Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (8 page)

A KING'S RULING

The great general manager of the Montreal Canadiens, Frank Selke, was careful in assessing the two great wingers, treading carefully because Richard had led the team to extraordinary success. But after Richard retired, Selke discussed them in an interview. “Gordie Howe is the finest all-round player in hockey history,” Selke said. “That takes absolutely nothing away from the Rocket or any other player. King Clancy (in the NHL as a player, referee and executive for 70 years) said it well: “If there were two rinks in Montreal offering games at the same time with the Rocket and Howe as box office rivals, Richard would do more business. Richard was the game's greatest crowd pleaser, the most spectacular goal-getter but Howe could do more things than any player ever. And I know the Rocket thinks the same way.”

NUMBERS DON'T LIE

Their career statistics can be used to make a strong case for each man. Howe's durability was unmatched: He played 32 seasons of big-league hockey, 26 in the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings and Hartford Whalers, and six in the World Hockey Association with the New England Whalers and Houston Aeros, which included his sons Mark and Marty as teammates. In his 32 seasons of pro hockey—Howe insisted that his WHA numbers should be included in his career total—Howe played 2,186 games, scored 975 goals, 1,338 assists for 2,358 points plus 96 goals, 135 assists for 231 points in the playoffs. In the 26 NHL seasons, Howe
played 1,767 games with an 801-1,049-1,850 during the schedule, a 68-92-160 points mark in 157 games.

Richard was a Canadien for 18 seasons, producing 544 goals, 421 assists for 965 points in 978 games, and a strong 82 goals and 126 points in 133 playoff games. Richard took great pride in his ability to produce in the pressure of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Of his 82 postseason tallies, 18 of them were game-winners, a record six of those in overtime.

IF ONLY HE WERE AS GOOD AS ME

Richard and Howe were involved in the extremely intense rivalry between the Canadiens and Red Wings in the 1950s when the Canadiens won six Cups, and the Red Wings four in an 11-season stretch. While Howe said little of his opponent, Richard could praise and criticize Howe in the same sentence. “Howe is a great player, the best I ever played against, but he should hustle more,” said Richard, late in his career. “He doesn't seem to be trying as hard as he could. He was a better all-round player than I was, maybe the best ever. But I think he should have scored more big goals, like in the playoffs.” Howe offered only praise for Richard: “The NHL never had a more dramatic player than the Rocket, nor one more dangerous in the clutch.”

THE ODD COUPLE

At Richard's funeral in 2000, Howe admitted that he knew little about Richard personally and seldom had talked with him over the years. “I never knew that the Rocket had seven children,” Howe said. “I certainly never knew what he was thinking. He was quiet man. A few times on the ice, I said ‘Hi Rocket,' and he just growled at me.”

In the 14 seasons Richard and Howe shared in the NHL, they dominated the right wing position on the NHL all-star team, Howe with seven first team and four second team selections while Richard had six first team and five second nominations. Little wonder the argument continues.

The Eastern Hockey League managed to operate for most seasons from 1934 to 1974, providing the inspiration for the movie
Slap Shot.

I
t all started in the 1933–34 season with the Baltimore Orioles, Hersher B'ars and Bronx Tigers and ended for good after the 1972–73 playoffs with the Long Island Ducks, Syracuse Blazers, Charlotte Checkers and Greensboro Generals. The Eastern Hockey League—it had the word Amateur in its name until 1953—was the bottom-ranked minor-pro league but no circuit is mentioned more in hockey's folklore.

NEWMAN'S GOONS

Even today when a group of old-time hockey men are telling yarns and spinning fables, the Eastern League invariably pops into the conversation. The EHL had an abundance of “goons” long before the NHL had discovered the word to describe its toughest players. It had high scorers and goalies who went onto big-league careers, too, but the EHL is in the history books—either written or imaginative—for its violence: the hard-nosed guys who, long after the league was gone, inspired the Paul Newman movie
Slap Shot
that became a cult favorite.

THE REAL REGGIE DUNLOP?

The player who perhaps represents the Eastern League best was John Brophy, a defenceman with several teams (Baltimore, Charlotte, New Haven, Long Island, Philadelphia) whom many rate as the toughest man in hockey history. Brophy was the EHL's penalty king, earning from 230 to 350 penalty minutes a season over his close to 20 years in the league. Brophy spent another 35 years as a coach at various minor-pro levels, one of the few coaches to win more than 1,000 games—including 64 during a frustrating three-season NHL stint with the dismal Toronto Maple Leafs.

Brophy brushed off requests to reflect on the days when many referred to him as a “dirty” hockey player. He preferred to talk about the quality of the league and how much effort was required
to excel in it. “Sure it was tough hockey and the salaries were not very high—guys knocking themselves out for $125 a week with some hideous travel,” Brophy said. “But quite a few players earned a living for a long time in the Eastern League and used it as a springboard up the ladder as players, and into pro coaching like I did. You had to really want to play the game to stick it out and that's how I was.”

WHO DOUBLED AS THE MECHANIC?

The teams operated on a sparse budget with small rosters, at one time dressing only 12 players for games. That meant a goalie, four defencemen, and seven forwards, including one who could play defence if needed. For years most teams did not travel by bus. The dozen players plus the manager-coach—often teams had playing coaches—and the trainer traveled in two old limousines, one of them towing a trailer loaded with the equipment. The coach drove one and the trainer the other in a small convoy on long highway hauls from Clinton, New York, to Nashville, Tennessee.

Through many seasons, especially in the years after World War II, the league was often down to four teams with the New York Rovers and Boston Olympics as mainstays. The Rovers played most home games on Sunday afternoons in Madison Square Garden, the home rink of the NHL's New York Rangers. Eddie Giacomin and Gilles Villemure, who had fine NHL careers with the Rangers, apprenticed in the EHL with the Rovers and other clubs. Through the late 1950s and 1960s, the EHL flourished with between eight and 12 teams in two divisions, pushing as far south as Tennessee. Smaller cities such as Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Clinton, New York; and the Long Island Ducks, based in Commack, were league mainstays.

A “CHARACTER-BUILDING” EXPERIENCE

John Muckler spent many years in the EHL as a player, then as manager and coach with the Ducks, and is perhaps the league's best historian. He slowly worked up hockey's ladder as NHL scout, minor league coach, and executive associate coach with the Edmonton Oilers for four Stanley Cup championships, and finally head coach for a fifth Cup in 1990. Muckler has since been general manager of the Buffalo Sabres, New York Rangers and Ottawa
Senators. “The Eastern League was like no other hockey league ever, the game played as hard and tough—yes, dirty—as it has in any league,” Muckler said. “It took special players to tough it out with the small rosters, the hard travel, the hard hits and fights on the ice. Every team had a couple of truly tough players and some of the fights between them were simply scary, especially if they went at it with the sticks.”

THE INSPIRATION FOR
ZORRO
, TOO??

Muckler had a special relationship with Brophy, whom he calls “the best friend I ever had in my life. Brophy was very hard, in extraordinary physical condition because he worked as a laborer in the off season,” Muckler said. “Remember that TV character Zorro, who could cut the ‘Z' mark on guys' shirts or skin with his sword? Well, I think they got that from what Broph could do with a hockey stick. He would test every new player in the league and while many were very afraid of him because of what he could do, if they stood up for themselves, he wouldn't bother them again.”

EHL TITLE PUTS BROPHY ON TOP OF THE WORLD

In all his years in hockey, Muckler is hard-pressed to recall a scrappier player than John Brophy: “No one who ever played the game—showed up as many nights tired, injured and underpaid—and gave it all he had [like Brophy did]. In my time in the league I traded Brophy three times and got him back twice. One year when I was GM-coach of the Ducks, we had a club that could win it all—winning the EHL playoffs earned a $1,200 per player bonus and that meant you didn't have to get a summer job—but we faced a major problem. Brophy was with the New Haven Blades and many of my players were scared out of their minds to play against him. So I did the only sane thing I could do: I made a bad trade for him, got him on our side and we won the title. Two days after we won it, Brophy was high above New York City working as a steel-rigger on some new skyscraper, a job he often did in the summer.”

In 1973, the Eastern League's days ended. It was split into a pair of pale imitations, the Southern Hockey League and the North American Hockey League; but there are no great tales about those two loops.

Having John Brophy on the Long Island Ducks with Don Perry—possibly the best fist-fighter ever seen in the sport—produced one of former Ducks coach John Muckler's favorite EHL yarns: the 10-cent beer-night caper.

O
ne day in the 1960s, the Ducks were scheduled to play the New Haven Blades at the Commack Arena, which lured fans beer at 10¢ a glass, one of the first-ever such promotions. The night before, the Ducks had played upstate in Clinton. Under normal conditions, the drive would take a few hours, but this time the Ducks headed into a mammoth blizzard. Throughout the night and the next day, they plowed through deep snow and poor visibility. As evening neared, the Ducks still had a ways to travel. With no way to check in with Commack, they figured the game would be cancelled. But the beer had flowed, and the crowd at the rink was loud and angry.

CRANKY DUCKS BLADE THE BLADES

The Ducks, tired to the bone, arrived at 9:30 p.m. and to their surprise were told to get into uniform and play or the fans might tear the arena apart. “Our equipment was frozen in the trailer behind one limo but our guys put it on and went on the ice,” Muckler said. “In the first minute, Brophy cut the mark of Zorro on a couple of New Haven guys with his stick and Perry punched a couple more in the face. The New Haven team went to the dressing room, saying that they didn't want to risk their players against ‘those lunatics.' That really whipped up the fans, and all indications were that there was going to be a riot if the Blades didn't come back. The owner of the Ducks, who was getting heat for the beer promotion, went into the New Haven dressing room with a handful of $100 bills and offered one to each player if they would continue the game. Now this was a league where $150 a week was a big salary. The New Haven players said they would if Perry and Brophy didn't play. The game continued, Brophy and Perry sat on our bench and we played with ten guys.”

Some of the best in a big man's game have been half-pints with speed and skill.

W
hen Theoren Fleury buzzed onto the ice for the warm-up, it appeared his club had allowed the stick boy to participate in the pre-game activities. Surrounded by many teammates more than six feet in height and 200 pounds in weight, Fleury, at 5'6" and 155, surely had to be the club mascot. But when the game started, the smallest skater was often the biggest man on the ice.

CARRYING A BIG STICK

Fleury's physical dimensions were the antithesis of his statistics and accomplishments. In a 15-season NHL career with Calgary, the New York Rangers, Chicago, and Colorado, fiery Fleury played in 1,084 games, produced 455 goals and 633 assists for 1,088 points and paid for his pestilent approach with 1,840 penalty minutes. In the pressure of the playoffs, Fleury was at his best with 79 points in 77 Stanley Cup games, and he also excelled for Canadian teams that won the World Junior and Olympic gold medal championships.

“From the start in kids' hockey, I had to show that just because I was small didn't mean I wouldn't mix it up with anyone, no matter how big he was,” Fleury said. “If I had ever backed up from bigger guys' challenges, I could have gone home and forgot about having a hockey career. I worked really hard on my skating, especially my quickness and speed, and that allowed me to find as much open ice as I could.”

EAT YOUR BROCCOLI!

Fleury's career from 1987 to 2003 stamps him as perhaps the “last of the great little men.” The NHL's obsession with size has produced a modern game of giants: Rosters are now dominated by players over six feet and 200 pounds, a big change from the pro game's early days in the 1920s when the average size was 5'8" and 160 pounds. But then, the size of humans in general has increased
noticeably in the past century. Add to that improved diet and physical conditioning programs that athletes start at a young age, and the result is the biggest, strongest players in hockey history. In the NHL now, only the occasional small player—such as the stealthy Steve Sullivan, who is 5'9" and 155—sneak into the front ranks.