Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores
Page 27
SCORRRRE! The puck went right to the Oilers’ Ales Hemsky, who was streaking unopposed toward the goal. He got Stars’ goalie Marty Turco to go down a knee, juked passed him to the left, and swept a backhander into the net with just 2.7 seconds left in the game. They were going to overtime.
EXTRA: Just to cap all that wackiness off—it all came to nought: The bizarre finish got the Oilers into overtime, but they couldn’t take advantage of it and lost in a shootout.
EXTRA II: Stefan handled his gaffe like a pro: “They may show it a million times for years to come,” he said after the game with a laugh. (He underestimated: The blunder has been viewed on YouTube millions of times.)
SHATTERING THE ICE CEILING
Since 1943 Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame has been inducting the game’s greatest retired players—or has it?
WITH THIS RING
Women have been playing ice hockey since at least the late 19th century when Canadian universities began holding matches, but it wasn’t until 1998 that the sport became part of the Olympic Games. And even as female players took up residence in the International Ice Federation Hockey Hall of Fame and the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, hockey’s most prestigious address eluded them—the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, might as well have had a sign that said, “No women allowed.”
But finally, on November 8, 2010, there was a breakthrough. Canadian Angela James and American Cammi Granato received the heavy gold rings that symbolized their entrance into the Hockey Hall of Fame. At the induction ceremony, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced: “I think it’s a historic night, and I think it’s great for hockey at all levels.” But who were these revolutionary women, and where did they come from?
ANGELA…GRETZKY?
Born in Toronto, Canada, in 1964, Angela James began her trip to world fame by playing street hockey in her neighborhood. James knew early on that hockey was her calling, but there were no girls’ teams around, so she played on any boys’ teams that would have her. Still, she often sat on the bench (they often considered her a lesser player just because she was a girl) and sometimes couldn’t get any ice time at all. But she practiced on her own and managed to hone her skills—by her late teens, James was a speedy, intimidating scoring machine.
Wherever she played, James dominated the game. On Toronto’s Seneca College team, she was a three-time scoring leader and three-time Ontario College Athletic Association MVP. Playing for the Ottawa Women’s Hockey Association in the 1970s and ’80s, she made history as the top scorer for eight seasons. In fact, James led teams to victory so often that many considered her Canada’s best female hockey player…yet she was still virtually unknown.
But then in 1990, she played in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s first Women’s World Championship in Ottawa. No one knew how the tournament would be received, and in a curious turn of events, Team Canada outfitted its players in pink jerseys instead of the typical red and white. That lasted just one season, but the tournament was a huge success: James scored 11 goals in five games, and Canada ultimately won the gold.
For the next nine years, James piloted Team Canada to three more gold medals in the World Championships and two gold medals in the Three Nation’s Cup. All that gold bought her a nation of fans who dubbed Angela James “the Wayne Gretzky of women’s hockey.”
OPENING DOORS AND EARNING MEDALS
In 1976, in Downers Grove, Illinois, five-year-old Catherine Michelle “Cammi” Granato and her three older brothers had their futures all figured out—they were going to play hockey for the Chicago Black Hawks. So Cammi abandoned her figure skates and picked up pads and sticks instead. Her brothers tried to force her into the position of goalie (to keep her out of their hair), but she refused. She became a tough forward instead, playing for the Downers Grove Huskies from kindergarten until her junior year in high school. In many match-ups, she proved that she could out-pass and outscore her male teammates.
But when she reached age 16, Granato faced a dilemma that didn’t bother her brothers. The junior league was now allowing body checks, and as the club’s only female player, she was a prime target for opponents who greatly outweighed her. Debilitating injuries became a frightening prospect: “The next level of hockey was all hitting, and I wasn’t into that part of the game, so I had to focus on other sports.” For the next two years, she played basketball, soccer, and tennis, but in 1989 she landed a hockey scholarship with Providence College in Rhode Island, where she became the freshman player of the year and the Eastern College Athletic Conference’s Women’s Hockey Player of the Year for three years. She also broke every scoring record at the school and co-captained Providence’s Lady Friars to two league titles. In 1990 she led the American team to a silver medal at the inaugural Woman’s World Championship, losing only to Angela James’s Canadian team. Granato repeated the feat in ’92, ’94, and ’97, and in 1996 was named the U.S. Women’s Hockey Player of the Year. Yet she was still best known as the sister of the NHL’s Tony Granato.
But in 1998, women’s hockey debuted as a medal event at the Nagano, Japan, Olympics. Granato not only captained the 1998 U.S. women’s team, she scored the first goal and then led them, undefeated, to gold. When she carried the stars and stripes during Nagano’s closing ceremonies, Granato became more than just America’s most acclaimed female hockey player—she was simply one of the country’s most famous hockey players…ever. As Mike Eruzione once said, “When you think women’s hockey, you think Cammi Granato. She’s one of the pioneers. The one who opened the doors.”
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THEY SHOULD HAVE CALLED US
In June 2010, the Pittsburgh Penguins put out a call for 250 students to come to their brand new arena—the Consol Energy Center—so they could test the facility’s 250 toilets and urinals. They needed all the commodes flushed to make sure they were in working order. “It was great,” said participant Jim Yanosick. “I always saw myself as an amateur flusher. I got to move up into the professional ranks now.”
Z IS FOR ZAMBONI
“There are three things in life that people like to stare at: a flowing stream, a crackling fire, and a Zamboni clearing the ice.” —Charlie Brown
FROM ICE TO ICE-SKATING RINKS
To protect players from accidents caused by rough spots on the ice, NHL regulations have the ice resurfaced before a hockey game, after warm-ups, between periods, and during playoffs as well as after a game. The job is done in just a few minutes by two huge, boxy vehicles, and many fans consider watching the lumbering behemoths part of the entertainment. Today, those ice resurfacing machines are made by several companies, but they’re all known as Zambonis, named after inventor Frank Zamboni who created the very first one.
Born in Utah in 1901, Frank Zamboni grew up on an Iowa farm. There, surrounded by trucks and tractors, he learned to fix and improve all things mechanical. Though he dropped out of high school to help support his family, Zamboni eventually went to trade school in Chicago to learn the electrical business.
Then in 1920, the Zamboni family moved to California, and in 1927, Frank and his brother Lawrence, who both worked in the electrical business, built an ice-making plant in an area that would later become the town of Paramount in Southern California. In those days, Paramount was farming country, and the brothers sold big blocks of ice to the nearby dairies and produce-packing plants.
That went fine until about 1935 when the introduction of home refrigeration units foretold the melt down of the ice block business. Knowing that they had to find a new business, the inventive Zambonis extended their ice factory’s refrigeration pipes under the road and across the street, and there, they built an ice-skating rink. By 1940 they’d opened Iceland, one of the biggest ice rinks in the country.
GOTTA FIND A BETTER WAY
Although Frank and Lawrence were experts on ice, they weren’t at all familiar with running a rink. One unforeseen difficulty was that the more business they had, the quicker the ice got scratched and dirty. And clear
ing and cleaning the ice was expensive and time consuming: it took three men, a tractor, and about 1½ hours to get the job done. The tractor dragged a sharpened plane across the surface of the ice to scrape away any nicks or gouges. Then, three or four workers with shovels and squeegees cleared the ice shavings (or “snow”) along with any dirt. When that was done, hoses sprayed water over the rink, the clean water froze, and a new clean surface was created.
Watching the process, Zamboni felt there had to be a better way to keep the ice smooth and clean, and he immediately started looking for a mechanical solution. He tinkered with an old Army-surplus Jeep and eventually figured out how to convert it into a resurfacing vehicle. It took years before he had created his first working model, but by the time Zamboni patented the idea in 1953, his machine could resurface a rink’s ice in 10 minutes.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The basic system of the Zamboni hasn’t changed much since then. The big vehicles are equipped with a scraping blade and a large snow bucket with tanks underneath. The Zamboni driver circles the ice very slowly—the machines can move at a roaring 9 mph, but since a fast turn can scratch the ice, most drivers never clear 5 mph. As the Zamboni moves over the rink, a razor-sharp blade scrapes off the surface of the ice. A long, revolving horizontal screw, or “augur,” gathers the snow into the vehicle. Then a vertical augur picks up the snow and feeds it to a paddle that propels the shavings into the bucket at the front of the machine.
A plumbing system inside the machine carries water and sprays it on the ice in front of a squeegee to pick up any dirt or debris. Then dirty water gets vacuumed up, filtered clean, and returned to the tank. Lastly, a third tank sprays clean, hot water from holes in the back of the machine, and that is spread onto the ice with a thick towel. The result: a pristine rink.
Naturally, after he’d invented this new machine, Zamboni need to give it a name. He wanted to call his company “Paramount Engineering,” but that was already taken. So he decided to name the company (and the ice resurfacer) after himself.
CONQUERING THE WORLD IN ONE CLEAN SWEEP
The first step in world rink-domination came in 1950, when the glamorous, Hollywood ice-skating star, Sonja Henie, showed up at Iceland rink to practice. After skating on the clear Iceland ice, Henie decided that she wanted her own Zamboni, so Frank hand-built her one for $5,000 (about $45,000 today). She took it on tour with her, and as Henie performed across the country, first clearing her ice with the machine, orders from rink owners came pouring in.
After that, Zamboni fever spread to the NHL. At the time, hockey clubs used six workers to manually resurface their ice rinks between periods. But on New Years Day in 1954, a Zamboni cleared the Boston Garden arena for the first time. The Boston Bruins’ management even remodeled the arena to accommodate the large vehicle. That fall, the Bruins became the owners of one of the first Zambonis produced on an assembly line.
That Zamboni stayed in Boston for more than 30 years before it was donated to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, in 1988. In 2002 Zamboni became NHL’s “official ice resurfacer.”
ENTERING THE GREAT HOCKEY HALL
Frank continued to redesign the Zamboni. Over the years, he added bigger snow buckets and water tanks. In 1960 the first Zambonis to sport electric engines premiered at the Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. And as late as 1983, Frank was improving on his invention—the last one was the addition of an automatic edger to clear the snow that builds up around the edges of the rink.
In 1988 Frank Zamboni passed away from lung cancer, but Zambonis are still made by the family company, now run by Frank’s son and grandson. He never even wore a pair of skates, but Frank’s great contribution to cleaning up the sport of hockey did not go unnoticed: in 2009, he was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Minnesota.
THE STYLISH SWEDE
Tough and talented Toronto Maple Leaf Borje Salming established himself as the first legitimate NHL “star” from Europe.
Kiruna, Sweden, the hometown of Hockey Hall of Fame defencemen Borje (pronounced BOOR-YAY) Salming, is at one of the highest longitudes on Earth. Yet it was Salming’s strange fate that, while he was at the top level of NHL defencemen during his playing days, he was never part of a team which reached the NHL’s annual summit of honor. In other words, Salming was never a member of a team which won the Stanley Cup.
TOUGHING IT OUT IN TORONTO
With his invaluable combination of smooth-skating and aggressiveness, Salming proved himself as a formidable player right from his very first season (1973–1974) with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Playing in the media microscope of Toronto helped promote this reputation, but it also exacerbated the constant scrutiny from coaches, fans and opposing players who expected that Europeans couldn’t handle the NHL’s physical play. Borje Salming shattered this media-created stereotype. Blocking shots and not being afraid to deal out a check, and using his smarts to quickly pick up a puck and start a rush on the offence, Salming quickly developed into a fan favorite. Although he certainly had goal-scoring ability (tallying a career-high 19 for the Maple Leafs during the 1979–80 season), Salming’s chief talent while on offence was as a pinpoint passer.
BUT FIRST IN OUR HEARTS
On the Maple Leaf teams of the 1970s, he had some talented players to pass the puck to—Lanny McDonald and Darryl Sittler being the most prominent. It also helped Salming that he played with the offensively talented defencemen Ian Turnbull. However, most of Salming’s seasons with the Leafs—under the disastrous ownership of Harold Ballard—were disappointing. Whatever was missing from the team (and it was usually a lot), it wasn’t hard work from the stylish Swede Salming. He finished second to Montreal’s Larry Robinson for the Norris Trophy for the 1976–77 campaign and tied for the league lead in assists (66) that same season. Salming again came in second to Robinson for the Norris Trophy for the 1979–80 season. This problem of forever coming in second plagued Salming all of his career. He was named an NHL Second Team All-Star five times, only in 1977 making it First Team. But these were simply amazing accomplishments for an unheralded free agent who quietly signed with the Leafs on May 12, 1973, and then gratefully and persistently showed up to play every day for one of the league’s most miserable teams.
PIONEER OF BIZARRE FACE INJURIES
On June 12, 1989, Salming was signed as a free agent by the Detroit Red Wings. Salming’s most memorable association with Detroit was when Red Wing Gerard Gallant accidentally stepped on the Toronto defenceman’s face in a game in 1986. Over 200 stitches were required to close the deep gash trailing from above Salming’s right eye all the way down to his chin. This was his third facial injury in the same season, but this is the one that impelled Salming to become one the first NHLers to experiment playing with a shield visor on his helmet.
After the 1989–90 season, Salming retired from NHL play, but did play three years for AIK Solna Stockholm, a team in his native Sweden. He was also a member of the 1992 Swedish Olympic hockey team. In 1996, Salming was selected for the Hockey Hall of Fame.
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THE GEOMETRY OF HOCKEY
“People talk about skating, puck handling and shooting, but the whole sport is angles and caroms, forgetting the straight direction the puck is going, calculating where it will be directed, factoring in all the interruptions. Basically, my whole game is angles.”
—Wayne Gretzky
WINNER’S HEART IN A COMEDIAN’S BODY
Gump Worsley is primarily remembered for his odd name and quick wit, but he was also one of the best goaltenders of his generation.
Lorne “Gump” Worsley got his nickname when some hockey folks noticed that he had a facial resemblance to an animated movie character named Andy Gump. Something must have clicked in Lorne’s mind, for he proceeded to act much like a cartoon character all the way through his career. Yet within this friendly, portly (5'7" and 180 pounds) man beat the heart of a winner and the fury of a fierce competitor.
THE SAME
AS YOUR PRE-GAME MEAL?
Worsley will always be remembered as a comic. How could you not be if you happened to be the man who told a sportswriter that his favorite postgame dinner was a beer and a cigarette? But by the time he had retired at age 45 (for a 21-year NHL career), he had collected 335 wins but also had 352 losses. Worsley’s glory years were with his hometown Montreal Canadiens, 1963–1969. Twice he shared the Vezina Trophy with other Canadiens netminders: in 1966 with Charlie Hodge and in 1968 with Rogie Vachon. “Les Habs” won four Stanley Cups in Gump’s Great Goaltending Days.
WHISKY BELLY
Montreal was his mid-career. He had already spent ten unremarkable years with the New York Rangers—except for the season he played in a league-leading 70 games (winning 32, losing 28 and tying 10). But there were always the quips…Once when he was asked, “What team gives you the most trouble?” Worsley quickly replied, “The Rangers.” And when Rangers coach Phil Watson called Worsley a “beer belly” in a newspaper interview, Gump was incensed: “As always, Watson doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. I never drink beer, only good Canadian whisky.” This was true—despite his remark quoted earlier, no teammate ever saw Worsley drink beer.
THE GUMP TECHNIQUE