Gabriel McAllister: A Two-Season Retrospective

[DoktorFunk 810]

So today, because I don’t want to miss out on my theme week, and because I love DA BEARZ, I thought we could take a look at the Seattle Bears all-time greatest goal scorer, Gabriel McAllister. Just looking him over, he has a couple of interesting things going for him. First, a brief overview of his career, and then an in-depth look at two seasons of his, both of which were in Seattle, baby!

 

McAllister is a two time Continental Cup winner, one with Seattle and one with Davos, a three time Scotty Campbell Trophy winner, three time Scott Boulet Trophy winner, and many other awards across his career. He started with Saskatoon in the VHLM and then was drafted by the Seattle Bears for season 56. He has a career total of 397 goals, 429 assists, and a +/- of 286. He’s certainly deserving to be on the list of All-Time Greatest Seattle Bears.

 

Now, for the two seasons, we’ll be taking a look at seasons 60 and 63. These seasons contained his highest individual performances, although the team didn’t win the Continental Cup in these years. The Bears finished second in the league with 48 wins and 19 losses, with only 5 shoot-out losses. McAllister played on the first forward line with teammates Mattias Forsberg at center and Verner Reinholdt on the right. McAllister lead the team in scoring, netting 61 goals and 59 assists across all 72 games of the season. He also had a shot % of 12.01. Sadly, the Bears lost to the Helsinki Titans on the way to their Continental Cup victory. 

 

After this, McAllister spent two seasons with HC Davos, which I don’t really want to talk about because it’s Davos (love ya!) For his final season, McAllister returned to Seattle one last time. This is his highest performing season with the team, netting 55 goals and 84 assists for a total of 139 points across 72 games. He again lead the team in points and had a shot percentage of 8.42%. This is where some current and former Bears were playing with him, like then-defenseman Maxim Kovalchuk and Malmo’s Matt Thompson.

 

Once again, however, the Bears didn’t make it to the Continental Cup, falling to the Calgary Wranglers in the first round of the playoffs. Still, the Bears had an impressive season, with 52 wins, 15 losses, and 5 OTL, finishing second behind Riga, who would go on to hoist the cup that year, taking the Wranglers out.

 

I’m sure there are those of you out there who remember these seasons, but I really do think it’s interesting to dig through and see the history of a player like McAllister, especially since it hasn’t really been all that long since he left Seattle behind. Is he the greatest Seattle Bear? Probably not, but he definitely scored the most goals, and that’s pretty good. Now we have to look to the future to see if anyone might one day overtake him. Such is life. 

 

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501 words, claiming for next week’s theme week ending in 10/27

 

Claiming this one for 12 TPE and claiming the VHL.com Article for 4 for completion of Theme Week

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

Heyyyy. Appreciate the look back, had a lot of fun on those Bears teams