The Edmonton Drillers, a Canadian indoor soccer team, was reconstituted in August 1996 under the ownership of Peter Pocklington. The team ("Drillers") was based at Edmonton Coliseum and played in the National Professional Soccer League. Ownership passed to Wojtek Wojcicki in 1998, and the Drillers won the NPSL National Conference in the 1998–1999 season. The franchise ended in November 2000 owing to financial difficulties.
Resurrection
On August 23, 1996, at a hastily arranged press conference at Telus Field it was announced that Peter Pocklington had purchased the Chicago Power of the National Professional Soccer League and was moving them to Edmonton for the rapidly approaching 96/97 season. The team was to play out of Edmonton Coliseum and play under the name "Drillers" which had been used by the NASL entry in Edmonton many years earlier, that was also owned by Pocklington.
The acquisition was to produce further synergies between Pocklington's other sports holdings in Edmonton. Pocklington has recently negotiated control of the Coliseum, and was looking to fill dates in the building whose main tenant was his NHL team, the Edmonton Oilers. The Drillers shared office space with the Oilers, and as the NPSL season nicely juxtaposed with the baseball season it allowed for significant crossover of office staff between the Drillers and Pocklington's Pacific Coast League team the Edmonton Trappers.
Another more vindictive motivation for bringing in the indoor soccer side was to make life more difficult for the expansion Western Hockey League team, the Edmonton Ice. Pocklington had wanted a WHL franchise in Edmonton for himself, but was never granted one. However, when Ed Chynoweth stepped down as WHL commissioner, he and promptly granted a franchise in Edmonton. As a result, the Ice were not allowed to play at the Pocklington controlled Coliseum, and were instead left to play their games at the somewhat less fan friendly Northlands Agricom. On top of that it was standard practice to schedule Driller games head-to-head with Ice games, and distribute large quantities of complimentary tickets.
Coaching and management
Ross Ongaro was tapped to coach the side. He had previously been a player and coach for the MISL's Cleveland Force, as well as coaching the CSL's Edmonton Brick Men. His assistants were Pasquale de Luca and Sean Fleming. Joe Petrone was chosen to be the Director of Coaching and Player Personnel. Oddly enough, Ongaro, De Luca, and Petrone had been involved with the original NASL Drillers, Ongaro and De Luca as players, and Petrone in management. De Luca left the club after the 97–98 season, but the rest remained with the club through their folding.
'96/'97 Season
Humble beginnings
Not much was expected of the Drillers, nowhere more evident than in the pre-season coaches poll that had them pegged to finish 4–36. Such opinions were hardly unexpected though, as the Power were a dismal 6–34 the year prior. Even then most of the players inherited were good for little more than trade bait as the NPSL required that teams could field no more than four imports. Experienced players were very hard to come by, as not only had there not been any Canadian teams prior to provide a talent base, but there was another Canadian team entering the league that year, the Toronto Shooting Stars, and they had a head start on finding players.
When the Drillers kicked off their inaugural season they only had three players with NPSL experience. Bill Sedgewick (who was also Captain) and Nick DeSantis came with the franchise from Chicago, and Todd Rattee who was acquired from the Milwaukee Wave for Mark Manganello. The only other player with any tangible indoor experience was backup goalkeeper Scott Hileman, who had played in the rival Continental Indoor Soccer League the summer prior. It should further be noted that none of these players had more than one year of pro experience under their belt.
Heading into their first game, Pat Onstad had earned the starting goalkeeping spot, but while traveling to suit up for the Canada national team he was involved in a car accident and suffered a wrist injury which knocked him out of action for six weeks. In his stead Scott Hileman assumed the number one spot and never relinquished it.
The Drillers played their first game November 1, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Sipho Sibiya scoring the first goal in franchise history, and the club posting their first win, 11–7 over the Shooting Stars.
Other significant happenings that season;
November 2, 1996: Drillers suffered their first loss at the hands of the Detroit Rockers, 16–9 at Joe Louis Arena.
November 17, 1996: Drillers play their home opener, dropping the contest 19–9 to the Kansas City Attack in front of a crowd of 8,974.
February 24, 1997: Acquired Domenic Mobilio from the Harrisburg Heat for cash.
The Stretch Run
As the season progressed, the Drillers experienced the steep learning curve, but managed to easily surpass the rather low expectations thrust on them to only win four games all season. With eight games to play the Drillers were still in the hunt for a playoff with a respectable 14–18 record, but were a long shot as seven of those games were on the road included a dreaded three games, in three nights, in three different cities stretch. Rather improbably the Drillers suddenly caught fire, and rattled off six wins in the seven road games and found themselves with one game to play against their division rival Detroit with a playoff spot going to the victor.
The improbable run of the Drillers had made the rounds in the media, and coinciding with the poor season the Oilers were having. Suddenly the Drillers were the flavour of the month in Edmonton. This was evident in the stands as the largest regular season crowd in Drillers history took in the regular season finale March 29, where they defeated the Rockers 7–4 in front of a boisterous 9,136 patrons. The win gave the Drillers a 21–19 record for the year, and a first round playoff date with the Milwaukee Wave.
Post-season
Riding the momentum of their late season run, on April 4 the Drillers went into Milwaukee and hammered the Wave in the first game of their best-of-three series 20–6. This game is also notable as the first game ever on the radio, as the locale station CKER agree to broadcast the playoff away games, with PR man Bruce Rakoczy and assistant coach Sean Fleming doing the play-by-play and commentary. Things did not go without a hitch though, and as a result of technical difficulties, the listening public was left listening to polka music for more than three quarters of the game before things finally got sorted out.
In the return match April 6, 9,189 fans took in probably the most memorable game in club history, seeing the Drillers rookie scoring sensation, Carmen D'Onofrio head home his own rebound past indoor legend Victor Nogueira in the final minute of play for a two-point goal, and a 10–9 victory for the home side.
After having swept the Wave, the Drillers were headed for St. Louis to face the Ambush in the second round for another best-of-three series. In game one, April 12, 1997, the Drillers had the heavily favoured Ambush on the ropes, but with 1:51 remaining in the game, Joe Reiniger hammered home a three-point goal and handing a heartbreaking 19–18 loss to the Drillers.
After sharing a quick flight back to Edmonton, the teams squared off again the next day, April 13 at Edmonton Coliseum. This game was witnessed by a record 9,879 people, and the young Drillers were not to be denied, posting a convincing 19–9 victory. This set up a winner take all showdown back in St. Louis three days later.
Game three was played on April 16, at the Kiel Center in St. Louis, and again the Drillers gave a valiant effort, and were within a goal of tying the match until midnight finally struck, and Steve Kuntz sealed their fate with an empty net goal with just seven seconds to play, final score St. Louis 16, Edmonton 11.
Aftermath
While the club was eliminated in the second round, their unexpected success was noticed, and coach Ross Ongaro was awarded the NPSL's Coach of the Year award, and the team's scoring leader, Carmen D'Onofrio, finished runner up for the leagues Rookie of the Year award. D'Onofrio, as well as Shayne Campbell and Martin Dugas were also honoured with selections of the NPSL's All-Rookie Teams.
Up until their elimination, this was the acme of the franchise, with them garnering unprecedented media coverage and drawing by far their largest crowds during their run. When earlier in the season one would be hard pressed to find more than a brief mention of the previous nights results, suddenly they were getting major linage in the major daily papers, nightly features on the TV news, and players making the rounds on local radio shows.
The late season run also was very beneficial to the team's bottom line, the team started the year with only 123 season-ticket holders were on track to lose $500,000 that season, they managed to lessen that to $300,000. Their average attendance was 7,200, but that number was largely made up of complementary tickets. Their late season run though included three consecutive 9,000+ crowds of which all were paid tickets, and thus ownership was highly optimistic heading into their second season. As it turns out, this was actually the club's most successful season financially, that is to say it's the least money they lost in one season.
'97/'98 Season
Sophomore jinx After the terrific stretch run the first year on the field and in the stands, expectations were very high heading into the second campaign. Confidence was running high, so much so that management and players alike talked publicly about record crowds and that anything less than a championship would be a failure. Fate had other plans.
Off the field momentum was quickly stymied when owner Peter Pocklington put his sports holdings up for sale early in the offseason. With uncertainty about the club's future, ticket inquiries quickly dried up. Despite later reassurances from Pocklington that the team was "here to stay" the public remained wary. Player wise, the team remained largely intact, but did lose Nick DeSantis, Lloyd Barker and Rick Titus to the Montreal Impact when they joined the league. To fill those holes, the Drillers acquired the rights to O'Neil Brown and CISL second leading scorer, Ziad Allan.
Optimism was still abound about the on the field product heading into the season, but an 0–5 start quickly brought the team back down to Earth. Struggling particularly in the offensive end of the pitch, the Drillers shipped Allan to Montreal in a deal that eventually led to Lloyd Barker finding his way back into Driller silks. The Drillers did eventually pull out of their funk, but their season on the field and in the stands remained largely unspectacular.
Scoring goals wasn't all that irked the Drillers in their second season. After a relatively healthy inaugural season, 97/98 was filled with serious injuries to several key players. At various times the captain Bill Sedgewick, all-star defender Todd Rattee, as well as leading scorers Carmen D'Onofrio and Domenic Mobilio were out for extended periods.
Lloyd Barker incident On March 16, 1998, it was exposed that the Drillers management had forgone getting medical insurance for their players, leading to a substantial controversy as the players had not been made aware of the situation and it was against league regulations. The situation only came to a head after the Vancouver Whitecaps inquired over the insurance situation for a player they had loaned to the Drillers, and it turned out he was uninsured. The club quickly put together an insurance package before the next night's game in Cincinnati.