Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (40 page)

It was a few seconds of what happens in hockey all the time, but something was wrong: Schrott collapsed. At first his teammates didn't even respond, because nothing out of the ordinary appeared to have happened. (There wasn't even a penalty called.) When they did, Schrott wasn't breathing. By the time the team doctor finally got there—a few minutes later (he was in the dressing room)—Schrott was in cardiac arrest. The doctor tried CPR, but it was no use. Schrott was dead before the ambulance got him to the hospital. The cause of his death remains a mystery. An autopsy found no injuries, such as broken blood vessels or broken ribs, from the blow by Boni's stick. The only explanation anyone could come up with was that the stick must have hit Schrott's heart at exactly the wrong time in its cycle. This, the doctors said, can cause a disturbance to the heart's electrical impulses, and can cause a heart to stop beating.

Boni, a respected veteran in the league, was suspended for the rest of the season—and was charged with unintentional manslaughter. He faced up to 18 years in prison. Boni eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and didn't serve any time.

Hockey officials figure they've done good work when no one notices them, but many stayed sane one laugh at a time.

N
O DEATHS, NO STRESS

The Plager brothers—Barclay, Bob, and Billy—were rough and ready guys who frequently stepped outside the rule-book in their playing careers. They should have been familiar with the legislation governing hockey because their father, Gus, was a longtime referee of the game at amateur levels in northern Ontario. After a Stanley Cup playoff game during his days with the St. Louis Blues when he and his mates had received a fat share of the penalties, Bob Plager said he wished his father had officiated the game. Asked to explain what his dad would have done differently than the NHL referee who handled it, Plager placed his tongue in his cheek: “His approach in the playoffs, that's why,” Plager said. “Gus always said he had a motto in the playoffs when the teams should decide the outcome, not the zebras. No autopsy, no penalty—that's how Gus said he decided the calls when a lot was on the line.”

THREE CHEERS FOR THE REF?

Obviously, Gus Plager wanted to keep his nose out of the action if possible, giving the players plenty of leeway. Most men with the whistles in the NHL take that approach, especially in big games, by only calling the severe fouls. Others crack down from the start and when they feel they're in control of the game, allow the players to produce the final result. Many of the game's “characters” wore striped shirts and cracked funny lines when away from the rink. Often players on the ice would be seen smiling, even laughing, and the inspiration for the glee was a comedy routine from the referees or linesmen. One complaint many officials had was that they never played a home game. Their traveling schedule was hectic, either traveling alone or in company with the other officials. That's why the majority of men with whistles are easygoing, friendly guys—being laid-back a necessity in a stressful occupation.

THE HAROLD BALLARD OF REFEREEING

George Hayes was that way, a linesman with a zest for life that often landed him in trouble with superiors who wanted him to toe the line a little more than he did. Hayes was a large chap from Ingersoll, Ontario, who had a 19-season career, feuding almost nonstop with NHL president Clarence Campbell, himself a former referee. Hayes once ended a discipline session by threatening to heave the NHL referee-in-chief off a moving train. When the NHL launched an insurance program for officials, Hayes refused to contribute. When the league enrolled him anyway as part of his contract, an angry George made his dog Pete the beneficiary.

Hayes was ordered by Campbell to take an eye test but he refused, telling the president that his eyes were perfect because he could read the label on every bottle in the Montreal bar favored by the officials for a post-game libation. NHL rules stated that officials were to travel first class on trains and sleep in a berth. Hayes preferred day coach and could sleep in a seat, pocketing the difference between coach and first class. Hayes always scoffed at the idea that he would be voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. But soon after his death, 22 years after his 1965 being fired by Campbell, Hayes was elected to the Hall.

CLANCY KING OF MARBLEHEADS

King Clancy spent close to 70 years in the NHL as an Ottawa Senators player, then as a player and executive with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He also was a top NHL referee, a job that he turned into as much fun as he did everything else in his life. One of the game's great storytellers, the King loved to spin yarns about his time as an official, especially his exchanges with fans. One man Clancy knew was a Toronto doctor who had rail (front) seats, and the absence of the glass on the sideboards made it easy for the man to berate the official. One night, the doc yelled at Clancy that he had never seen anyone be wrong so often. “You could be right, Doc, but at least I don't bury my mistakes,” Clancy shot back. Anyone named Clancy had to be big in Boston, where the King was needled mercilessly by his fellow Irishmen. “There was one guy with a great set of Irish lungs who often let fly at me,” Clancy said. “His favorite was: ‘Clancy, we named a town in New England after you. We called it Marblehead.'”

BUTTRESSED BY EVIDENCE

Before sideboard glass was installed in Chicago, referee Clancy scrambled up to sit on the boards out of the way of flying bodies. A lady in a rail seat stuck a hatpin into his backside and said, “How does that feel, smart guy?” Clancy went to the Black Hawks management and told them that if the lady wasn't tossed out of the Stadium, he would refuse to finish the game: “I had the proof—a hatpin in my butt—and the lady was ejected.”

A BARB FOR BARBER

Don Koharski, a top NHL referee in the 1970s, could ease the tension in a tight game with his humor. That showed in one of Koharski's first NHL assignments in Philadelphia during the late days of the brawling Broad Street Bullies. Philly winger Bill Barber was rated as the best diver in the league, capable of turning an innocuous play into an elaborate pratfall. He decided to test the young official's judgement and a small hit became a large sprawl. Koharski skated over the prone Barber, looked down and said, “I hate to tell you this, son, but the pool is frozen over.”

LAST CALL

The Flyers, who brawled their way to Stanley Cup titles in 1974 and 1975, were not big favorites of the officials. Their fights and brawls meant a lot of work for the linesmen breaking up the battles, and a challenge for the referees to keep control. Flyer games could run as long as four hours because of the scraps and their constant arguments about penalties.

Referee John Ashley was working a game in Vancouver in which the hometown Canucks and the Flyers had fought almost nonstop from the opening faceoff. The Flyers had a win locked up with a minute to play when Flyers coach Fred Shero sent out his number-one goon, Dave “The Hammer” Schultz, who was yapping at a Canuck as if trying to initiate fistic combat. Spying Schultz, Ashley skated to the Flyer bench and said to coach Fred Shero, “Freddie, what are you doing? If this one lasts much longer, we're going to miss last call at all the bars. Get that guy off the ice so we can get a cold one before everything is closed.” A chap who enjoyed a post-game pop or two, Freddy the Fog replaced the Hammer before any game-extending trouble could start.

Wayne Maki's brutal stick attack on Ted Green heralded an era of senseless violence through the 1970s.

T
he 1969–70 NHL season had many highlights. Longtime goalie Terry Sawchuk played his final season (for the New York Rangers). Chicago Black Hawks rookie netminder Tony Esposito totalled 15 shutouts and 38 wins, both NHL highs. Boston Bruins defencemen Bobby Orr won the Hart, Norris, Art Ross and Conn Smythe trophies, the only time the feat has been accomplished in NHL history. But another more ominous incident happened during this particular season: St. Louis Blues left-winger Wayne Maki hit Bruins defenceman Ted Green in the head with his stick during a September 21, 1969 match in Ottawa. Green received a compound skull fracture that required a steel plate to be inserted in his head by surgeons.

TERRIBLE TED TAKEN DOWN

What happened to cause the Green-Maki stick fight? In the first period, Maki rushed Green during a scrum near the Boston net. Green was able to get one of his hockey-gloved hands free and pushed it in Maki's face. Before he fell, Maki speared Green in the stomach. “Terrible Ted,” as Green was known, then swung his stick and nailed Maki on the shoulder. When Green turned to skate away, Maki cracked him over the head with his stick, sending the helmet-less Green down for the count. After the game, a number of Bruins went to visit Green at the hospital where he was taken for evaluation. Teammate Ed Westfall later remembered that “There was even a rumor that he was dead.”

LIFE GOES ON…AND DOESN'T

Both Green and Maki were arrested and slapped with assault-with-attempt-to-injure charges. Both were eventually acquitted in separate trials, but NHL President Clarence Campbell suspended Green for 13 games and Maki for 30 days, both without pay.
Green took one year off to recuperate, then came back to play two more seasons for the Bruins before joining the WHA. He was later an assistant coach for the Edmonton Oilers during their Stanley Cup–winning dynasty years of the 1980s, and their head coach for a short time in the early 1990s. Maki played two years for the Vancouver Canucks before being diagnosed with brain cancer in 1972 and dying two years later at the tragically young age of 29.

THE SICK SEVENTIES

This attempted slaughter with sticks was just the beginning of the Sick Seventies, probably the most violent decade in the history of the NHL. Some of these nauseous events were:

• Boston's Dave Forbes hitting Minnesota North Star Henry Boucha in the eye with his stick during a 1975 match.

• Marc Tardif of the WHA's Quebec Nordiques being cross-checked by the Calgary Cowboys' Rick Jodzio for no apparent reason. As Tardif lay unconscious on the ice, Jodzio punched him in the face…with both fists…several times. Really.

• A 1976 playoff game at Maple Leaf Gardens between the Maple Leafs and Philadelphia Flyers that got so out of control that a Flyer would hit a female usher in the head with a stick and a total of four Flyers would be charged with assault.

• A playoff game in 1974 between the Flyers and the New York Rangers in which Flyer Dave Schultz beat up the Rangers' Dale Rolfe with such abandon that Rolfe's own teammates were afraid to come to his rescue.

• In hindsight, it seems inevitable that a physical and intense game like hockey could erupt into a period of such violence. The important thing is that the NHL made it through this tunnel; the sport was even better once it came out on the other side.

* * * * *

“Hockey is the only job I know where you get paid to have a nap on the day of the game.”

—Chico Resch, former New York Islanders goaltender

The goalie is the hero of every successful Stanley Cup contender.

T
he subject was goaltenders and the late King Clancy, who had seen many of the great ones in his 60 years as a National Hockey League player, coach, referee and executive, summed up succinctly the matter of rating the men in the nets. “Talk to a half-dozen hockey men about who was the best goalie they had seen, especially in the playoffs, and if you got two answers the same, it was a miracle,” Clancy said. “I've heard more arguments about which goalie was the best than any other subject in hockey.” That's why attempting to rate the greatest goalies, schedule or playoffs, is a tricky business…

LORD STANLEY'S PRESSURE COOKER

The Stanley Cup tournament is a tremendous testing ground for goalies, the time when the pressure is squarely on their shoulders as the last line of defence. At various times in Cup history, winning goalies have had to play as few as four games, then the maximum was 14 over two series for many years, eventually stretching to a possible 28 games over four series in the modern 30-team league. As an example, the seven-game 2004 Stanley Cup between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Calgary Flames capped the postseason brilliance of two European goalies: Nikolai Khabibulin of the Lightning and the Flames' Mikka Kiprusoff. The Lightning won their first Cup by a score of 2–1 in game seven. In 23 playoff games, Khabibulin recorded the necessary 16 wins with a goals-against average of 1.71 per game, while Kiprusoff fell one win short and in 26 postseason contests, his average was a comparably stellar 1.85.

THE GREAT BOUSE

In attempting to rate playoff goalies, it would have helped if one had watched J. B. “Bouse” Hutton at work, if for nothing else but to find out about that nickname. Bouse was the goalie for the Ottawa Silver Seven, winners of the Stanley Cup in 1903, 1904
and 1905. Or how about Hugh Lehman, goalie for the Cup-champion Vancouver Millionaires in 1915 and a chap who participated in eight Cup challenges with a variety of teams? Or Georges Vezina, the “Chicoutimi Cucumber,” keeper for two Montreal Canadien Cup winners, father of 22 children and the man for whom the NHL's top goalie trophy is named? Then there's Hap Holmes, who played on three Cup winners in five years from 1914–1918. But they are merely names from the far distant past, men remembered in the record books and those old Hall of Fame photos. Measuring their performances against the playoff marathons of modern goalies is a difficult task.