Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (49 page)

AS PHONY AS A THREE-MILLION-DOLLAR CHEQUE?

Through a series of mishaps, Esposito needed to use a dubious three-million-dollar cheque from the Duke of Manchester as the
down payment for bringing hockey to Florida. The cheque was signed
Lord Montague, the Duke of Manchester
. This cheque was, of course, worthless. This was confirmed by an alarmed phone call from NHL head office some time after the presentation. Espo later found another cheque that was—luckily for the Lightning's chance at the 2004 Stanley Cup—legitimate. An FBI manhunt ensued and—unluckily—Tessier the con man was caught, tried and later died in prison in July 2002.

* * * * *

YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS

“I remember what Ron Greschner said when he retired. ‘The thing I'm going to miss most is showering with 23 guys.' And that's what it's all about: camaraderie.”

—New York Rangers goaltender Mike Richter

“We believe in camaraderie but that's taking it too far.

—Rick Bowness, when Ziggy Palffy kissed teammate
Travis Green on the lips after a goal

* * * * *

I SPY

“When I look at the net I don't see a goalie.”

—Pavel Bure, Vancouver Canucks

“When I look at the net I see 2 or 3 goalies.”

—Radek Dvorak, right wing, Edmonton Oilers

How a bootlegger and a promoter brought hockey to the Big Apple.

A
lthough William Dwyer and Tex Rickard earned fortunes in very different businesses, the fabled characters of Roarin' Twenties Manhattan combined to bring hockey to the “big town,” New York, anchoring the game's U.S. success. An associate of crime giants Legs Diamond and Dutch Schultz, Dwyer was “the king of the bootleggers” during U.S. Prohibition. In 1925, Dwyer purchased the troubled Hamilton Tigers for $75,000 and moved the team to New York as the Americans. The Hamilton players had been suspended after hockey's first strike in the 1925 Stanley Cup playoffs when they were refused a $200 bonus for the postseason. Rickard was the legendary promoter and mastermind of the career of heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, who generated record sports gate receipts, notably for his bouts with Gene Tunney. Rickard was president of the new Madison Square Garden in New York, where the Americans played in their first season. In 1926, Rickard was prominent in the creation of the New York Rangers, the team name produced by a Rickard pun—Tex's Rangers.

NEW YORK DRYER IF NOT FOR DWYER

When the NHL admitted the Boston Bruins for the 1924–25 season, several other U.S. cities wanted franchises—but a team in New York was necessary to give the project a truly big-league look. The challenge was locating a potential owner. Dwyer “owned” ships, trucks, warehouses, nightclubs, a Miami casino and pieces of several racetracks, including one in Montreal. Backed by the mob, he controlled the gigantic illegal liquor business in New York, a town turned “dry” by prohibition. A Canadian friend, Bill MacBeth, who worked for a New York newspaper, convinced a skeptical Dwyer that hockey would be a success in the big town. But plans for a new Madison Square Garden did not include an ice surface because the man in charge, Rickard, saw it as a big boxing and concert location.

HOCKEY'S BABE RUTH

Two Montreal men, promoter Tom Duggan and Montreal Canadiens star Howie Morenz, placed a hockey core in the Big Apple. When Duggan figured hockey had big U.S. potential, he convinced the owners of the four financially struggling Canadian teams (Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton) to sell him three expansion franchises for $7,000 each. Duggan moved teams to Boston and Pittsburgh interests and pitched Rickard hard to place a team in New York. Box office success in Boston caught Rickard's interest, but the promoter always insisted that he made a trip to Montreal with a group of friends, including fabled writer Damon Runyon, to see the Canadiens and their young star Morenz only “to get that pest Duggan off my back about hockey.” One game with the electrifying Morenz in it was enough to sell Rickard on the game's potential as an attraction. He immediately tagged Morenz as “hockey's Babe Ruth” and an ice plant was included in suddenly revised Madison Square construction plans. On his new ice, Rickard insisted on a strong team that he did not finance.

THREATS FOR CHARITY

The NHL happened to have its first-place team from the previous season, the suspended Hamilton club, available because the players remained under suspension for their “strike.” Duggan sold his third franchise to Dwyer—they were co-owners of a racetrack in Cincinnati—and talked him into buying the entire Tiger roster for $75,000. That gave the Americans such top talent as forwards Billy Burch, Red and Shorty Green, defenceman Mickey Roach and goalie Jumpin' Jake Forbes. Proceeds from the opening MSG game—against, of course, the Canadiens—went to a New York hospital. Dwyer used strong-arm tactics on potential ticket-buyers, threatening to cut the liquor supply to his booze customers if they did not purchase hockey tickets.

BIG BILL WHO?

Two weeks before the opener, Dwyer was arrested, charged as the head of a multi-million dollar illegal liquor business and wide-ranging bribery of public officials. Madison Square Garden immediately said “Big Bill who?” when Dwyer's name was mentioned. He retained ownership of the Americans but Rickard was listed as
president. Although the Americans missed the playoffs in their first season, the franchise was a box office success. The players shared a Dwyer-owned hotel with various mobsters and were high-living celebrities in Manhattan. Top stars Burch and Forbes earned $10,000 for the season, a fortune compared to Morenz's $3,000 with the Canadiens.

TEX'S RANGERS

The NHL granted Rickard and MSG a franchise, the Rangers, for the 1926–27 season. The new team into its first season under team president Colonel John Hammond hired a young Toronto man named Conn Smythe, who had coached the University of Toronto team, to recruit the first roster. Smythe built an instant contender, acquiring 31 players for $32,000, including stars in goalie Lorne Chabot, defencemen Taffy Abel and Ching Johnson, and forwards Bill and Bun Cook, Frank Boucher, and Murray Murdoch. But before the season opened, Hammond fired Smythe, claiming he lacked the experience to run a big-league team, and hired Lester Patrick for a job he held until 1946. That inspired a vengeful Smythe to purchase the NHL Toronto St. Patricks, change the name to Maple Leafs, build Maple Leaf Gardens and create one of the most successful teams ever in pro sport.

BIG BILL HITS THE WALL

Dwyer avoided trial for two years while controlling the Americans, then in 1927 was sentenced to two years in an Atlanta penitentiary. He served a year, then was paroled to return to an NHL Board of Governors who wished he would disappear. Dwyer also continued his other “business” until the 1931 raid on a large Manhattan brewery co-owned by Dwyer and former public enemy number one Owney Madden. In a long prosecution, the government nailed Dwyer for $3.7 million in fines and back taxes.

The Americans qualified for the playoffs five times in their 17 seasons, once in the last ten years. The team, called the Brooklyn Americans for its last season, folded in 1942. The Rangers thrived under Rickard's promotional genius and Patrick's leadership as general manager and coach, winning the Stanley Cup in 1928 and 1933.

Well-traveled masked man's wisecrack led to a one-way ticket out of Canuckville.

L
ook up the term “free spirit” in an NHL dictionary and you just might find a portrait of journeyman goaltender Gary Smith. They called him “Suitcase,” and for good reason. Despite being a proficient puck-stopper capable of carrying an entire team's fortunes on his back, he certainly made his rounds, playing for eight different NHL teams during a 14-year career.

A NEW PLACE IN THE RECORD BOOKS

Smith did things his own way. He wore as many as 15 pairs of socks inside his goalie skates. He sometimes took showers between periods of games. He traveled stylishly on the road in a full-length lynx jacket. And he warmed to the social aspects of being a professional hockey player in the 1970s. “I led the league in hangovers,” he once told a Vancouver newspaper columnist. “Fourteen years, every day.”

In 1974–75, Smith was almost single-handedly responsible for the Vancouver Canucks making their first Stanley Cup playoff appearance. He recorded 32 wins, nine ties and six shutouts (that's 705 socks, 365 hangovers) and led an otherwise modestly talented team into the postseason where they gave the legendary Montreal Canadiens a tough series. But less than a year later, he was no longer a member of the organization.

WHEN THE BITE IS AS BAD AS THE BARK

During a team Christmas party in 1975, Smith was introduced to Emily Griffiths, wife of Canucks owner Frank Griffiths. Emily also happened to be the heiress to the Ballard pet-food fortune. “Gee, I see the resemblance on the can,” Smith supposedly said when the two were introduced. The next morning, an enraged Frank Griffiths called head coach Phil Maloney and told him to get rid of Smith, so Suitcase hit the road again.

Some of the unique fastests and longests in pro hockey.

H
OWE COULD YOU WAIT SO LONG?

Record:
Longest time a superstar player's parents waited to see him play in the NHL

Many successful athletes attribute their success to the unfailing support of parents, but according to Gordie “Mr. Hockey” Howe, his dad saw him play only about 10 times during his life. In fact, it took his parents 13 years to finally attend a game during his NHL career. On March 3, 1959, the Detroit Red Wings hosted a “Gordie Howe Night.” To celebrate, the team presented their high-scoring, hard-hitting star with a new car. Inside, to Gordie's surprise, were his parents, Catherine and Ab Howe.

HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES! SCORES! SCORES!

Record:
The fastest hat trick

Initially, the last game of the 1951–52 NHL season promised to be nothing special. The participating teams—the Chicago Black Hawks and the New York Rangers—were long since eliminated from playoff contention, so there was nothing riding on the game. The Rangers led 6–2 at the beginning of the third period and seemed to have the game well in hand. Then something special did happen: the Chicago line of Gus Bodnar, George Gee, and Bill Mosienko took over. Mosienko scored three goals in just 21 seconds—the shortest time in NHL history to score a hat trick. Chicago ultimately scored two more goals to take the game 7–6, but it was Mosienko's individual accomplishment that turned this meaningless match into one for the record books.

SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS

Record:
The longest passage of time between NHL games at one arena

It all began after the 1933–34 season when the original Ottawa Senators folded. The franchise moved south and became the
St. Louis Eagles, the first NHL team established west of the Mississippi. The team was terrible, though, and after one season of miserable hockey at the St. Louis Arena, the franchise folded for good. Fast-forward to 1967: St. Louis was named as one of the six lucky cities to gain a expansion franchise, and the St. Louis Blues brought NHL hockey back to the St. Louis Arena…32 years later.

WORTH THE WAIT

Record:
Longest time spent as a second-string goalie before becoming a superstar

In the golden era of the “Original Six” when there were only six teams in the NHL, jobs as a starting goalie were hard to come by. In Montreal, with the legendary Jacques Plante between the posts, a promotion for backup Canadiens netminder Charlie Hodge did not seem to be in the cards. So he loyally served as Plante's understudy for nine long seasons, a period during which he played just 59 NHL games. Hodge's big break came when Plante was traded to the New York Rangers in 1963. The following season, Hodge played in 62 games for Montreal, recording eight shutouts and finishing with a 2.26 goals average. He also won the Vezina Trophy as top goaltender.

BLINK AND YOU MISSED IT

Record:
The fastest two goals scored by opposing teams in a single game

This happened during a 1987 mid-season game between the St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins. St. Louis was leading 6–4 in the final minute and the Bruins had pulled their goalie for the extra attacker. Boston's Ken Linseman scored with 10 seconds left on the clock, and the Bruins gambled, taking the following face-off with their net still empty. The puck was dropped and came to St. Louis's Doug Gilmour, who took a quick, long slapshot…and scored. The time that lapsed between the two goals: two seconds.

He grew up big and he grew up tough He saw himself scoring for the Wings or Canucks But he wasn't all that good with a puck Buddy's real talent was beating people up His heart wasn't in it but the crowd ate it up

T
hey never played a minute in the NHL, but Detroit sports columnist and author Mitch Albom and the late musician Warren Zevon teamed up nicely to capture the essence of the enforcer in their tune “Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song).” Tough guy, goon, policeman, hired muscle. Whatever the nickname, the hockey enforcer is like no other animal in professional sport.