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  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.

  DOWN IN THE EH, EH?

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

  It 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.

  THE 10-CENT BEER-NIGHT CAPER!!

  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.

  One 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 w
ere 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.”

  LITTLE BIG MEN

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

  When 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.

  SHORT AND STOCKY PLAYING HOCKEY

  Most players who are considered small might be short in height but carry much more weight than the vertically challenged of an earlier era. In the NHL’s first three or four decades, many players between 5'5" and 5'9" often weighed between 140 and 155 pounds. The NHL’s most valuable player in the 2004–05 season, Martin St. Louis of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning, is considered short at 5'9" but not small because he weighs 185. The numbers of the Boston Bruins’ highly skilled winger Sergei Samsonov are 5'8" and a surprising 194. Defenceman Francis Bouillon of the Montreal Canadiens appears out of place on the blue line at 5'8" but his 196 pounds make him a better fit.

  KING FOR A DAY?

  Reflecting on the measurements of a variety of players from earlier years makes one wonder about how players of such small stature might endure in today’s league. King Clancy (5'7", 155) played front-line defence for Ottawa and Toronto for 16 seasons. The top goal-scorers of the NHL’s early days, Babe Dye (201 goals in 271 games), and Joe Malone (143 goals in 126 NHL games), each weighed 150 pounds. Ken Doraty, whose overtime goal for the Maple Leafs against Boston in 1933 came in the sixth extra period, played at 133 pounds. Buddy O’Connor (5'8", 140) of the Rangers finished second by one point for the NHL scoring title in the 1947–48 season. Mush March, all 5'5" and 150 pounds of him, played 759 games for Chicago. Two of the finest forward lines ever carried total weights of 436 pounds—the elegant Howie Morenz, Aurel Joliat, and Johnny “Black Cat” Gagnon trio of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1920s—and 460 pounds—the swift Pony Line of Chicago in the 1940s: Max and Doug Bentley with Bill Mosienko.

  LITTLE NAPOLEON VS. KING RICHARD

  The top goalies of the early NHL times had to be quick because their small bodies, skinny pads and gloves did not fill much of the net. George Hainsworth (5'6", 150) once had 22 shutouts in a 44-game schedule. John Ross Roach (5'5", 130) was called Little Napoleon and played in 492 games. Roy Worters (5'3", 135) excelled for three teams. Jumpin’ Jake Forbes (5'6", 140) was a big star in the game’s first venture into New York. Even the great Georges Vezina, who played in 325 consecutive games for the Canadiens (and was the father of 22 children) was only 5'6". In the 1980s, another diminutive “King,” Richard Brodeur (5'7", 158), led the Vancouver Canucks to the Cup final.

  POCKET ROCKETS AND THE ATOM BOMB

  Two economy-sized centers were elite all-round players in a later time. Henri (Pocket Rocket) Richard (5'7", 160) excelled in a record 11 Stanley Cup winners for the Canadiens in 20 seasons from 1956 to 1975. Dave Keon (5'8", 160) was a key man on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ four Cup winners in the 1960s. These quick little stars would seem like mosquitoes if they shared the ice with Zdeno Chara of the modern Ottawa Senators. At 6'9" and 260, Chara is the biggest NHLer ever.

  * * * * *

  “[Jeremy Roenick] should be worried about playing the game, not innovating it. He thinks he’s Brett Hull or something. You should remind him that he didn’t go to college. He’s a junior guy. So he’s not that bright.”

  —Garth Snow, goaltender for New York Islanders

  “It’s not my fault [Garth Snow] didn’t have any other options coming out of high school. If going to college gets you a career backup goaltender job, and my route gets you a thousand points and a thousand games, and compare the two contracts, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out whose decision was better.”

  —Jeremy Roenick, former forward, Chicago Blackhawks

  N-H-L-METS

  For a game that is commonly thought of as the most violent major North American sport, it may come as a shock that the history of the helmet in the NHL is relatively short.

  We begin in Boston when tough-as-skate-leather Bruin Eddie Shore hit Toronto Maple Leaf Ace Bailey from behind during a December 12, 1933, game—with the end result being Bailey sustaining a fractured skull. To raise funds for Bailey’s expensive medical bills, the NHL played its first All-Star Game on February 12, 1934. After Bailey’s retirement he became a coach and later an off-ice official in Toronto at his beloved Maple Leaf Gardens.

  SHORING UP THE “D” (OF THE NOGGIN)

  Seeing the damage that he did to Bailey and perhaps fearing for his safety from Leafs who had plans to retaliate, Eddie shortly afterwards began to wear a leather helmet during games. Looking at this contraption with a fresh 21st century outlook, it’s difficult to see how Shore’s head would have been protected if he had been clonked in the casaba. Shore’s helmet more resembles headgear worn by a horse-riding jockey than a protective apparatus against pucks, sticks and falls to the ice.

  CRAWFORD’S CRANIUM

  For 12 seasons (1937–1950), Bruins defenceman Jack Crawford also wore a similar leather head covering, but much of this was due to vanity (understandable, in his case). In his teenage years, the crafty Crawford suffered a rare skin malady which left his scalp bald and scarred. So to cover his top, Crawford began wearing the leather helmet.

  BILL MASTERTON: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

  Very few NHL players wore helmets until one fateful night in Minnesota when the first (and still only) death of a player during an NHL game occurred. Not long into the first period of a January 13, 1968, game between the Oakland Seals and the Minnesota North Stars, rookie centerman Bill Masterton of the North Stars took the puck into the Seals’ offensive zone. He passed to right wing Wayne Connelly, then skated toward the area in front of the Seals net to try to get a goal. Instead he got
banged around by a few Seals, fell backwards, and cracked his head on the ice. Masterton began bleeding profusely from his ears and nose. He was immediately taken to Fairview Southdale Hospital in Minneapolis. On the way in the ambulance, Masterton lost consciousness and never woke up. Two days later, he died as a result of his head injury.

  The North Stars retired Bat’s (as he was nicknamed) No. 19 and shortly after Masterton’s death, the NHL created the Bill Masterton Trophy, which is awarded annually to the player who is most dedicated to, and shows the most perseverance for, the sport of hockey.

  MIKITA HEAD OF THE PACK

  Interestingly, Clarence Campbell, then head of the NHL, did not immediately dictate that all players had to wear helmets during practices and in games. Yet slowly, very slowly, players began to wear them. One of the first was Stan Mikita, the great center and right wing from the 1960s Chicago Black Hawks. Wearing his coal-black-colored plastic helmet, Mikita was as easy to spot on the ice at that time as the remaining players without helmets were in the late 1980s.

  SAFE IN SEVENTY-NINE

  Mite and youth hockey leagues in Canada and the United States made helmet-wearing a must in the 1970s. In 1979 the NHL made helmets mandatory for any player signed after June 1, 1979. On April 29, 1997, grinder Craig MacTavish—the last NHL player to play without a helmet—announced his retirement, quietly rolling the percentage of NHL helmet-use up to 100 from there on in.