Mr. Hockey My Story (10 page)

In the off-season after my first year, I went back to Saskatoon. I’d missed Saskatchewan and it was great to come home. I spent time with family and friends, worked with my dad to stay in shape, and, of course, played baseball. As much as I enjoyed returning to my hometown for the summer, I remember that the best part was knowing that in a few months I’d be back playing hockey. My willingness to return to Detroit was a far cry from how things had been a few years earlier, when I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave Saskatoon at all. But I was now nineteen and playing professional hockey for the Detroit Red Wings. I couldn’t wait for the next season to begin.

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T
he first time I met Sid Abel, I was just a kid. He was playing for Moose Jaw and had come up to Saskatoon to play our hometown boys. When the bus pulled up, I asked him if I could carry his skates into the arena. It was a trick I used to get through the doors for free. Sid was good to me. He handed over his skates and we went inside. If my life story was a movie, it might seem a bit corny that the kind-hearted hockey player would one day become linemates with the ragamuffin rink rat from Saskatchewan. But at the beginning of the 1947–48 season, that’s exactly what happened.

Tommy Ivan, my old coach from Omaha, had been promoted to the big club. It was quite a shock to those who figured Mr. Adams would never cede control of the Red Wings. Until then, he was the only coach the team had ever known. But Tommy was a special case. He was just a little guy, but you wouldn’t know it by talking to him. He was quiet and serious and, when he looked at you, he felt much bigger than five foot five. His playing career didn’t amount to much, but he found his calling in coaching. Mr. Adams thought a lot of Tommy and moved him through the Red Wings system from Galt to Omaha to Indianapolis and then up to Detroit. I guess Mr. Adams felt he’d finally found someone he could trust with his hockey club. He moved into the front office full time and Tommy took over behind the bench. I think he was pretty happy with the spot he stepped into. We had Sid Abel, Ted Lindsay, Jim McFadden, Red Kelly, Marty Pavelich, Jack Stewart, Gerry Couture, Jim Conacher, Bill Quackenbush, Pete Horeck, Don Morrison, and Ed Bruneteau, among others. Not to mention a solid young goaltender, Harry Lumley, between the pipes.

On paper, we felt like our team was loaded with good players. When we hit the ice, it turned out we were right. I was still the
baby of the team at nineteen, but Marty Pavelich and Red Kelly, who joined us from Galt and St. Mike’s, were only twenty. Add in Lindsay, who was twenty-two, and it was nice to be with guys around my own age. We knew that combining our young corps of players with veterans like Abel set us up well not only for that season but also for years to come. In terms of my own career, the biggest move Tommy made that year was shuffling the lines around and putting me with Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay. It was a match made in heaven as far as I was concerned. The newspapers ended up calling us the “Production Line.” I didn’t know if it was because of the goals we scored or if it was a nod to Detroit’s auto industry. Maybe it was both. Either way, we became the team’s top line, with Sid at centre, me at right wing, and Ted on the left.

Sid, who was already a great player, seemed to know exactly where both Ted and I wanted to be. That might sound like a cliché, but it’s true. He had a real knack for seeing how a play was about to develop before it happened. Younger fans have probably heard the same thing said about players like Wayne Gretzky and Sidney Crosby. Well, Sid could anticipate a play in the same way. Our line clicked from the beginning, but we didn’t take it for granted. After practices, we spent countless hours running extra drills to improve on our natural chemistry. Once you reach the NHL, or become a professional in any sport, you learn that there’s a fine line between the top players and the average ones. If you want to make a real difference on the ice, you need to put in the work. I think the same probably holds true for players in any league, at any age. The repetitions we put ourselves through were endless. I can’t count the number of pucks Ted and I shot at Sid, who worked at finding just the right angles to tip them into the net. Looking back now, it’s satisfying to think about how our near-constant drills eventually paid off in games.

Our line finished one-three-four in team scoring that year. Ted led the way with 33 goals and 19 assists. Jim McFadden came in second with 24 goals and 24 assists. Sid and I were next in line with 44 points each, me with 16 goals and him with 14. Earlier in that season I also switched to wearing the number 9. When I joined the Red Wings, it had been Roy Conacher’s sweater, but he was dealt away near the beginning of the 1947–48 season. I didn’t mind wearing number 17, except for one thing. We traveled to away games by train. On overnight trips, the sleeper cars had twenty-four berths, a dozen spots on top and twelve down below. Bunks were assigned by sweater number, with lower digits getting the bottom beds. A trainer pointed out to me that by switching numbers I could get a lower berth and sleep more comfortably. I snatched up Conacher’s number straightaway. After spending most of my career as number 9, it feels strange to try to picture myself wearing a different number. It’s funny to think that, at the time, it was purely a practical decision.

Our early season predictions of success ended up coming true by the end of the year. We jumped up to second place, just 5 points behind the Maple Leafs. Come playoff time, we took care of New York in six games to reach the Stanley Cup finals. Once there we met the Leafs, who were the defending champions. They still had a good team, anchored by Syl Apps, Teeder Kennedy, and Turk Broda in net. As usual, they were a tight-checking, disciplined bunch. The experienced players in blue ended up trumping the young talent in red, beating us in four straight. But that’s the way hockey works. First you learn to play, then you learn to win.

The next year we put another good team on the ice. It was my third year in the league and the Production Line was starting to get rolling. Sid won the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player
and was named to the first All-Star team, along with defenseman Jack Stewart, while Ted and I were both named as Second Team All-Stars. I was fortunate to be selected despite fighting through a knee injury that season. In December, I had surgery to repair some torn cartilage, which cost me twenty games. Being on the shelf is always depressing, but in retrospect I can’t complain too much. It turned out to be the most games I ever missed in any one stretch in my career. I certainly had my share of injuries over the years, but I was lucky enough to play through most of them. After returning to the ice, I was eager to make up for lost time. I went on a bit of a tear to end the season, finishing with 12 goals and 25 assists in 40 games. The Red Wings topped the league in points for the first time since I’d joined the team in what would turn out to be seven straight seasons. As we headed into the playoffs, we felt as if momentum was on our side. For a while, it looked like it was. We beat Montreal in a tough seven-game series, which once again put us in the finals against the Maple Leafs. They’d had a rockier season that year, finishing fourth overall. Still, those damn Leafs managed to turn it on in the playoffs. They swept us in four games straight again. It was their third Stanley Cup in a row and we were sick of it. Getting swept once was bad enough, but having it happen in back-to-back years was like a punch to the gut. We were a proud group, and as we sat in the dressing room after our final loss of the season, we promised each other the next year would be different.

In 1949–50 we were on a mission. The taste of what it was like to play in the Stanley Cup finals was still fresh, and we knew we were good enough to finish the job. That season we again won the league championship, finishing 11 points clear of Montreal. I was twenty-one years old. It was my fourth year in the league and I felt like I’d turned the corner from being a raw kid with some
ability into a more complete hockey player. That year, the NHL also expanded the schedule to seventy games from sixty, which was fine by us. The members of the Production Line, who finished one-two-three in scoring, were happy to play as many games as we could. Ted led the way with 23 goals and 55 assists for 78 points. He also had 141 penalty minutes, more than twice as many as I was whistled at for that year. Sid was next, with 34 goals and 35 assists for 69 points, and I was one point behind him, notching 35 goals and 33 assists. My total that season was three points ahead of the Rocket, who finished fourth. Ted and Sid were picked as First Team All-Stars, while I was named to the second team along with teammates Red Kelly and Leo Reise Jr. Out of ten spots on the All-Star Team, five were filled by Red Wings. By the time the playoffs came around, we were certain that our talent was now steeped in enough experience to go all the way.

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T
he playoffs started on March 28, 1950. It was just three days before I turned twenty-two, but my birthday couldn’t have been further from my mind. We’d drawn the Leafs in the semifinals, which was fine with us. We were hungry for another crack at them after our previous playoff exits. As it happens, though, the best-laid plans often don’t work out the way you’d like. Once the puck dropped, game one was like déjà vu. The Leafs jumped out to a quick lead and were up 3–0 in the second period.

What happened next stirred up a controversy that lasted for years to come. Partway through the second period, Toronto center Teeder Kennedy was carrying the puck up his left wing. As I skated over to back-check, I was looking to anticipate his next move. I was closing in for the hit when I spotted the Leafs’ Sid Smith going
down the middle. I figured Kennedy would move the puck to Smitty, so I leaned forward with my stick to intercept the pass. I was coming in hard and the lean brought my face closer to the ice. When Kennedy followed through on his backhand, he caught me with his stick. I tried to close my eyes, but wasn’t quick enough. I went into the boards headfirst at an awkward angle. Some Detroit fans at the Olympia that night swore that Kennedy had sticked me on purpose. Some said it was even a butt-end. As for Teeder, he was adamant that his stick just grazed me, if anything. He maintained that he was simply trying to avoid a check and I lost my balance. As I recollect it, I believe his stick hit me, but I don’t blame him for it. He was just following through on a backhand and trying not to get hit. Hockey’s a fast game and sometimes things happen.

I can’t say I remember too much about what happened after I went into the boards. My teammates told me about it later, though. I’ve also seen the pictures, which aren’t pretty. The trainers rushed out to find me unconscious and bleeding. They wrapped some bandages around my head and loaded me onto a stretcher. By all accounts, Coach Ivan and my teammates weren’t having any of Teeder’s apologies. They took some runs at him to even things up, and apparently the rest of the series was pretty rough. My injuries included a broken nose, a fractured cheekbone, and a badly scraped eyeball. Most worrisome, though, was a serious concussion. Complications that arose from the swelling in my brain meant that staying alive was a bit touch and go for a while.

I was conscious enough to remember the ambulance ride from the Olympia to Harper Hospital. It was horrible. Every time we turned a corner I felt like throwing up. They kept telling me I was okay, but I had a persistent sensation of falling that made me nauseous. When we reached the hospital, they rushed me inside for
X-rays. The prognosis wasn’t good. Bleeding in my brain was causing pressure to build up in my skull. If it wasn’t relieved, there was a chance I would end up dead. They called in a good neurosurgeon, Dr. Frederick Schreiber, and he opted to drain the fluid building up in my brain by drilling a hole in my head. I was prepped and on the operating table by about 1
A.M.
, ready for Dr. Schreiber to perform trephine surgery. A trephine is a medieval-looking surgical instrument that resembles a corkscrew. Believe me, if you can avoid having a hole drilled in your skull by a trephine, I’d recommend it. I remember my head being strapped down to the operating table before they started. The only sensations I experienced during the procedure were the pressure and the noise. It’s not a sound you want to hear. My most vivid memory from the ninety-minute operation is hoping they’d know when to stop. After it was done, they didn’t want me to fall asleep (in case I didn’t wake up, I suppose), so they kept pricking my foot with a needle to keep me awake.

From what I understand, radio stations across Canada kept people updated on my condition throughout the night. By the next morning, I was still in rough shape, but it looked like I was out of the woods. When they finally allowed me to sleep, I was out for an entire day. By the time I came around, Mr. Adams had arranged for my mother and my sister Gladys to come down from Saskatchewan. It was a surprise to see them in Detroit, but I was happy they were there. The trip was my mother’s first airplane ride, and between that and her worrying about my injury, she was looking a bit the worse for wear. She was so pale that at one point I told her, “Oh hell, Mum. You take the bed.” She laughed, and I think that seeing I was well enough to joke helped to ease her mind. In the days after my surgery, all sorts of cards and packages arrived from all over Canada and the U.S. I was touched that so many people cared about my
well-being. I still am, in fact. With Gladys’s help, I tried to respond to every person who took the time to send me something.

As close as I came to shuffling off into the sunset at the tender age of twenty-one, I bounced back relatively quickly from the surgery. To this day, I’m still surprised by the speed of my recovery. As serious as my injury was, the timing also meant that I didn’t miss any regular season games. I was back on the ice and ready to go by the next training camp. The doctors did make me wear a leather helmet for a while, but I was so happy to be skating again that I agreed to it without much fuss. As for the Red Wings, they took care of business while I was in the hospital. It took seven games, but we finally beat the Leafs. In the Stanley Cup finals we were up against the Rangers, who had eliminated Montreal in five games in the other semifinals. It was a hard-fought series that went the distance. Pete Babando finally got the monkey off our backs when he scored in the second overtime of game seven. I was at the Olympia for the game and joined the celebration on the ice in my street clothes. I was happy we won, but I also remember feeling removed from the jubilation around me. I like to earn things, and I didn’t feel like I’d contributed that much to the victory. That said, after years of knocking on the door, the Red Wings had finally broken through. It was our first Stanley Cup together. It wouldn’t be our
last.