the team on a long-term basis. Vasteras and Tannahill go side by side more often than not and he was a VHL builder in the traditional sense, in that he truly built a franchise, and for that he deserves credit and recognition.