Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (39 page)

—
Oilers forward
Dave Lumley

“We were just brain-dead. If you're brain-dead against Wayne Gretzky, I mean, he can set my four-year-old son up to score.”

—
Maple Leafs right wing
Tom Fitzgerald

“There should be a league rule where he's passed around from team to team each year.”

—
Rangers coach
Terry O'Reilly

“Gretzky would dominate in any era. It doesn't make any difference. He may well be the smartest hockey player who ever played the game.”

—
Phil Esposito

“We would have won if we had Wayne Gretzky.”

—
Paul Reinhart of the Calgary Flames, after losing to Gretzky's Oilers in the 1988 finals

“Some guys play hockey. Gretzky plays 40-mph chess.”

—
journalist Lowell Cohn

North American hockey did not adopt wholesale the ideas to be learned from hockey in Europe, especially the USSR.

S
INDEN & THE SOVIET
s

Long before the NHL discovered that money could be made from games against visiting teams from the old Soviet Union and other European countries, taking command of that segment of “international diplomacy” in the 1970s, Harry Sinden had tried to tame the Red Menace on ice as a $30-per-game amateur defenceman. He did it, too, as an important player with the Whitby Dunlops when they beat the Soviets in the key game to regain the World Championship crown for Canada at Oslo, Norway, in 1957.

Sinden was out of hockey in 1972 after coaching the Boston Bruins to the 1970 Stanley Cup title—their first in 30 years—when the NHL, under the Team Canada banner, decided to play the Soviet national team in the Summit Series. He was the ideal man to manage and coach the team, and led them to glory. Paul Henderson's goal 36 seconds from the end of game eight gave Team Canada a “victory” and created an occasion engraved in the memories of everyone in the country old enough to remember.

SECRETS OF THE COLD WAR

The widely held outlook was that the team of top NHL players would have an easy time handling the Russians, who had defeated the best Canadian amateur teams over the previous decade. But the Soviets, with skilled, superbly conditioned players and an approach to the game quite different from the NHL's, pushed Team Canada to the limit. This led many observers to jump to the conclusion that the Russians had many lessons on the sport to teach Canadians, who always had seen hockey as “our” game.

Sinden went from the Moscow triumph to the GM's job with the Bruins, adding the team president's title along the way. From that perch he had a good chance to study the Russians and their influence on the game in Canada and the U.S. “The Summit
Series not only produced some of the finest hockey the world had seen, it also encouraged a look at how the game is played across the globe,” Sinden said. “The series and the fact that the Russians were a superb team opened up healthy discussions on the state of hockey. That hasn't stopped in the 30 or so years since 1972.”

STUDY UP ON YOUR RUSSIAN

The Canadian knee-jerk reaction was that the Soviets had taken the development of the North American game and carried it to heights about which the stodgy, tradition-bound pros could only dream. Actually, hockey scholars went overboard in their instant devotion to hockey Russian-style. “Of course, we had become a little complacent about the game, the way we were playing it, coaching it and preparing it,” Sinden said. “Perhaps we did need a stick in the back that the competitiveness of the 1972 series gave us. But the reactions to the Russians got out of hand by a very large amount. We read wrongly, very wrongly, how they played the game and their preparation for it, especially with the idea that they had created all these ideas about the game.”

As an example, not long after the 1972 series, another NHL GM suggested that the pros had used an unimaginative power play strategy by having one or two large players jamming the front of the opposition net and blasting away from the points, but he had learned a new approach from the Russians' slick passing outside the defensive box formation to create good scoring chances. “When he says that we learned the pass-pass style from the Russians, I guess he never saw the Montreal Canadiens' power play from the 1950s, the one that led to the rule change to end a minor penalty after one goal,” Sinden said. “That unit (Doug Harvey and Boom-Boom Geoffrion on the points, Jean Béliveau, Rocket Richard, and Bert Olmstead up front) passed the puck around as well as anyone from any country, communist or democratic.”

CUP WINNERS MUST'VE BEEN COMMUNISTS

Sinden expressed amazement at how many in North American hockey viewed the way the Russians played and practised hockey, suggesting that their game tactics were much superior and their workouts contained drills of a sophistication that lifted them far
above the pros. “The Russians always have been superbly conditioned athletes, good skaters with solid fundamental skills, discipline in their play, stamina to sustain a fast pace for 60 minutes, and an excellent transition game, going from defence to offence very quickly,” Sinden said. “Funny, isn't it, but that's the description of many Stanley Cup winners?”

HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY MATCH
THIS
?

Sinden adds: “I've been watching Soviet teams practise for years, trying to find new drills for my own team, mystery tactics that could produce supermen. Know what their workouts are: some line rushes, goalie warm-up and a large number of scrimmages. One feature of their game that we don't have on our national teams: They're together for long stretches with no games, just workouts, and that produces their team play.”

RUNNING INTERFERENCE, RUSSIAN-STYLE

Sinden still felt that the biggest influence the Soviets had on NHL hockey was negative. “One thing we really learned from them is interference,” Sinden said. “Until 1972, interference in the NHL was something the refs called closely and there was very little of it. The Soviets were masters of it in 1972 and it got under our players' skins when it wasn't called. Fred Shero [coach of the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1970s] was a big devotee of the Soviet style and he had the Flyers [setting] picks a great deal. Since then, interference, which many call obstruction, has been the NHL's biggest problem because not enough of it gets called.”

THE SMELL OF BOILING RUBBER…

While hockey was separated into two camps, Europe and the NHL—even after the Summit—the end of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s opened the door for Russian and Czechoslovakian players to migrate to the NHL, producing a puck-melting plot. While Russia still produces players with strong basic skills, their move to Canadian junior hockey and the NHL has made the style of play much closer in all countries.

First you find a rubber tree, then you take a machete…

M
odern NHL-grade hockey pucks are made in just a few places around the world. Most come from Canada, but some are made in Russia, China, and the Czech Republic.

• The pucks are made from
vulcanized rubber
, which is pure rubber mixed with different ingredients and heated to specific temperatures for specific amounts of time. NHL pucks have their own particular recipe and process.

• At the factory, rubber (usually the pure, natural kind, but sometimes, synthetic), in the form of yellowish, malleable, sticky chunks, is put into a mixing machine, along with powdered chemical compounds referred to collectively as “antioxidant compounds.” These prevent the final rubber product from breaking down, thereby adding to its lifespan.

• Sulfur, calcium carbonate, and a few other minerals, also in powder form, are added to the mix. These help the curing (hardening) process.

• Two types of oil are added: one helps the ingredients blend together; the other ensures that the rubber won't be too brittle.

•
Carbon black
is added. This is almost completely pure carbon in the form of very fine, black powder. It's derived from burning heavy petroleum products (such as coal tar—the stuff they use to make road sealant). Carbon black is almost always used in the vulcanization process, as it aids in rubber's durability. It's also the reason most rubber is black.

• The resulting thick, heavy rubber mixture is carried on conveyer belts to a
mill mixer
. Here it is repeatedly squeezed through two large metal rollers. More amounts of rubber and other ingredients are added as needed.

• Samples are tested regularly until the attending technician
decides the product is ready for the next step. When it is, the mix is then forced through a molding machine that shapes it into densely packed cylinders three inches wide. These are cut into “logs” about three feet long.

• The logs are then run through a machine that cuts them into puck-shaped pieces a little more than an inch thick. Those pieces are put by hand into puck-shaped depressions into molds—the molds look like very large muffin pans—which are then tightly covered.

• The molds are baked at 300°F for about 20 minutes. After cooling, a trimming machine cuts off any excess rubber stuck to the pucks. The pucks are now exactly three inches in diameter by one inch thick, and they weigh between 5.5 and 6 ounces—as required by NHL rules. They are also very hard.

• Team or specialized logos are silk-screened onto the pucks.

• The pucks are shipped to their respective teams. Specialized pucks—such as those used for promotion, the All-Star Game, or the playoffs—are sent to the NHL's head office.

• Before they're used, pucks are frozen for several days. This takes away their bounciness—no one wants a slapshot hit at 100 mph bouncing all over the rink. Freezing also makes the pucks slide better on the ice. (Before a game, you might see an official take a puck and throw it at the ice. If it is deemed too bouncy—it isn't used.)

• Home teams are required to provide enough pucks for each game. (Teams often keep about 50 on hand.) They are kept in freezer chests under the bench in the penalty box and must be supervised by an off-ice NHL official. On average, 20 to 30 pucks are used per game.

* * * * *

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays knows where the puck is going to be.”

—
Wayne Gretzky

The strange side of dying—hockey player style.

D
UNCAN MACPHERSON (1966–89)

The New York Islanders drafted MacPherson in 1984, but he played in the minor leagues for five years and never fulfilled his dream of reaching the NHL. In 1989 the Islanders released him, and at the age of 23, he pondered retirement. But then he decided to look into a job offer from a semi-pro team in Scotland. On August 2, 1989, MacPherson flew to Germany to visit a friend, and was supposed to arrive in Dundee, Scotland, on August 12. When he didn't show up, his family started searching for him. Six weeks later, the car he had borrowed from the friend in Germany was found at the Stubai Glacier ski resort in Austria. An instructor there said he had given Duncan a lesson on August 9. That was the last anyone ever saw of Duncan MacPherson…for 14 years. Then, in July 2003, after a particularly warm spring and subsequent melting of the glacier, a worker at the Stubai Glacier ski resort noticed a ski glove sticking out of the ice. Under it, he found MacPherson's body, completely intact and frozen in the glacier. It's believed that MacPherson fell through snow covering a crevice on the glacier, and either became stuck or died due to the subsequent injuries.

TERRY SAWCHUK (1929–70)

The Canadian-born Sawchuk is considered one of the greatest goaltenders ever to play in the NHL. In 21 seasons, most of them with Detroit, he won four Stanley Cups, set a regular season shutout record (103) that stood for 39 years, and is still currently fifth in most regular-season wins of all time (447). Unfortunately, Sawchuk was also known for having a very dark side. It is believed he suffered from untreated depression and exacerbated that problem by drinking heavily. That caught up to him in 1970. One day, while playing for the New York Rangers, Sawchuk was with his teammate and housemate Ron Stewart at their Long Island home. They were drunk, and got into an argument, reportedly about household bills. It escalated into a shoving match—and the two
fell to the ground. Depending on which version of events you hear, Sawchuk's side landed on either Stewart's knee or a barbecue. Whichever it was, it quickly became obvious that he was in trouble and was rushed to the hospital. There it was discovered that both his gall bladder and liver had been damaged in the fall. Surgeries to repair that damage were unsuccessful, and a month later, Sawchuck was dead. (He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1971.)

MIRAN SCHROTT (1972–92)

On January 14, 1992, Schrott, a professional hockey player in Italy, was defending against opponent Jim Boni just inside his own blue line. Then a couple of things happened: Boni broke for the goal; Schrott rushed him; Boni wrapped his arm around Schrott's head; Schrott responded by throwing a quick punch; Boni responded by slashing Schrott in the chest with his stick; Boni skated away. That was it.