THINGS NOT TO SAY TO THE BOSS’ WIFE
Well-traveled masked man’s wisecrack led to a one-way ticket out of Canuckville.
Look up the term “free spirit” in an NHL dictionary and you just might find a portrait of journeyman goaltender Gary Smith. They called him “Suitcase,” and for good reason. Despite being a proficient puck-stopper capable of carrying an entire team’s fortunes on his back, he certainly made his rounds, playing for eight different NHL teams during a 14-year career.
A NEW PLACE IN THE RECORD BOOKS
Smith did things his own way. He wore as many as 15 pairs of socks inside his goalie skates. He sometimes took showers between periods of games. He traveled stylishly on the road in a full-length lynx jacket. And he warmed to the social aspects of being a professional hockey player in the 1970s. “I led the league in hangovers,” he once told a Vancouver newspaper columnist. “Fourteen years, every day.”
In 1974–75, Smith was almost single-handedly responsible for the Vancouver Canucks making their first Stanley Cup playoff appearance. He recorded 32 wins, nine ties and six shutouts (that’s 705 socks, 365 hangovers) and led an otherwise modestly talented team into the postseason where they gave the legendary Montreal Canadiens a tough series. But less than a year later, he was no longer a member of the organization.
WHEN THE BITE IS AS BAD AS THE BARK
During a team Christmas party in 1975, Smith was introduced to Emily Griffiths, wife of Canucks owner Frank Griffiths. Emily also happened to be the heiress to the Ballard pet-food fortune. “Gee, I see the resemblance on the can,” Smith supposedly said when the two were introduced. The next morning, an enraged Frank Griffiths called head coach Phil Maloney and told him to get rid of Smith, so Suitcase hit the road again.
THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT
Some of the unique fastests and longests in pro hockey.
HOWE COULD YOU WAIT SO LONG?
Record: Longest time a superstar player’s parents waited to see him play in the NHL
Many successful athletes attribute their success to the unfailing support of parents, but according to Gordie “Mr. Hockey” Howe, his dad saw him play only about 10 times during his life. In fact, it took his parents 13 years to finally attend a game during his NHL career. On March 3, 1959, the Detroit Red Wings hosted a “Gordie Howe Night.” To celebrate, the team presented their high-scoring, hard-hitting star with a new car. Inside, to Gordie’s surprise, were his parents, Catherine and Ab Howe.
HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES! SCORES! SCORES!
Record: The fastest hat trick
Initially, the last game of the 1951–52 NHL season promised to be nothing special. The participating teams—the Chicago Black Hawks and the New York Rangers—were long since eliminated from playoff contention, so there was nothing riding on the game. The Rangers led 6–2 at the beginning of the third period and seemed to have the game well in hand. Then something special did happen: the Chicago line of Gus Bodnar, George Gee, and Bill Mosienko took over. Mosienko scored three goals in just 21 seconds—the shortest time in NHL history to score a hat trick. Chicago ultimately scored two more goals to take the game 7–6, but it was Mosienko’s individual accomplishment that turned this meaningless match into one for the record books.
SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS
Record: The longest passage of time between NHL games at one arena
It all began after the 1933–34 season when the original Ottawa Senators folded. The franchise moved south and became the St. Louis Eagles, the first NHL team established west of the Mississippi. The team was terrible, though, and after one season of miserable hockey at the St. Louis Arena, the franchise folded for good. Fast-forward to 1967: St. Louis was named as one of the six lucky cities to gain a expansion franchise, and the St. Louis Blues brought NHL hockey back to the St. Louis Arena…32 years later.
WORTH THE WAIT
Record: Longest time spent as a second-string goalie before becoming a superstar
In the golden era of the “Original Six” when there were only six teams in the NHL, jobs as a starting goalie were hard to come by. In Montreal, with the legendary Jacques Plante between the posts, a promotion for backup Canadiens netminder Charlie Hodge did not seem to be in the cards. So he loyally served as Plante’s understudy for nine long seasons, a period during which he played just 59 NHL games. Hodge’s big break came when Plante was traded to the New York Rangers in 1963. The following season, Hodge played in 62 games for Montreal, recording eight shutouts and finishing with a 2.26 goals average. He also won the Vezina Trophy as top goaltender.
BLINK AND YOU MISSED IT
Record: The fastest two goals scored by opposing teams in a single game
This happened during a 1987 mid-season game between the St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins. St. Louis was leading 6–4 in the final minute and the Bruins had pulled their goalie for the extra attacker. Boston’s Ken Linseman scored with 10 seconds left on the clock, and the Bruins gambled, taking the following face-off with their net still empty. The puck was dropped and came to St. Louis’s Doug Gilmour, who took a quick, long slapshot…and scored. The time that lapsed between the two goals: two seconds.
THE BODYGUARD
He grew up big and he grew up tough He saw himself scoring for the Wings or Canucks But he wasn’t all that good with a puck Buddy’s real talent was beating people up His heart wasn’t in it but the crowd ate it up
They never played a minute in the NHL, but Detroit sports columnist and author Mitch Albom and the late musician Warren Zevon teamed up nicely to capture the essence of the enforcer in their tune “Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song).” Tough guy, goon, policeman, hired muscle. Whatever the nickname, the hockey enforcer is like no other animal in professional sport.
SOMEBODY’S GOTTA DO IT
Like a cop, his job is to serve and protect, and nobody really wants to see him until his presence is urgently required. Like some sort of black market referee, he often hovers outside the normal flow of the game, meting out frontier justice when it’s necessary. And unlike the image that most fans get, the enforcer is often among the most quiet, reflective and intelligent members of any professional hockey team.
It is a job. It is a chance to earn a huge paycheque in the NHL. It is a role that most tough guys realize, sometime during the meat-grinder of junior hockey, is there for the taking. It’s a role that has been required, in one form or another, since the 1960s, when hockey stars, in large part, stopped fighting for themselves.
THE GOON CODE
There are some ground rules, though. The unspoken code of the NHL means enforcers seek each other out for fights, rather than picking on less worthy and perhaps more talented opponents. Unless one of those opponents delivers a cheap shot, that is. Then he can expect a visit from the policeman.
Between these hulking gladiators on skates, there is an unwritten code of conduct. In general, you don’t fight dirty. Kneeing, tugging hair, or taking a bite out of somebody’s ear is frowned upon. Mike Tyson would never have made it as an NHL tough guy.
The enforcer era, by most accounts, began in the 1960s, when the Montreal Canadiens, the essence of pure-flowing, offensive hockey, enlisted John Ferguson to watch the back of star Jean Béliveau. And although the role changed significantly when the NHL brought in its instigator and third-man in regulations in 1992—essentially penalizing players who started scraps and ejecting those who joined into an ongoing dispute—the job is still out there for those who can skate a little and throw a lot.
Reggie Fleming, who came into the NHL in 1960 and watched out for Black Hawks star Bobby Hull, was one of the first goons. But he didn’t care for that description. “I would rather be called the enforcer,” he said, long after his career was over.
GRETZKY’S GIANT SHADOW
Fleming also rode shotgun for the likes of Bobby Clarke and Gilbert Perreault during his NHL days. But he wasn’t the most famous bodyguard in hockey. That honor likely went to Dave Semenko, whose hulking presence helped k
eep honest anybody with thoughts of laying a glove—or anything else for that matter—on Edmonton Oilers superstar Wayne Gretzky.
When it comes to marquee bodyguards, Kevin Costner had nothing on Semenko. Big Dave’s toughness and fighting ability kept him in the NHL for nine years. And although he was famous for protecting No. 99, he watched out for the multitude of skilled players on the Oilers’ juggernaut of the 1980s. Grant Fuhr saved the pucks, while Semenko saved the superstars.
“If that guy wants to do that, let him face the music,” Semenko said of opponents who took liberties with other Oilers. “It’s called a fistfight. We’ve been doing this since the beginning of time. There is nothing wrong with a good old fistfight…they knew I would be coming after them and they had to fight.”
THE ULTIMATE TEAMMATE
Gino Odjick was one of the most effective tough guys in the NHL during his career. Besides being the bodyguard for the Russian Rocket Pavel Bure during their time together in Vancouver, Odjick also had to be able to keep up with Bure—no easy feat. Odjick had to learn how to scrap early on in life, growing up on a First Nations reserve in Quebec where there were often tensions between the natives and the mostly white townspeople. “We learned to stick together as a family from the get-go and we thought that we would be okay if we stuck together and if anybody picked on one of us then they’d have to pick on all of us. That’s how we got by, so that’s where I learned how to fight,” Odjick said. “It just came naturally to me [on the ice].”
Odjick’s presence opened up all kinds of room for Bure and other Canucks during the early 1990s. And as a result, the “Algonquin Enforcer,” as he was known in Vancouver, was loved by both fans and teammates. Whenever those at the Pacific Coliseum thought his services were needed, the chants of “Gino! Gino!” rained down from the rafters. “Gino is one of those guys you’d refer to as an ultimate teammate,” former Canuck defenceman Dana Murzyn said. “He really cared about his job, which was one of the toughest jobs in the NHL. I don’t think anyone can underestimate that. Gino had no problem going out there and taking on the toughest guys in the league two or three times a game. He took pride in it and, like most of the enforcers that I’ve known, once you take off the skates, he’s one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to be around.”
Most enforcers have not been attached to one particular star with whom they were charged with protecting. In general, they have simply created mayhem, not to mention space, for their more talented, smaller teammates. The enforcer honor roll has included names such as Dave “The Hammer” Schultz, Willi Plett, Chris Nilan, Georges Laraque, Dave Brown, Joe Kocur, Link Gaetz, Donald Brashear, and John Kordic. Some enforcers can play a little hockey, too. Lump Tiger Williams, Chris Simon, Tie Domi, Marty McSorley, Bob Probert, and Darren McCarthy into that group. In fact, Tiger is the NHL’s all-time king of the sin bin, having recorded 3,966 penalty minutes during his career, with Domi second at 3,406, and McSorley third at 3,381. If you have toughness and some talent, you’re on the ice longer. That means you’re in the box more often, too.
THE FABULOUS FATMAN
“The Battle of the Bulge,” an order to Maple Leaf goalie Turk Broda to lose weight, was front-page news in Toronto in the 1940s.
The most famous picture of the man many regard as the greatest playoff goalie ever is not a shot of a game-saving stop or a victory celebration. In it, Turk Broda is wearing only a towel around his middle, seated Buddha-style on the platform of a set of scales—the type with the big, round dial and the words “TOLEDO. No Springs. Honest weight” on it.
MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE GREY CUP
Broda is smiling in the picture, taken early in the 1949–50 NHL season and carried on the front pages of Toronto newspapers and those of many NHL cities. The previous week, the Grey Cup game, the finale of the Canadian Football League season, had attracted much attention in Toronto, pushing the Leafs and hockey from their accustomed prominent spots in the paper. That upset Leafs owner Conn Smythe, who felt hockey should always hog the limelight, and he earned full attention with a decree that Broda had to lose seven pounds to 190 before he could return to the Leafs’ net. Of course, the publicity grab happened when the club did not have a win in its previous six matches. Broda always had battled weight problems, his playoff exploits for four Stanley Cup championship teams earning him the nickname “The Fabulous Fatman.”
SLOW NEWS DAY?
The stunt became huge news in Toronto where three very competitive daily newspapers got into the act, keeping Broda’s portly body in the front page. He was photographed taking a steam bath, riding a bicycle, eating salads and sitting on the scales. Dozens of diets were submitted to the papers and experts in weight control offered a myriad of solutions to Turk’s chubbiness. Broda missed one game, then Smythe announced that his goalie had reached the proper weight. One paper ran a two-inch-high headline that said “BRODA HITS 190.” The Turk returned to the net, the Leafs to the limelight. Years later, when Broda was a successful junior hockey coach, he claimed the whole exercise was a publicity stunt. “I had a lot of fun with it,” Broda said, “but the truth is I never lost a single, solitary ounce of weight. Smythe must have doctored the scales.”
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SUPER MARIO
“One thing I hate is people screaming at me. If you want me to do something, talk to me. When someone screams at me to hurry up, I slow down.”
—Mario Lemieux
“Nobody sleeps like Mario. He lives for sleep. He hits the bed and that’s it. It irritates the hell out of me.”
—Pittsburgh Penguins teammate, Terry Ruskowski
“I’m sorry, but the NHL would not have a franchise in Pittsburgh today had Mario not come along. Think about it, no hockey in Pittsburgh.”
—Wayne Gretzky
“I remember the day of his last radiation treatment. He went to Philly. He got there about four o’clock and he played. I think he gets overlooked, what he’s overcome. It’s ridiculous. Everybody talks about Michael Jordan coming back from baseball, but Mario came back from cancer.”
—Penguins left wing, Kevin Stevens
“It had been a great career. I mean, how many guys can say they averaged two points a game in their careers? It’s too bad he’s retiring too soon. The league is going to miss him. The fans are going to miss him. A real classy person and a great guy.”
—John Bucyk, former Bruins left wing, on Mario Lemieux
CLEAR THE TRACK!
A wild man on and off the ice, Eddie Shack certainly left a mark over 1,047 games of a rewarding career.
He was the flywheel come loose from the shaft, the human bowling ball, skating helter and skelter and other spots. Eddie Shack was a hockey original, a wild and woolly performer who seldom saw a classroom after 12 years of age and never mastered reading and writing, although he was quite good at ’rithmetic.
WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?
That he scored 239 goals in his career is a surprise to some who watched him with pleasure play the game whirling dervish style, seemingly with little discipline or method. But he was a member of the four Stanley Cup championship teams of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1960s and an extremely popular player with hockey fans. But when a guy appears to be having great fun doing his job and has a song written in his honor, “Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack,” what’s not to like?
WANT TO BUY SOME CHICKENS? COAL?
Players, both mates and foes, often scoffed at Shack for his illiteracy but it never bothered Eddie. A favorite trick of his on road trips was to spy the magazine his mates had purchased for the flight. Shack would then buy it himself, find a sportswriter friend to read him the stories, and then enter the players’ conversation on the subject as if he had done his reading well. Money was the subject Shack had really mastered. He was selling chickens in the market in his hometown of Sudbury, Ontario, when he was 13, and when he excelled in junior hockey with the Guelph Biltmores, Shack drove a coal track to supplement his junior hockey pittance. He also boug
ht fedoras at cost from the hat-manufacturing team sponsor and sold them at a profit.
AND HE CAN GOLF ANYTIME HE WANTS
When he first joined the Leafs in a trade from New York Rangers in 1960, Shack lived in a converted carriage house on an estate owned by one of Toronto’s top mining and financial investors, who passed along a few investment tips. “I was living in the carriage house and he was living in the mansion,” Shack said. “I would have been stupid not to listen to him.” When he retired, Shack owned a golf course and considerable other property in the Toronto area, proving that not everything necessary for a good life is learned from books (except for this one).
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Candace Cameron might be well-known for her former role as DJ Tanner on the American sitcom Full House. However, did you know that she is also the wife of Los Angeles Kings forward Valeri Bure?
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FIGHT NIGHT
“If hockey fights were fixed, I’d be in more of them.”
—Rod Gilbert,
former New York Rangers right wing
“If they’re going to allow guys to wear helmets, they should at least force them to round the edges.”
—Rick Chartraw, after punching
Paul Holmgren in the head
“I’d rather fight than score.”
—former “Broad Street Bully” Flyer
Dave “The Hammer” Schultz
THE NOBLE GOALIE
A few famous keepers wax philosophical about the art of tending goal.
“Because the demands on a goalie are mostly mental, it means that for a goalie, the biggest enemy is himself. Not a puck, not an opponent, not a quirk of size or style. Him.”
—Ken Dryden
“That one-hundred-foot skate to the bench after you have been pulled is the longest, slowest skate in the world. It seems likes five miles…”
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores Page 36