Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (21 page)

But the mountains of rubber rats were so disruptive to the progress of games that the NHL made a rule prohibiting the ritual, and by the time the Panthers moved to a new arena in 1998, the tradition had faded altogether. Mellanby himself later said he regretted that the one real rat that started it all was harmed: “I did apologize to the animal rights activists,” he said. “I didn't mean to kill the rat. I just reacted.”

* * * * *

COME AGAIN?

For those who thought that baseball legend Yogi Berra cornered the market on puzzling sports double-talk, consider the words of Jean Perron, former coach of the Montreal Canadiens and Quebec Nordiques
:

“I think that we took care of the issue at the beginning of the end of last season.”

“The day when the Nords will stop losing, they'll win much more often.”

“The Nordiques should trade to get some rookies with experience.”

“This type of injury is very painful. Especially when it hurts.”

“When Stephane Richer plays as per his talent, he could play with both eyes tied to his back.”

“We're finally starting to see the train at the end of the tunnel.”

The award to the top U.S. college hockey player honors the first great American puckster and flying ace Hobey Baker.

H
obey Baker could have been a character created by a fiction writer: a handsome, dashing, risk-taking member of a wealthy Philadelphia family who became an exceptional hockey player and a World War I flying ace. But that's exactly what Baker was, the first homegrown star of U.S. hockey, and exactly why the annual award for the top player in U.S. college hockey carries his name.

HOBEY KNOWS HOCKEY

From 1910 to 1914, Baker used his formidable athletic ability to captain both the football and hockey teams at Princeton. He was an excellent running back and, newspaper reports from that time claim, even better at hockey as a rover with dazzling speed and agility and splendid stickhandling. When he led Princeton to an undefeated season in his sophomore year and scored 92 points, Baker drew big crowds everywhere the team played.

HOME OF THE BRAVE

When Baker graduated, the pros were eager to sign him. But he didn't want to leave the east to join the Portland Rosebuds, and not even a salary of $3,500 could lure him to the Montreal Wanderers. Because money was no problem, he joined the amateur St. Nick's team in New York, a good club that beat a few top Canadian sides in exhibitions. When World War I started, Baker trained as a fighter pilot and was among the first members of the fabled Lafayette Escadrille Squadron that was shipped to France in 1917. He painted his one-seat Spad fighter orange and black Princeton colors and was as natural at airborne dog fights as he was at hockey. Bakey is credited with shooting down three German planes.

ONE LAST FLIGHT

When the war ended Baker was at loose ends without flying or
sports. A month after the armistice, he drove to the airfield and said he was going “on one last flight.” He reached 2,000 feet when the engine went dead and his efforts to glide back to base failed. The plane crashed and Baker died at age 26. But the memories of him are preserved in an impressive trophy.

* * * * *

“I just don't know what to think. I play in Colorado, they tell me they like me, and I get traded. I play in Calgary, and at the end of the season the GM tells me he likes me, and I get traded. I just hope my fiancée doesn't tell me she likes me.”

—Chris Drury, forward, Buffalo Sabres,
Colorado Avalanche, Calgary Flames

“We have to get families back in the game, get back where Saturday night, everything stops. A case of beer comes out and a bottle of rye and anyone who comes to the house, they better want to watch hockey.”

—Bobby Hull

* * * * *

THE UPSIDE OF CONCUSSIONS

“One good thing is that when I forget something, maybe I could tell my wife that it's brain damage.”

—Murray Eaves, the Minnesota North Stars forward
after a second concussion in 3 months

* * * * *

“Listen fellas. I've got to tell you this. I'm not the greatest coach in the world. But if you look around this room you'll see that I don't have the greatest players either.”

—Bernie Geoffrion, former coach,
New York Rangers and Atlanta Flames

Uncle John goes to Florida to find out how they manage to keep the ice frozen in that heat.

F
REEZING IN FLORIDA

If a city is granted an NHL franchise, it naturally must have an arena to host said club. How much would a city have to shell out to build, from scratch, an NHL arena? According to 2005 economics, the price tag would range from 200 to 250 million American dollars.

A good chunk of that money would go to the building and maintenance of the ice surface and its necessary parts. Mandatory NHL ice arena building figures, for all rinks, are that they be 200 feet long, 85 feet wide, and that each “corner” (though technically there are no corners) have a 28-foot radius. International hockey arenas are the same length, but are 100 feet wide. But how is an NHL ice surface built? How does the ice stay frozen? To answer these and other questions, Uncle John caught up with Ken Friedenberger, Director of Facility Operations (that is, ice maintenance) for the St. Petersburg Times Forum, home of the 2004 Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning.

Friedenberger explains: First comes a sand and gravel base; then comes another sand and gravel base to prevent permafrost (perpetually frozen subsoil). “Permafrost,” said Ken, “will eventually crack the piping and turn it into a big mess, which would look like spaghetti.”

A WHOLE LOTTA ANTIFREEZE

“The piping” Friedenberger mentions might be the most important part of the building. A massive chilled concrete slab, with five to ten miles of antifreeze-filled piping in it, keeps the ice frozen. In Tampa the pipe is made of steel, though it can be made of other materials (high-density plastic, for one). “Our concrete is 60,000 pounds per square inch, which is very dense,” said Friedenberger. In Tampa the antifreeze is chilled by two massive air-conditioning units, generating about 200 tons of refrigeration. Some NHL rinks have as much as 300 to 400 tons of coolant.

HOCKEY'S LIFEBLOOD

Just as blood must continually flow through a person's veins, an NHL arena must have this antifreeze (or other forms of coolant; brine water was commonly used until it was discovered that the salt corroded piping) constantly flowing through its pipes so that the ice does not melt. The water is processed through the piping so that the surface of the concrete is below 32°F—the temperature at which water freezes.

TWENTY-FOUR LAYERS OF GOODNESS

Players skate on ice, not concrete, so now comes the long process of putting layers of ice atop the concrete. “Here in Tampa we have 24 layers of ice. Each NHL arena will be different, according to what temperature each arena is kept at, as well as other factors,” explained Ken. The first layers of ice in Tampa atop the concrete are “50 percent city water and 50 percent de-ionized water,” stated Friedenberger. “This seems to cause very little ‘snow' [from skate blades] and the ice holds up well. Some cities use well-water, others different forms of water. Each NHL arena has its own mixture.”

KEEP IT COOL

The first layer of ice is given time to freeze on the concrete. Then the other layers of ice can be produced. At the home rink of the Lightning, six to eight new layers of ice are put down before the lines are painted. Each layer of ice varies in depth. When all of this is finished, the ice surface temperature runs between 22°F and 26°F. “We like to keep the temperature in the Forum anywhere from 60°F to 63°F with about 40 percent relative humidity. That's about what everybody in the NHL does,” Ken said.

AND FINALLY, THE ZAMBONI

Zamboni machines resurface the ice before practices and between periods. Once the entire ice surface system is built, the chief duty of NHL ice maintenance folks is to keep the system operational. It is an unfortunate twist of fate that NHL ice maintenance chiefs' work—like that of referees—only gets noticed when a mistake or problem occurs.

How a hockey coach was intimidated by Gordie Howe even when Ol' Elbows was wearing his pajamas.

H
arry Neale spins the story with a smile and respect in his voice for the man many feel is hockey's greatest, Gordie Howe. Neale, who had a solid career as a college, junior, WHA and NHL coach and manager, was 40 when he coached Howe with the WHA New England Whalers in 1977–78.

STILL A FORCE AT FIFTY

Howe realized his longtime dream of playing with his sons Marty and Mark when he ended a two-year retirement from the Detroit Red Wings and joined the WHA Houston Aeros. The Aeros won the WHA playoff title in 1974 and 1975 with the Howe family in a prominent role. After two more seasons the Houston club, losing money despite on-ice success, allowed the Howe gang to shift to the Whalers, based in Hartford, Connecticut. “Coaching Gordie—a hockey legend and a wonderful man, a force on the ice at 50—was a great experience,” Neale said. “He intimidated people, including me, even when I couldn't see him.”

DEPRIVING AN OLD MAN OF SLEEP

The Whalers had a veteran club, players with considerable hockey mileage, who, occasionally, enjoyed life's pleasures well into the evening. Late in the season when the team had a shot at catching the leading Winnipeg Jets, Neale wanted his club at its best in an important game.

“I had no bed checks that season but a few guys stretched the late-night thing a bit and we needed the two points, so I told them I would drop in at 10:30 the night before the game,” Neale said. “I checked some rooms—everyone was in—then I found myself at the door of Gordie's room. Cripes, I was like a grade three teacher on a field trip and I was checking a kid ten years older than me. I stood there a minute or two, raised my hand to
knock but couldn't make my knuckles hit the door. I must have put my hand up a half dozen times but I just couldn't do it. So I left and went to bed.

“The next morning at breakfast, Gordie said to me, ‘Where the hell were you last night? I thought there was a bed check so I stayed up to answer the door. If I knew you weren't coming, I'd have been in bed at nine.'”

* * * * *

BLOOD SPORT

“This is the most excited you can be as a hockey player. As much as you hate a team like Colorado, you love to play 'em. The juices will be boiling, and the blood will be flowing. Let's clarify that; flowing through your body. Not on the ice.”

—Kris Draper, 2004 Selke Trophy winner

(Best Defensive Forward)

“It's going to be good to be on his side for a change. I'll save a lot of energy since I don't have to concentrate on whacking him. I'm pretty excited about that.”

—Doug Gilmour on playing with
Blackhawks teammate Chris Chelios

“The hockey lockout of 1994–1995 has been settled. They have stopped bickering…and can now get down to some serious bloodshed!”

—Conan O'Brien, host, “Late Night with Conan O'Brien”

“The people who yell and scream about hockey violence are a handful of intellectuals and newspapermen who never pay to get in to see a game. The fans, who shell out the money, have always liked good, rough hockey.”

—Don Cherry

“If I get run into again, I'm taking someone with me. I lost one knee. I'll take a head if it happens again.”

—Grant Fuhr, goaltender,
Edmonton Oilers

During the Cold War, many of the greatest hockey players in the world were hidden (from North Americans) behind the Iron Curtain.

T
he Cold War lasted from the end of World War II to 1989. It was at its frostiest in the 1950s, when the political powers of America and the former Soviet Union were continuously bickering. The 1950s were also the decade when North America would first hear rumblings of the “superpower” of Soviet hockey.

THAT'S RUSSIAN FOR “USSR”

The Soviet teams, with their familiar red and white “CCCP” uniforms and their
helmets
(the Soviets caught onto their usefulness a little earlier than we did), were led in the 1950s by superstar left-winger Vsevolod Bobrov. In 130 Soviet league games from 1946 to 1957, Bobrov somehow managed to pick up 254 goals! He was 6'1”, weighed 185 pounds and had precise control of both his slap and wrist shots. Like 1990s Russian sniper Pavel Bure, Bobrov could stickhandle at top speed, which happened to be rocket speed, and he always wanted to have the puck. After he retired, Bobrov became a hockey coach, for decades, in Moscow.