THE END OF HOCKEY
It was the summertime. I had just spent two months in California after a year in Germany – which was a very challenging year – and I was hedging my bets. I was still working out like I was going to...
View Article48 HOURS
I was at Boston’s camp but I’d had knee surgery that offseason and was just rehabbing. The day before the season started, I got sent down to Providence where I skated with the team for two months. My...
View ArticleME AND GEDDY
We were both 14 years old going to Fisherville Junior High in Willowdale in 1966, right at the start of the psychedelic era. We were good friends and, like everyone, we bought all the newest albums,...
View ArticleTHEY DON’T FIGHT LIKE THEY USED TO
I remember distinctly that I had no plan for life other than playing professional hockey. I came from Lansing, Michigan where nobody made the ranks. I made the decision that I wanted to play, and...
View ArticleREQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT
In 1986, as a rookie, I played about 15 games in the minors for the St. Louis Blues and then I got called up. My first game was in the old rink in Chicago – The Mad House on Madison. It’s hard to...
View ArticleBURNING DOWN THE HOUSE
Larms and I lived together in a duplex in Moncton. It was the size of a shoe box. You had to chisel ice off the electrical sockets in the morning so you could have a cup of tea. One week, you’d sleep...
View ArticlePOETRY WITH BOBBY HULL
The first time I met Bobby Hull, I was asked to present him with a poem I’d written. At the reception, Bobby already had a little crowd around him when we were introduced. I handed him the poem and he...
View ArticleTAMBURICA AND THE GROUP OF SEVEN
I was introduced to music as a kid in Northern Ontario. I was in an orchestra in which I played a string instrument very similar to the Russian balilaika– a tamburica– which was Croatian in origin....
View ArticleLIFE AND TIMES OF RED KELLY
I was discovered after school on the backyards after being cut by the A and B St. Mike’s teams. An assistant to Father Flangan tipped the coach off. Father Flanagan was great in teaching me skating. I...
View ArticleBOB
For the first few years, Harold Ballard didn’t know my name. He called me ‘Bob.’ But I liked him well enough. I once told him, “I don’t care what you pay me, as long as you sign my cheques,” and he...
View ArticleRAININ’ HARD IN ‘FRISCO
Joe Crozier was the coach in my rookie year. Before an 11-day road trip out to the coast, Joe told me to bring my guitar. We were fighting for the playoffs and he wanted to keep the guys loose. I...
View ArticleFIGHTING IN THE NAME OF
The 1986-87 season was a difficult year for me. In November of ’86, my father was killed in a car accident coming back from one of my games in Spokane. Just after his death, I was invited to the World...
View ArticleGOD PUT ALL THE GOONS IN COLUMBUS
Willie Trognitz got thrown out of “The I” for hitting Archie Henderson over the head with his stick. We had a bench brawl; everybody grabbed somebody and Willie ended up fighting three different guys....
View ArticleFREE AGENT
After a really good year with the Kitchener Rangers as a 19-year-old, I went home to PEI for the summer, not really sure what was going to happen next with my hockey career. I had lots of Junior ‘A’...
View ArticleTHE BALLAD OF WOLSKI’S TAVERN
Bernie Bondar owned a tavern in Milwaukee called Wolski’s Tavern. I lived 38 steps from the bar. I’d walk through the front door and out the back and I was in my apartment. One day, I ran practice from...
View ArticleTHE MUSIC AND THE GAME
FRED STANFIELD: Schoney was the biggest Beatles fan I’ve ever seen in my life. He knew every Beatles song written. He and Jimmy Lorentz would bring their guitars up to the room and we’d have a few...
View ArticleFIGHTING CARLOS TERRESAN
We were in Muskegon and I’d gotten into it with Carlo Torresan earlier in the game, probably first or early second period. He was big and strong, overpowering– hard to fight– but I wasn’t going to step...
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60 at 60
Last spring, I happened to be talking to Darcy Regier, the former Buffalo Sabres general manager, for a feature on Jim Corsi with whom he’d had a long professional association and developed a real...
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I’m no hero
It’s 5 a.m. on a cold, snowy morning in December 1980 and my brother Pat and I are driving from Ottawa to Buffalo for our first Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert. I’m 16 years old and as...
View ArticleThe Cat was a metal head
I was working at Attic Records, a large independent record company based in Toronto. We distributed Roadrunner and MetalBlade, two metal labels. I had been introduced to Felix Potvin through an...
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