Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  8. RIDEAU CANAL SKATEWAY (Ottawa, Ontario). The Rideau Canal flows through the city of Ottawa, and every year, a section about five miles long becomes a public skating rink—the largest natural rink in the world. You can skate under bridges, through old neighborhoods, and past some of Canada’s most historic structures, including the Parliament Buildings. Every winter, the Skateway is full of friends and families on leisurely skating outings, stopping at ice-side booths to buy hot chocolate and beaver tails, a fried pastry. (Season: January to March.)

  A YOUNG MAN’S GAME

  The Memorial Cup, awarded to the Canadian junior champs, is a competition with a history and tradition as long as the Stanley Cup.

  Canadian junior hockey, a mainstay of the game as the leading producer of talent for the pro leagues, takes a multi-pronged approach to prosperity. The competition factor of the three leagues for young men between 16 and 20 is strong, the caliber of play at a high level and the deep rivalries have existed for decades. The development of prospects for the NHL, selected via the annual entry draft, provides a large discussion point for the juniors. Players are not only motivated to outshine their opponents in order to get ahead in the standings, but also to individually get a step up on the draft ladder.

  BIG-LEAGUE PROSPECTS

  Situated in many middle-sized cities, most teams are their town’s “big-league” sports franchise, many attracting close to capacity crowds in arenas that have from 4,500 to 10,000 seats. The 2005–06 hockey season will see the Canadian Hockey League, the umbrella organization for the Western, Ontario and Quebec Leagues, operate with 58 teams stretching from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Vancouver, British Columbia. Nine of those are in the northern U.S.—Erie, Pennsylvania; Saginaw and Plymouth, Michigan, in Ontario; Lewiston, Maine, in the Quebec League; and Spokane, Seattle, Everett and Tri-Cities in Washington plus Portland, Oregon, in the Western League.

  ROUND-ROBIN RULES

  Each spring, four teams play in the Memorial Cup championship tournament, an event that has national television exposure with strong audiences in Canada. A host city is selected several years in advance and the team in that town has an automatic berth in the Cup event. It is joined by the three league champions for the round-robin tournament. If the host team happens to be the league playoff champs, the other finalist from that loop is the fourth team. This tournament approach started in 1972, replacing the longtime east-west final for the trophy.

  ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN: SCHOOLS VS. PATRICIAS

  The juniors have been a strong part of Canadian hockey for more than 100 years. The Ontario Hockey Association, to oversee all levels of the game, was founded in 1890 and within a few years, the first Ontario junior champs, the Kingston Limestones, were crowned. When the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association was created in 1914, various provincial leagues were formed under its banner. The true Memorial Cup, in memory of those who had died in World War I, was first contested in 1919—won by the University of Toronto Schools in a two-game, total-goals series against the Regina Patricias. The Ontario junior league donated the OHA Memorial Cup Trophy for the Canadian championship. Originally, the trophy was donated by John Ross Robertson, one of the early OHA presidents, who is in the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder.

  WHO WOULD WIN: GRANITES OR LIMESTONES?

  A member of that UTS team was defenceman Dunc Munro, who performed a unique feat in his hockey career. Not only was he part of a junior championship team, Munro won two Allan Cups (1922–23) and an Olympic gold medal with his senior amateur team the Toronto Granites, and the 1924 and 1926 Stanley Cups with the Montreal Maroons. To demonstrate the value the junior leagues, especially championship teams, could have in producing top players for the NHL, the 1920 Memorial Cup winners, the Toronto Canoe Club, were led by goalie Roy Worters, defenceman Lionel Conacher, and forward Billy Burch, all Stanley Cup winners in the NHL and Hall of Famers.

  JUST LIKE CANADIAN IDOL

  A year later, the first team from western Canada, the Winnipeg Falcons, won the Memorial Cup in a two-game, total-goals series, 11–9 over the Stratford Midgets, whose star Howie Morenz was a teenager with dazzling skill and speed on his way to a splendid NHL career with the Montreal Canadiens. Thus, the tradition was established for just about every Memorial Cup final to provide a showcase for a future star, or sometimes several, some finals matching two teams with as many as nine future NHL players. The 1934 champion Toronto St. Michael’s College Majors had eight players who became NHL regulars.

  LOOKING UNDER EVERY ROCK

  Until the first NHL expansion in 1966 when the universal draft was established to distribute talent, most junior teams operated as amateur “farm clubs” of the original six NHL franchises. The big-league teams’ scouting concentrated on players younger than 16 years of age who were channelled to Junior-B teams as part of their education to top level junior play. NHL clubs often paid a sizeable sum of money to a town’s minor hockey system to tie up all the players on those teams, often to land one or two outstanding prospects. The NHL teams engaged in serious pursuits of midget (16 and under) age players. Bobby Orr, a 13-year old star in Parry Sound, Ontario, was courted by all six NHL clubs before he joined the Boston Bruins’ organization through their Oshawa Generals junior team. Wren Blair, the general manager of the Generals under the Bruins umbrella, joked that he spent so much time in the Orrs’ Parry Sound home that the family considered adopting him.

  TRIUMPH TORONTO

  Because the Toronto Maple Leafs were perched in the area with the most registered minor hockey players anywhere and the team was a big favorite across Canada because of Foster Hewitt’s Saturday Hockey Night In Canada broadcasts, the Leafs’ junior teams, St. Mikes and the Marlboros, were perennial contenders for the Memorial Cup until the universal draft took the Leafs out of the teenage scouting business. In fact, Toronto teams, with 14 victories by five different teams, hold the one-city record for Memorial Cup titles. The Marlboros won the Cup a record seven times, their last triumph in 1975, before the team left Toronto to be become the Hamilton Dukes. Toronto was without major junior hockey until St. Michael’s returned to the Ontario league in 1997 after dropping out in 1962.

  LONDON GETS ON THE MAP

  The 2005 Memorial Cup in London, Ontario, provides a splendid example of the tournament’s clout. All seats for the May event at the new 9,200 seat John Labatt Center were sold by January 1. The combatants were an ideal combination of teams and with no Stanley Cup playoffs because of the NHL labor dispute, the tournament received significant media attention. Of course, that the host (and eventual winners) London Knights were the Ontario champions and the top-rated CHL team was a great start. The defending Memorial Cup champs, the Kelowna Rockets, represented the Western league, and the Rimouski Oceanic, led by phenomenal golden-boy-to-be Sidney Crosby, provided a huge attraction. As Ontario League finalists, the Ottawa 67s coached by Brian Kilrea, a Hall of Famer for his more than 1,000 wins in junior hockey, were the fourth team.

  OF COURSE, HIS OUTLOOK IS BIASED…

  Dave Branch, the CHL president who doubles as head of the Ontario League, is one of the forward-thinking, marketing-oriented executives who has helped to lift the junior game to a high level. “Of course, my outlook is biased but I don’t think any other sports competition in Canada matches the Memorial Cup,” Branch said. “Our teams represent every area of the country and no other sport has such a sustained level of interest as the Memorial Cup over the nine days of the tournament.”

  17-YEAR OLDS TAKING OVER THE WORLD

  The juniors have not lagged behind the big leaguers in their international outlook. The annual world junior championship in the Christmas-New Year holiday period now is a major global event with more than a half-dozen serious contenders every year. Canadian junior teams recruit players in the European countries, with players from Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, and Finland raising the standards of play to higher levels every season. A competition for teenagers? The Memorial Cup is that but those
lads just happen to play the game at a grand level.

  BIG, BAD, AND BROAD

  The Philadelphia Flyers dominated through grit, determination and just a little bit of stick-work.

  When the Philadelphia Flyers started NHL play on October 11, 1967 (they lost 5–1 to the Oakland Seals), they were strictly a “pass-and-shoot” team. Two men—head coach Fred Shero and center Bobby Clarke—would lead a conversion from “pass-and-shoot” to “bump-and-grind.” This, in turn, would evolve into a form of play where the Flyers would so thoroughly intimidate opponents that they would deservedly become remembered as the “Broad Street Bullies.”

  BROAD STREET BOBBY

  Clarke was the dynamo and focal point of the Broad Street Bullies (Broad Street being the location of the Philadelphia Spectrum). He had both grit and talent and would do absolutely anything to win. Clarke’s first full season with the Flyers, the only NHL team he ever suited up for, was 1969–70. A diabetic, he was skipped over by every team in the 1969 draft before the Flyers decided to sign him. In his rookie season, he tallied 15 goals, 46 points and 68 penalty minutes; all these figures would go up significantly.

  PLUGGERS, GRINDERS & A NETMINDER

  Freddie “The Fog” (he was always daydreaming about hockey) Shero became the head coach of the Flyers in 1971–72. A man who stayed around minor league hockey for most of his adult life, he was a rough-and-tough player in his younger days. As a coach, he instilled this win-at-all-costs feeling in his players. Goalie Bernie Parent and Clarke’s former Flin Flon Bombers linemate Reggie Leach—a natural goal-scorer who had a tendency to elevate his game in the playoffs—were the team’s other genuine stars. But just as integral to Shero’s system was the fact that left-wingers Bill Barber and Ross Lonsberry, center Rick MacLeish, right wing Don “Big Bird” Saleski, and defencemen Barry Ashbee, Ed Van Impe, and Joe Watson were not afraid of checking opponents and fighting to obtain the puck.

  The word “fight” brings to mind Dave “The Hammer” Schultz, unquestionably the toughest hombre in this bunch of hockey desperadoes. In 1974–75, he managed 472 penalty minutes in 76 games (for those wondering, that’s an average per-game of 6.26).

  OVERCOMING TRAGEDY

  In 1973–74, the Flyers finally pulled all aspects of their play together. They swept past the Atlanta Flames in the semifinals, then faced the New York Rangers in what may have been the most exhausting and demanding playoff series the Broad Street Bullies ever played. There were bloody fights in almost every match of this seven-game series but the biggest loss for the Flyers was that of their best defencemen, Ashbee. He got hit over one of his eyes by a shot in game four, and never played another NHL game. He continued to contribute to the team as an assistant coach, but in 1977 Barry Ashbee would die of leukemia.

  THE NOT-SO-SECRET WEAPON

  At the Spectrum the Flyers won a hard-fought game seven over the Rangers 4–3. Now it was on to the Stanley Cup finals against the Boston Bruins and the Flyers had a not-so-secret weapon. Singer Kate Smith was selected to sing “God Bless America” before a Flyers game for their first home match of 1973–74. They beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 2–0, and owner Ed Snider quickly realized that Smith’s rendition of the song before important home Flyers games could be a clever marketing gimmick. (Not to mention one more possible psyche-out for opponents about to face the Bullies of Broad Street.) Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America” took the place of the U.S. national anthem whenever Snider felt it was time to pull out the team’s good luck charm. And he had a damn good sense of it; the Flyers went 37-3-1 whenever Smith belted the song out.

  INFUSED WITH INSPIRATION

  The Bruins beat the Flyers in game one, but when Clarke scored in overtime in game two, it marked the first time that the Flyers won in Boston Garden since November 21, 1967. In game six, on May 19, 1974, at the Spectrum, Snider called for “God Bless America.” If the Flyers won this game, they would be the first of the 1967 expansion teams to win the Stanley Cup. They did, and in typical Flyers fashion: 1–0 on a goal by MacLeish, relentless shut-downs of Bruins superstars Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr, and a shutout by Parent. The roly-poly, affable Parent won the Conn Smythe Trophy as best player in the playoffs. For his regular-season performance, in an ultra-rare tie-vote, Parent shared the Vezina Trophy for top goalie with Chicago Black Hawk Tony Esposito.

  FREDDIE HERO

  The main man responsible for the Stanley Cup was Shero, one of the most idiosyncratic coaches ever to take the helm of an NHL team. To get his players in condition at training camp, he had players push teammates seated in chairs up and down the ice. When he read a newspaper article about the special exercises that NASA astronauts were doing to prepare for the Apollo space flights, Shero incorporated some into the regime. For all of Shero’s strange tactics, he was much loved and respected by his players. And appreciated, especially by Bernie Parent: “There is only one Freddie Shero. That’s one reason why I gave him the Javelin car I won from Sport Magazine after the 1974 Stanley Cup playoffs. When I gave Freddie the keys, he said ‘I’ve always said you have to be a little goofy to be a coach. But now I think my players are a little crazy, too.’”

  BACK ON THE ATTACK

  The Flyers reputation became so infamous that Time Magazine made the team and Parent the subject of a 1975 cover story. While giving the team and goaltender their due respect, Time reported that NHL hockey violence was “getting out of control.” Parent responded to the attention by leading the league in wins (44), shutouts (12), and goals-against average (2.03) in 1974–75. The team won their division with 113 points, swept the Maple Leafs in the quarterfinals, took seven games to defeat the New York Islanders in the semifinals, and went on to battle the Buffalo Sabres in the Stanley Cup finals.

  THE FOG VS. FOG

  After winning the first two games, the Flyers played game three in Buffalo. It was late May and the outdoor temperature at game time was in the 70s (degrees Fahrenheit). Inside the arena, a more accurate estimate would be in the 90s. “On the ice, it felt 110, and inside the mask at least 130,” remembered Parent in his autobiography. The heat caused fog to rise from the ice surface. With no air-conditioning in Buffalo’s arena, the only proven method of dissipating the fog was to stop play and ask all of the players for both teams to skate around on the ice, which had to be done on more than one occasion. At the end of regulation play, the score was 4–4. In overtime, Rene Robert took a shot that Parent never saw, giving the famous “Fog Game” to the Sabres.

  HAMMERING A COUPLE HOME

  Still trying to find that Robert shot, Parent uncharacteristically let in four goals the next game, resulting in a 2–2 series tie. In game five Dave Schultz proved his hands were useful for more than just beating people’s face to a pulp by potting two goals in a 5–1 win. Then for the second straight year, Philadelphia took the Cup on a game-six shutout win, this time 2–0. But the next year in the 1976 finals, the Montreal Canadiens swept the Flyers on their way to a new string of Cups based on finesse, speed and a bevy of star players. The Flyers reign of terror was over.

  * * * * *

  NO BRAIN, NO PAIN

  “The guys tell me I have nothing to protect—no brain, no pain.”

  —Randy Carlyle, former Winnipeg Jets

  defenceman, on not wearing a helmet

  “Bob Kelly was so dumb, they shoulda written his name on the Stanley Cup in crayon.”

  —Gene Hart, former announcer for the Philadelphia Flyers

  “That’s so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my #$%@& clothes.”

  —Stu Grimson, former forward,

  Chicago Blackhawks, explaining why he keeps

  a color photo of himself above his locker

  CURSE OF MULDOON

  A famous hockey story involves the curse placed on the Chicago Black Hawks by fired coach Pete Muldoon.

  AN IRISH CURSE

  The late Jim Coleman admitted he had a hangover when he “discovered” the fabled Curse of Muld
oon. At the time, the late 1950s, Coleman was a sports columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail and was renowned for weaving fantasy into his columns.A much-quoted part of hockey folklore, Coleman’s tale concerned Pete Muldoon, the coach of the Chicago Black Hawks in 1926–27, their first season in the expanded NHL. The Hawks, owned by the erratic Major Frederic McLaughlin, joined the NHL in the big expansion into the U.S. In their debut, the Black Hawks finished third in the American Division, then lost to the Boston Bruins in the playoffs. McLaughlin, who changed coaches about as often as he did ties, fired Muldoon, telling him that the Hawks had the talent for a much better finish.

  “Over the years, writers covering the NHL ridiculed the many coaching changes with the Black Hawks,” Coleman said. “I wasn’t at my best after a night of partying and I had a column deadline without an idea. The Muldoon yarn was one I had been kicking around and, with nothing else to write, I went with it.” In Coleman’s column the next day, Muldoon’s response to McLaughlin’s firing was, “If you fire me, I’ll put an Irish curse on your team that will last forever. The Black Hawks will never be first in the NHL.”

  COLEMAN PSYCHES OUT TEAM FOR 40 YEARS

  The Black Hawks did not finish first for the next 40 years—they were last 14 times—until the club led by Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita won the pennant in the 1966–67 season. “The ‘curse’ story got big play then, much to my embarrassment,” Coleman said. “I wrote a piece explaining my creation of the curse of Muldoon but it received little attention. The end of the ‘curse’ was too good a yarn.” Coleman continued to write well into his 80s.

  FROM RENFREW TO REPLAYS

  Frank and Lester Patrick wrote the hockey rule-book in the early years of the 20th century.