Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (22 page)

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF VSEVOLOD…

Of the numerous great Soviet players of the 1970s, three names are most prominent: Valeri Kharlamov, Alexander Maltsev and Valeri Vasiliev. That these three men logged a lot of ice time in their different positions—Kharlamov at left wing, Maltsev at center or right wing, and defenceman extraordinaire Vasiliev—made the Soviet teams tough to beat during this time. And add a guy named Vladislav Tretiak as starting goaltender and you get the spectre of the famed “Big Red Machine.” In the three Winter Olympiads of the 1970s, they tallied two gold medals
and one silver. Most North Americans were first exposed to the Big Red Machine at the memorable 1972 Summit Series.

KHARLAMOV HEROICS

If the Soviet teams had one true leader on the ice, it was probably Kharlamov. Gifted with lightning speed, he seemed to have unlimited moves in getting past opposing defencemen when he had the puck. He was shifty at only 5'8" and 155 pounds, and very difficult to get a piece of. Yet Kharlamov wasn't afraid to be hit; he would frequently skate full-blast into the corners to fight for possession. From game one of the Summit Series, Canada knew that they'd their hands full in trying to stop Kharlamov. He scored two goals in the second period of the USSR's 7–3 win, and played relentlessly until Bobby Clarke cut him down with a cheap two-hander in game six, breaking his ankle and knocking him out of the series.

Sadly, Kharlamov's sterling career was cut short when he was killed in an automobile accident in 1981 at the age of 32.

MALTSEV THE MAGICIAN

When the talented line of Kharlamov, Boris Mikhailov and Vladimir Petrov wasn't on the ice, Alexander Maltsev led the charge. Purported to be the greatest stickhandler in Soviet history, Maltsev highlighted his playmaking abilities at the Summit Series by leading the team with five assists. He wasn't a fan of physical play, but was fast enough to avoid it more times than not.

VALERI THE IMPALER

Defenceman Valeri Vasiliev abruptly ended North American delusions that Russians couldn't handle physical hockey. Born in Bor, USSR (a town so small it's not even listed in the
Rand McNally
), Vasiliev was one of those defencemen who found great satisfaction in completely vanquishing opposing forwards. Overall he played for 17 years, most of them as captain of the national team. Vasiliev also had a tremendous slapshot, but generally played a rock-solid defensive game where he rarely ventured deep into the offensive zone.

GLORY DAYS BEHIND THE CURTAIN

Two players who had their “glory days” (to borrow a title from Bruce Springsteen) while playing in their native Czechoslovakia need to be mentioned. They are Vaclav Nedomansky—who
did
make it to the NHL but only at the age most players retire—and Jiri Holecek.

A big man at 6'2" and 205 pounds, the supremely conditioned Nodomansky rarely suffered an injury over 19 years of top hockey. His trademark play was to floor the opposing goalie with a cannon-like slapshot while barrelling into the offensive zone. More than any other Czech player of the 1960s and 1970s, Nedomansky was the reason why Czechoslovakia won an Olympic silver medal in 1968 and a bronze medal in 1972. He defected to Canada in 1974 and played three years for the Toronto Toros of the World Hockey Association. In 1977 he jumped to the Red Wings, and after his “rookie” year as a 34-year old, he exploded for seasons of 38 and 35 goals. All while adjusting to a new style of hockey—pretty good for an old man. Nedomansky was almost 40 when he decided to quit.

HOLOCEK BEGAT HASEK

Goaltender Jiri Holecek has largely been forgotten, especially after the emergence of his countryman “The Dominator” Dominik Hasek in the 1990s, but from 1963 to 1981 only the USSR's Tretiak could match Holecek's feats in international hockey. Holecek was a fan favorite capable of electrifying audiences with his acrobatic saves. He was so ambidextrous that he'd be just as quick to fire his blocker hand out to stop a puck as he would his glove. He had a stellar 2.21 goals-against average in World Championship and Olympic hockey, and in the 10 World Championships he played in, was named top goalie five times. Of course Vladislav Tretiak, whom Uncle John considers to be “the founding father of modern-day goaltending” also never played in the NHL, but we devoted an article to him alone. You can look for it next time you're in here.

In 1892, when Canada's Governor General Lord Stanley donated a silver cup to Canada's top-ranking hockey team, he couldn't know that it would become the sport's holy grail. But in 2005, when Governor General Adrienne Clarkson donated the Clarkson Cup as the top award for national women's hockey, that was exactly what she had in mind.

T
HE CUP CONTROVERSY

The Clarkson Cup saga began in 2004 with a labor dispute between the owners and players of the NHL. When the two sides failed to come up with an agreement (mostly about salaries and salary caps), the 2004–05 season was cancelled. No games played meant no champions to claim the Stanley Cup. The only other time that had happened in history was in 1919, when the finals were called off after players collapsed on the ice, suffering from the deadly Spanish flu.

Many fans were angry about the cancellation, and some even questioned whether or not the NHL had the right to not award the Stanley Cup. They argued that Lord Stanley had donated the cup to the best hockey team each year, not necessarily the best NHL team. So winning clubs from other leagues should be allowed battle for the trophy during the cancelled season. And one of the more vocal supporters of that group of fans was Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.

A Chinese refugee and the first immigrant ever appointed governor general, Clarkson was one who just wanted to make sure the 2005 Stanley Cup was awarded to an excellent hockey team. So she suggested awarding it to the best team in women's hockey. But the idea of women playing for the Stanley Cup outraged many fans. Clarkson was criticized for even daring to suggest it.

ANOTHER NOT-AWARDED CUP

One person who didn't criticize, however, was Susan Fennell, commissioner of the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL),
a predecessor to the Canadian Women's Hockey League. Fennel didn't necessarily want women's teams to play for the Stanley Cup—because she felt that it represented the men's game—but she did think women should play for their own trophy. And it just so happened that she had a trophy in mind. The existing NWHL cup had no sponsor and no name, so she asked Clarkson to put her name on that one. But Clarkson took it a step further: She would mint a new silver cup, and she'd award it to the top team in Canadian women's hockey.

In the years since, the Clarkson Cup has been praised for its beauty. Inuit artists collaborated with a silversmith to fashion a trophy that contains images of Canada's North Country, symbolizing the ice the game is played on. It features the Inuit goddess Sedna, ancient masks, Arctic animals, and Canadian flowers. In 2006 Clarkson awarded the cup for the first time to Team Canada, who had just won a gold medal at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy. In 2007 and 2008, ironically, a labor dispute (this time over licensing demands by the artists) kept the trophy from being awarded. Finally, in 2009, the Clarkson Cup became a coveted prize for the newly formed amateur Canadian Women Hockey League. On March 21, Clarkson personally handed the Clarkson Cup to Montreal Stars captain Lisa-Marie Breton after her team outscored the Minnesota Whitecaps in the Clarkson Cup finals.

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

So far the mystique of the Clarkson Cup is growing. NHL players don't want to touch the Stanley Cup unless they've won it, and women's hockey players feel the same way about the Clarkson Cup. And the cup's “magic” also seems to be helping the young women's hockey league overcome its growing pans. In 2011 Clarkson Cup playoffs brought new records of attendance. And the actual championship game on March 27, between the Toronto Aeros and the (winning) Montreal Stars, was televised on Canada's leading sports channel, TSN. Today, Canada has many of the best women's hockey players in the world. Clarkson still hopes, that with the help of a cup of their own, these athletes will someday play in a pro league of their own.

Hockey players get injured—it's part of the game. But it's not always like this.

I
n November 2009,
Florida Panthers defenseman Keith Ballard got so angry during a game that he went to smash his stick on his own goal post…but misjudged the swing and smashed his own goalie, Tomas Vokoun, in the head instead. Vokoun sunk to the ice, bleeding profusely, and eventually had to be carried off on a stretcher. (He needed stitches to his left ear, but suffered no lasting injuries.)

In 1949 Toronto Maple Leaf
Joe Klukay was knocked unconscious after getting struck in the head by the stick of Chicago Black Hawk Gaye Stewart—and Klukay wasn't even playing. He'd been injured in a previous game and was sitting on the bench when Stewart skated by and accidently clocked him. Klukay was treated at a local hospital.

In December 1990,
St. Louis defenceman Paul Cavallini took a slapshot from Chicago's Doug Wilson to his left index finger. When Cavallini took his hand out of the glove, the finger had no tip! The hard shot had torn it off. (Cavallini found the missing finger tip inside his glove.) Doctors were unable to reattach the tip, and Cavallini missed 13 games due to the injury.

While still playing
in the minor leagues in 1985, future Detroit Red Wings enforcer Joe Kocur had to be put into a morphine-induced coma for two weeks when an infection in his right arm wouldn't heal. Backstory: Kocur had recently gotten into a fight with another future NHL tough guy, Jim Playfair, and had acquired the infection when he cut his knuckles on Playfair's teeth. Doctors said Kocur was only hours away from having the arm amputated when the infection finally started to heal.

The St. Louis Blues'
Al MacInnis was taking part in a pregame shoot in 1999 when he let a slapshot fly at his goalie, Rich Parent. The shot hit Parent right in the crotch…broke his protective cup…and one of his testicles. Parent had to undergo surgery to repair the ruptured testicle and missed 11 games.

Foster Hewitt's call of Maple Leafs games made hockey Canada's biggest Saturday night recreation for decades.

O
n a hockey night, walk past the television networks' trucks, parked both inside and outside any NHL arena, step over what seems a mile of cables wired to dozens of cameras and microphones, count the scores of technicians and broadcasters required to show a game on television, and it's difficult to remember that it all started with the equivalent of a telephone call.

IT SEEMED THE THING TO SAY

On March 14, 1923, a simple phone line carried the first radio broadcast of a hockey game in Regina, Saskatchewan, a Western Canada League game between Regina and Edmonton on a medium in its infancy, the broadcaster, Pete Parker. Eight days later, it happened again. This time the station was CFCA, owned by the
Toronto Star
, and high interest in a junior playoff series between Toronto Parkdale and Kitchener inspired a request to sports editor W. A. Hewitt to broadcast the game. A
Star
reporter, Hewitt's son Foster, who had no on-air experience, was told to describe the game into a telephone from a rail seat near the penalty box at the musty old Mutual Street Arena. He announced the first goal with “He shoots! He scores!” and the trademark for a fabled career was established, the phrase used to this day by most hockey voices. “I said it that way because it just seemed the thing to say,” Hewitt said. “I just described what I was seeing on the ice. I didn't make many changes in that approach over the next 50 or so years.”

HEWITT FOR PRIME MINISTER

That junior-game phone call launched an electronic love affair between a man and his audience that has few equals anywhere. Foster Hewitt played a major role in the evolution of the Maple
Leafs and Maple Leaf Gardens into national institutions via his Saturday night radio, and later, television broadcasts of Leafs games on
Hockey Night in Canada
. It's not hyperbole to say that Hewitt achieved fame that exceeded the eminence of politicians, entertainers and sports stars in Canada.

CARRIED ACROSS THE COUNTRY

When Conn Smythe purchased the NHL Toronto St. Patricks and changed the name to the Maple Leafs in 1926, he had the games broadcast by Hewitt on CFCA from a spot in the rafters of the Mutual Street building. From the first national broadcast of a Leafs' Saturday night game on January 1, 1933—starting with another Hewitt signature, “Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland”—Hewitt's sharp, somewhat nasally voice, the quality of it for calling play-by-play probably never equalled, was a fixture in a high percentage of Canadian homes.

A postseason barnstorming tour of western Canada by the Maple Leaf players in the mid-1930s demonstrated the popularity ladder of the team. “Every place the train stopped and we stepped off, a crowd of people would make a little fuss over myself, Busher Jackson, King Clancy, Joe Primeau, and Red Horner,” said Charlie Conacher, the team's star right-winger. “But soon they were asking: ‘Where's Foster?' The most attention went to a skinny little guy who never scored a goal.”