The year is 1974.

Bob Findlay is mayor of Yellowknife, the third hosting of the Arctic Winter Games is in the books and the Explorer Hotel has opened its doors for business.

There was also a group of young men who were about to set sail, so to speak, for Ottawa for what was to be the inaugural Canadian Junior Softball Championship in August. They would join all of the provinces in vying to emerge victorious.

Little did they know that they would end up becoming legends in the annals of NWT sport.

They called themselves the Yellowknife Junior Merchants; the team name was a nod to the business community and August marked 50 years since that famous win over Quebec by a score of 6-5.

A group of 18 ended up making the final cut, as selected by head coach Bernie Boyd and assistant coach Wilf Chiasson. One of the lucky dozen-and-a-half to earn a spot was Brad Enge, who was the lone Indigenous player to make the final roster.

He remembered the tryouts at Tommy Forrest Ball Park being intense.

"A lot of guys tried out and I was one of the fortunate ones to be selected," he said. "We ended up with a great roster of players."

That roster included such names as Bob McLarnon, Ray Gagnon, Steve Vallillee, Wayne Jeske, Greg Vaydik and Rod Stirling. Stirling was the youngest member of the team at just 15 years of age.

"We had a couple of guys who played hardball (baseball) and most of the guys were hockey players," Stirling recalled. "We just practised and practised, sometimes twice a day. Just a huge amount of practice. We worked super hard, but we just didn't know if we were any good or if we even belonged down there. We thought 'Let's just show up and see what we can do.'"

So it was off to the nation's capital and the biggest tournament of their lives, complete with second-rate equipment.

Upon arrival in Ottawa, there arose a problem: where were the team's uniforms? The outfits they ended up wearing belonged to the Ottawa Canadians, a baseball team that had won the Canadian junior title in that sport in 1973. Had it not been for Mark Gryba, who played on that 1974 Merchants squad and who also played with the Canadians at one time, there would be no uniforms.

"The uniforms that eventually came were for kids, something like what a peewee team would wear, and we had some big guys on our team," said Stirling. "Mark said he would make some phone calls because he knew the people who ran the Canadians. We ended up getting enough uniforms, but it just added to the whole thing about us thinking we didn't belong there. People also started wondering who we were and why we came to a national championship without uniforms."

That explains the story of why 'Canadians' appeared on the front of the jersey instead of 'Merchants.'

Bright lights

Something else the players had to deal with was heat, humidity and floodlights. There was no need for floodlights during a Yellowknife summer because the sun stays up long enough.

"It was a very unique environment and a bit of a culture shock," said Enge. "The weather was so different from Yellowknife because we don't have humidity, so we had to get used to that. Night games were new to us as well and it made it tough to try and track down fly balls because of the glare off the lights."

To combat that, players often use eye black to help fend off the glare, but there was none to be had among the players. Thanks to a local volunteer, however, that problem was solved.

"Someone came up to us and said that we should go to the parking lot (at the field) and look for old cars," said Stirling. "He told us to run our finger around the tailpipe for soot, because cars back then ran dirty, and rub it under our eyes. So we did that and, sure enough, it worked."

The snickers and jabs of derision that sometimes follows a team coming from the NWT were in full force, especially as the Merchants got set to play New Brunswick in their first game.

The two teams rode the bus together to the field from their accommodations at Carleton University for that opening contest and Enge remembers the conversation being rather one-sided.

"Those guys from New Brunswick were rather dismissive of us," he said. "They were making fun of us being from a remote location and they were telling us how bad they were going to beat us."

"They were telling us they were going to slaughter us and mercy us and making fun of the fact that we had no uniforms and how we shouldn't be there," added Stirling. "We didn't say anything back because we didn't think we were that good to say anything."

As the game got underway, it slowly became obvious that the Merchants did belong. Pitcher Leroy Eliason was "mowing (New Brunswick players) down one by one" as Enge put it, as the Merchants walked away with a 10-2 victory.

"We were just hammering the ball all over the place and we started to realize that maybe we did belong there," said Stirling.

The bus ride back to the hotel was a lot different, Stirling added.

"We shook hands with them after the game and we just said, 'Nice try, guys'," he recounted. "Not 'good game' like players usually say, just nice try because we didn't forget what they had been saying to us."

It was the first win of what would turn out to be several as the Merchants would end up finishing first in the Red division and advancing to the double-knockout playoffs, where they would meet Quebec in their first contest. A 6-3 loss put the Merchants over to the B side and the long route to get back to the final.

As is usually the case whenever a team loses the first game of a double-knockout playoff, it means a lot of games and the Merchants had to play SA¹ú¼ÊÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½” and win SA¹ú¼ÊÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½” four games on the final day of the tournament. That included having to beat the A-side winner twice, which just happened to be Quebec. They would defeat Ontario (4-3), Saskatchewan (5-3) to meet up with La Belle Province for all the enchiladas.

The Merchants prevailed in the first game to set up the winner-take-all championship contest and here's how the finish was described in the Aug. 15, 1974, edition of Yellowknifer, courtesy of the late Jack Adderley:

"Needing three runs to tie, (Ron) Lehman started it as he got to first base on an error. Mark Gryba followed with a single and (Wayne) Jeske walked, loading the bases with none out. The crowds were delirious and coach Bernie Boyd and manager Wilf Chiasson are reported to have been so nervous they changed colour.

"Ray Gagnon, the fourth man up, drilled a double into left centre, scoring Lehman and Gryba, and (Bob) McLarnon grounded out to the pitcher. Runners on second and third, one out and needing one run to tie and two to win, Greg Vaydik pulled the pin on a grenade-like blast that went over short, scoring Jeske and Gagnon and the Yellowknife Juniors were the 1974 Canadian Junior Men's Softball champions."

History was made. The Yellowknife Junior Merchants had become the first team from North of 60 to win a national title in any sport.

A fateful ignored sign

The winning run is seared into Enge's memory.

"Ray was supposed to stop at third SA¹ú¼ÊÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½” he ran through Bernie's stop sign, but he made up his mind that he was going to end the game right there," he said. "I remember Ray's eyes being as big as cue balls and he slid into home plate and it was just total hysteria on our part after that. We all ran out of the dugout and jumped around and celebrated. A lot of us hugged Ray for ignoring Bernie (laughs)."

Stirling added that Gagnon had no business scoring that run.

"He should have been out by at least 30 feet," he said. "It was one of those plays where the catcher was waiting for Ray, but the problem was he didn't have the ball in his glove when Ray slid into home. That's the only reason Ray wasn't out, but it didn't matter. We did it."

News of the triumph quickly reached Yellowknife courtesy of excited phone calls; no social media or internet back in 1974 made dialing long distance a necessity. The city turned out in droves to welcome the team home, beginning at Yellowknife Airport with then-commissioner Stuart Hodgson and Findlay leading the welcome party. Findlay also issued a proclamation that everyone take the afternoon off of work to join in the celebrations. An honour guard of softball bats greeted the team into the terminal, followed by a motorcade on Franklin Avenue and a team banquet at the Elks Hall.

"We all felt like local celebrities," said Enge. "I'd never been in a motorcade before but we all had convertibles and it looked like the whole city lined the streets for us. It was an exciting moment, for sure."

It was a bit different for Stirling, though.

"I had to leave early because I had signed up for a badminton camp in B.C. and I had to go," he said. "When those guys were coming home, I was flying back out, so I missed the motorcade and the car with my name on it. But knowing the city did all of that for us was really special."

Each player also received a commemorative ring and a leather jacket courtesy of the city as keepsakes. They wound up as the toast of the town for quite some time.

"I can remember a sign up at the airport saying that Yellowknife was home of the national junior fastball champions or something to that effect," said Stirling.

Their exploits back then were memorialized for good in 2013 as they were inducted into the NWT Sport Hall of Fame in the team category.

It was a moment Enge described as humbling.

"It was very heartwarming that we were even considered," he said. "They brought in a lot of the guys for the ceremony and it was great to see them again. It felt like a high school reunion or a homecoming and sharing those memories again was just great."

That Junior Merchants team remains the only fastball team to win a full national title and Stirling said while it's a nice feeling to have that distinction, he wished more titles would have followed.

"The 1979 team came close SA¹ú¼ÊÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½” they lost in the final in extra innings that year," he said. "We just haven't been able to put together the right mix of players, it seems. I've always hoped we would have more success."

Until that happens, there's always the memory of that year and the distinction of being trailblazers.

"They can never take that away from us," said Enge. "We were the first to do it and that's a mark of pride for all of us. Some days I'll drive by (Tommy Forrest) and I'll see them playing and the memories come back. I can hear the noises and all the banter. It was a great time and an amazing experience and I'm glad people still remember us."