Hockey Towns

by Ron MacLean

  Sault Ste. Marie

  ONTARIO

  POPULATION:

  75,141

  The Soo

  Wayne Gretzky played with Steve Bodnar in Brantford, Ontario, in 1971, when they were both ten years old. That was the year Wayne scored 378 goals. The boys met up again at the international peewee tournament in Quebec City after Steve’s family moved to the Soo. Sixteen thousand people filled the Colisée to watch ten-year-old Wayne Gretzky play as a peewee.

  Wayne was drafted by the Greyhounds in 1977. He called Steve and said he had no idea where Sault Ste. Marie was, but he wasn’t happy about it. He said he wasn’t sure he wanted to move so close to the North Pole. But the Bodnars offered to have him stay with them, and so he relented. They fixed up a nice room in the basement with a desk and wood panelling, and Steve’s mom made him butter tarts and cooked special meals for him before every game.

  It was a lot of fun for Steve, living in the same house and playing road hockey and hanging out. Wayne seemed happy except for the flying. The Soo players would travel in an old DC-3, and there always seemed to be turbulence. Wayne was so terrified that he would often get violently ill just thinking about going on a road trip.

  Of course, he was a rookie. Craig Hartsburg and Ted Nolan and Greg Millen, all those guys were the veterans on the team. One time, they made the rookies streak through Bellevue, a little park in town, but they set Wayne up. Once he got his clothes off, the police were waiting around the corner. So Wayne got out of the car and started running, when all of a sudden he was caught up in flashing lights and a siren. The police pulled him into their car, and because he had nothing on, he was totally embarrassed. He was also worried that his career was over before it had begun. Meanwhile, the officers were trying to keep a straight face. Part of his initiation also included a complete body shave—every hair. Steve’s mother used to paint eyebrows on him so he could go out.

  Wayne’s nickname in the Soo was “Pretzel,” because he was tall and kind of lanky. Later in Wayne’s career, Steve dropped into a game in Detroit. Wayne was quite a distance away, surrounded by fans, so Steve couldn’t get his attention. He took a chance and yelled, “Pretzel!” Wayne turned around and headed over to say hi.

  Rob Gordon’s a beer-league hockey player from Oakville, Ontario, where I now reside. He grew up in the Soo. In 1978 he was in Grade 11 when a Greyhounds billet showed up at Sir James Dunn Collegiate. The seating plan was alphabetical, and the new kid’s name was Wayne Gretzky, so he was either sitting behind, beside or in front of Rob in seven different classes. Wayne didn’t seem to be much different from anybody else, maybe a bit more solid, but he was a lanky guy and fairly normal looking. All the guys wore Levi’s jean jackets, brown Levi’s corduroys, snap-button checked shirts, and three-striped Adidas sneakers or platform shoes. Wayne had a dirty-blond mullet that he tried to tame with a blow dryer, and he struggled with his teenage skin, but the girls liked him, just as they liked all the boys on the Greyhounds.

  Rob and Wayne were classroom buddies. They’d chat before the teachers got going and then walk to their lockers together. Rob’s dad was a research scientist for the Ontario government. He studied spruce genetics at a big lab in the Soo. Rob had the same sort of curiosity. He had big ideas and was always daydreaming about things he could invent. He did a lot of ski racing and starting fooling around with the concept of miniature skis. He found an old pair of wooden skis in the basement and spent the whole afternoon cutting them down and then making a ski jump behind the local gas station. Of course, they snapped in half on the first run, but it was fun.

  Wayne was gone from school for a couple of days in early June when Rob read in the Star that he was off with Nelson Skalbania, a real estate mogul who eventually landed in jail, but at the time he was wheeling and dealing in hockey franchises. Skalbania signed Wayne to his first big professional contract, with the Indianapolis Racers, for $1.75 million.

  On Wednesday that week, Wayne rolled in driving a big 1977 Ford LTD. It had a two-tone paint job, a navy blue with kind of a light brown undercarriage. He’d driven the car all the way from the Brantford area. He walked into geography class and found his way over to his seat next to Rob at one of the big wooden tables to the left of the blackboard.

  Rob greeted him enthusiastically. “Holy! I read the paper. You are going to be rich one day!” And then he corrected himself. “Actually, you’re rich today! Surely I can get a piece of the action somehow?” Wayne kind of smiled. They both sat quietly and thought about it for a moment. Rob said, “How about I write a book about you?”

  Wayne said, “Yeah, that would be a great idea. My dad’s got a couple shoe boxes full of old pictures.”

  Rob said, “Yeah, I can put something together and I can write the first book about you.” They started to talk about what it would entail when Rob said, “Well, wait a minute. Hold that thought,” and pulled out a piece of foolscap from his three-ring binder. He wrote, “I, [blank], allow [blank] to write a book about myself and agree not to press charges of any kind on him if the book comes out. Anyone else cannot write the book. Signed [blank], witnessed [blank].” He handed it to Wayne and said, “Quick, sign this!” And without a thought, Wayne filled in all the blank spots. They both signed it, and then Rob turned to his two buddies, Scott Forbes and Don Elliot, and said, “Here, witness this.”

  And then Mrs. Morrow came in. She didn’t tolerate too much goofing around. So Rob folded the piece of paper and put it in his binder. At the end of the year, he found it while cleaning out his books, so he put it in an envelope marked “DO NOT THROW AWAY” and stuck it at the back of his folks’ filing cabinet, in a folder with his little art projects from public school.

  Years later, Rob was in university, a poor student eating Kraft Dinner while watching Wayne win Stanley Cups. And then he remembered the envelope. He thought it might be a neat piece of memorabilia. He might even sell it. He went home and rummaged around and found it, but decided not to part with it.

  Later, while working near a mine site in the middle of the Arctic and then travelling here and there, he decided to write some of his stories, including the story about Wayne. He called the book I, Wayne Gretzky and put Wayne’s “contract” on the cover. Wayne, great guy that he is, went along with it and wrote the foreword for his old school buddy. That’s not ordinary. It’s extraordinary. Anyplace else, I guarantee, they’d Soo.

  Moncton

  NEW BRUNSWICK

  POPULATION:

  69,074

  The Incredible Charlie Bourgeois

  I owe Bouctouche, New Brunswick, writer and playwright Antonine Maillet, Montreal author Noah Richler and Canadian philosopher and writer John Ralston Saul for my understanding of the Acadian people.

  In 1755, all Acadians were deported to the thirteen colonies of the future United States of America, with Colonel Robert Monckton carrying out the orders. Moncton, often known as the capital of Acadia, bears the name of the man who exiled them. Many of the Acadians eventually returned near their home without bitterness.

  As Antonine Maillet explains, “It was a page of history we carried with us, and the only way to get out of that situation and triumph was to use the tool of humour. It was then that we became human beings and not just survivors.”

  When I started my NHL broadcasting career thirty-one years ago, I was based in Calgary, hosting Flames games. One of my favourite players to interview was a defenceman from Moncton, Charlie Bourgeois.

  In about mid-December, while preparing a story for Christmas, I went to each of the Flames players and asked them for a childhood holiday memory. When I got to Bourgeois, normally my go-to guy for a quip or fun anecdote, his response was lukewarm.

  “Ron, nothing really special for me. The Christmas tree and tourtière meat pie on Christmas Eve, I suppose.”

  I was flustered. Another player, Colin Patterson, was watching the exchange, and when I was done with Charlie, he pulled me aside and explained. “I’m sorry that had to happ
en,” said Patterson. “You didn’t know, but the reason Charlie had no answer and went somewhat cold on you is that his father, Aurèle, was a city policeman who was murdered at Christmastime in Moncton in 1974, when Charlie was fifteen. It just caught him off guard and he couldn’t fake a better response.”

  I apologized to Charlie and he, for no good reason, apologized to me. Charlie won a university hockey crown with Moncton, enjoyed a decade in the NHL and was a great coach after his playing days. We’ve remained great friends. I attended the Flames’ training camp in Moncton in 1985 and Charlie took us to dinner at Fisherman’s Paradise in nearby Shediac, New Brunswick. I attended his golf tournament in the early ’90s and we hit Ziggy’s bar next to the Beausejour Hotel together. I walked into my room at two thirty in the morning, assuming we all had our own rooms, but it turned out we all had roommates. Mine was already in his bed—legendary CFL star Russ Jackson! I straightened up pretty quick.

  A few years ago, I was in town to help Charlie with a university fundraiser, and I recall a great dinner at Little Louis Oyster Bar. Following my speech, we enjoyed a few beers at the Old Triangle Irish Alehouse and the St. James’s Gate, and my most recent trip after Hometown Hockey was an incredible amount of fun, at a bar called Plan B.

  I was working on our Stanley Cup final coverage in Los Angeles on June 4, 2014, when I got word that the city of Moncton was in lockdown with a manhunt underway after five Mounties had been shot and three killed. Well, you can imagine my thoughts. I knew that nothing could change 1974 for a kid who would honour his dad’s legacy with every breath and every deed for the rest of his days. And I knew five other families were now thrust into that reality. The only thread of solace came from the work of Antonine Maillet and the example of Jean Béliveau.

  The Acadians. There is such dignity here.

  Constable Michael O’Leary was a good family man. The thirty-three-year-old had a beautiful young wife, Carol Anne, and two great little boys. In Moncton in the early ’70s, all the guys on the force were pretty close. Mike and another constable, Nick LeBlanc, lived in the same apartment building until they built their houses, and Nick was part of a group that ran the junior hockey team. Nick was trainer, equipment manager, everything.

  Corporal Aurèle Bourgeois was always at the games. Aurèle was forty-seven years old. He’d been with the Moncton city police eighteen years and had four kids, Joanne, Patricia, Charlie and Guy. Fifteen-year-old Charlie was a defenceman for the Moncton Junior Beavers.

  Aurèle was passionate about hockey. His mother died when he was two years old, and he was one of eight children, so his father placed him and some of the younger siblings with different relatives. Aurèle longed to play hockey, but he was too poor. So when his own kids came along, he made sure his little girls had nice dresses and that Charlie and Guy had the very best skates, sticks and hockey gear. They lived on a policeman’s salary, so that meant denying himself new things.

  Every Saturday night Aurèle and Charlie would sit down in front of the television and watch the Canadiens on Hockey Night in Canada. They were big fans of Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt, Ken Dryden and Charlie’s favourite, Larry Robinson.

  When Charlie played, Aurèle would use his lunch hour to go to the J. Louis Lévesque Arena. He wasn’t Charlie’s coach, he was just his dad, and he never missed a game in Moncton or nearby Dieppe. Charlie would always watch for him out of the corner of his eye.

  December 11, 1974, was a Wednesday. Charlie broke his stick in the game that night. Aurèle found Nick LeBlanc and said, “Nick, you wouldn’t happen to have an extra hockey stick for Boo-Boo?” Boo-Boo was the family’s nickname for Charlie. Aurèle always called him that, and as a result, everyone else did too.

  Nick said, “Sure,” and grabbed a brand new stick for the boy.

  Aurèle said, “Oh, geez. He’ll love this. He’ll just love it, Nick. Thanks a lot.”

  A very bad guy named James Hutchison had moved to Moncton from Picton, Ontario. He was a forty-three-year-old drifter-type, cocky and balding, with a greasy comb-over. He’d brag to his brother-in-law, James Mulligan, about how he could make a bundle by kidnapping local restaurant owner Simon “Cy” Stein or his girlfriend. Cy had a very successful restaurant. Forty years ago, there weren’t many high-end restaurants in Moncton, and his was the place most went for special occasions, anniversaries and such. The specialty was lobster.

  Mulligan laughed it off. He thought it was just the beer talking. But when Hutchison met up with a like-minded kid, twenty-two-year-old troublemaker Ricky Ambrose, Hutchison’s plan became a reality.

  At about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 12, 1974—the night after Aurèle gave Charlie his new stick—Cy’s mother, Sara, and his fourteen-year-old son, Ray, arrived home after having dinner at the restaurant. When they stepped into the house, Hutchison and Ambrose were there. Both were wearing ski masks and holding guns.

  They tied Sara to the stairway railing and grabbed the boy. They covered his head and face with a toque and shoved him onto the backseat floor of Ambrose’s dad’s Cadillac, with its light beige body and dark top.

  Within twenty minutes, Sara Stein had worked herself free. She called her son and told him Ray had been kidnapped. Cy rushed home just in time to receive a call from Hutchison, who demanded a ransom. After Cy talked to Ray to make sure he was all right, he agreed to go back to his restaurant to see how much money he could quickly pull together, and then he called the Moncton police.

  When the kidnappers called Cy back, Cy said he could only come up with $15,000. Hutchison said he’d take it. The Moncton police traced the call to a telephone booth on Shediac Road near the Trans-Canada Highway. But what the police didn’t realize was that the phone on Shediac Road had been disconnected and that the number had been transferred to a booth at the Riverview Mall, which was south of Moncton, across the river. Because the Moncton police didn’t have enough cars back then, the dispatcher, Chuck Kenny told Aurèle Bourgeois and Mike O’Leary to use his blue Plymouth and a portable radio. They, along with three other cars, set up surveillance on the wrong phone booth.

  Hutchison and Ambrose took Ray to an apartment to wait while Cy called Milton Palmer, manager of the Bank of Nova Scotia, and arranged to pick up $15,000 in ten-dollar bills. The kidnappers were hungry but had no cash. Ray had won them over a little bit and given them ten dollars, which Ambrose used to run to the store for a cooked chicken and some Coca-Cola.

  At about 3:30 a.m., Hutchison called Cy again. Cy said he had the money all ready in a canvas bag. Hutchison told him to drop it off in a ditch just west of the Riverview Mall.

  Meanwhile, a Moncton police officer was at the New Brunswick Telephone Company building, monitoring the call to pinpoint the location, but they were unable to trace it.

  Hutchison and Ambrose loaded Ray into Ambrose’s dad’s Cadillac and waited by the side of the road near the Riverview Mall. Cy drove up in his big Thunderbird and, as instructed, dropped the canvas bag full of ransom money into a ditch about half a block ahead of the Cadillac. He drove forward about a hundred yards and stopped. The Cadillac drove up to the bag, someone got out and grabbed it, and Ray was released. Cy saw his son stumbling down the road toward him, pulling off the black toque they had used to cover his eyes.

  The three police cars that were set up at the wrong location finally got word about the drop at Riverview Mall, and so they sped over, passing Cy and Ray, who were on their way back to the safety of the restaurant.

  This was the RCMP’s jurisdiction. One of the officers suggested that they notify the Mounties so they could block the city off. That way nobody could get in or out. But a couple of the guys in charge said, “Never mind the RCMP. We’ll steal this one from right under their nose.”

  Detectives Archie Cudmore, Ralph Cassidy and Orly Cairns parked in a private driveway just east of the mall. Aurèle Bourgeois and Mike O’Leary, in Chuck Kenny’s Plymouth, were told to wait even further east, and a third police car with officers Crandall and Galbra
ith set up a roadblock at the west side of the mall.

  “The Three Cs”—Cudmore, Cassidy and Cairns—watched as the Cadillac and a blue Dodge drove past. The Cadillac turned south on Wentworth Drive, turned off its headlights, and then pulled a U-turn and turned east on Coverdale Road.

  Officers Crandall and Galbraith decided to follow the Dodge, with the Three Cs as backup. But when the five men stopped the blue Dodge, they discovered Police Chief C.M. (Moody) Weldon and two others in the car. Unbeknownst to the team, Chief Weldon had decided to join the surveillance.

  At 4:10 a.m., Aurèle and Mike O’Leary were radioed and told to check the Cadillac. Aurèle responded, “Okay,” and that was the last their colleagues heard from them.

  At 5:30 a.m., the Moncton police called the RCMP and asked for help.

  Aurèle and Mike found the Cadillac parked near the school on Coverdale Road. Nick LeBlanc’s theory is that, following protocol, one of them, probably Mike, approached the driver’s side while Aurèle stayed back. Due to the trajectory of the bullet later found in Mike’s shoulder, it appeared that at that point the Cadillac’s driver pulled a gun and shot Mike just under the clavicle, in the fleshy part. Then the other guy would have gotten out and said something like, “Drop your gun or we’re going to finish off this cop.”

  Both officers were tied up and forced into the trunk of the Cadillac, and then transported to a wooded area on the outskirts of Moncton. They were taken from the trunk and handcuffed to a spruce tree on top of a hill near a covered bridge. There, they watched their captors try to dig into the frozen December ground with a snow shovel. Nick LeBlanc is sure they’d have never put a shovel in Mike O’Leary’s hands. With that Irish temper of his, he’d have killed them right then and there.