The Goal of My Life (17 page)

The generations of players that have come along since I retired are also outstanding – particularly Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Paul Coffey – but when you think about the players I faced like Orr, Sawchuk, Howe, Hull, Beliveau, et cetera, they were truly legendary players.

I guess I should say a few more words about Gordie Howe, the greatest player I ever played with. His nickname, Mr. Hockey, basically says it all. Howe was such a talented player and tremendous goal scorer, but it was the physical element of his game that separated him from the rest. Frankly, everybody was afraid of him, and with good reason – if you crossed him, he was liable to take your head off with one of those patented elbows of his!

Gordie loved playing the game, which explains why he played it for so long. He never gave up. I played against him in the
WHA
, and he played better at age fifty-one than he did
when he was in his mid-thirties. He really was amazing.

When we were playing the Russians in Moscow in 1974, some guy took a run at Marty Howe, one of Gordie’s sons. I watched it happen and thought immediately, This is not going to be good for you, buddy! Gordie took his number, and the next time they were on the ice together, Gordie gave him a two-hander across his forearm. The next day, the Russian player showed up at the arena with his arm in a cast. That was Gordie Howe – he took no prisoners, especially if you went after one of his sons.

He was feared because he could be so mean. Guys really tiptoed around him, just tried to stay out of his way, because if you got him riled up, it could be very dangerous for you. When he first came into the
NHL
, he went out of his way to beat the hell out of the two toughest guys on every team he faced. He made a point of it, just to tell everyone, “Don’t mess with me,” but it was the Red Wings who finally told him to knock it off because they needed him on the ice, not in the penalty box.

I was really leery of him after I got traded from Detroit to Toronto. He was notorious for giving it to former teammates – Pit Martin was a target after he was dealt to Boston and then Chicago – but he never gave me one of his infamous elbow shots, a fact for which I am eternally grateful, by the way!

Gordie did a lot for the game, but he didn’t do anything for players’ salaries. It was guys like him who kept salaries down because money was never a motivating factor for him – he just wanted to play. He never negotiated aggressively, although he could have asked for anything and, as the best player in the game, probably would have received it. Sid
Abel, the general manager and coach of the Wings for most of Gordie’s prime years, was his former linemate and a longtime buddy. You’d think he might have told Gordie on the sly at some point that he could have earned much more money, but it was a business, and if Howe wasn’t asking for a lot, well, the Red Wings sure weren’t going to argue too much. I often wonder if some general managers got a bonus from their owners if they found a way to sign a player for as little as possible. It sure appeared to be the case at times, especially when it came to Howe.

Still, Gordie’s place as one of the best players ever is secure – even though he didn’t get paid nearly what he was worth throughout his legendary career.

Frank Mahovlich was another great player of a different sort. He was a very thoughtful guy, always introspective and keenly interested in learning. Not your typical
NHL
player. He always had an inquisitive mind and strong opinions about everything, which sometimes caused him to be a little misunderstood.

Even though he was an introvert, at times he could be very outgoing and friendly. You never knew which Frank you were going to get. He did march to a different drummer at times – in 1972, he didn’t come with us to Sweden, for instance – but all in all he was a good teammate. He was so talented on the ice, and he had a really heavy shot.

Opposing goaltenders hated to face him because he could drill a shot and have it past them before they knew what had happened. And boy, when he wanted to turn it on, he could really go. But he struggled at times in Toronto under the intense spotlight and was often unhappy. As a result, he
played some of his best hockey outside of Toronto, including a few impressive years in Montreal, during which he helped the Canadiens win a pair of Stanley Cups. He really enjoyed playing there, and playing with his brother Peter must have been very satisfying for them both.

I remember seeing him in Montreal once after he was traded, and he had the biggest smile on his face as he greeted me. “I feel like a kid again,” he told me. Clearly, playing in Toronto for Punch Imlach wasn’t for him, and getting out of there was the best thing that ever happened to him.

It did surprise me that he became a senator. But I can tell you that Frank Mahovlich treats that position with the utmost respect, and he does the very best job he can do. Frank is just too honourable a man not to give everything he has to every task he undertakes.

He was misunderstood often, but I have a lot of respect for him as a hockey player and a person. Still do, to this very day.

The name Tim Horton is known to many people today because of the coffee-and-doughnut chain. But the hockey player whose name is on those stores was a great one, and one of the strongest men I have ever met.

He was always doing curls and working on his powerful body. And the stories about him knocking down doors – all true, let me tell you. I’ve seen it happen!

Tim would have a few drinks and walk around the hotel, knocking on doors, looking to be invited into the other players’ rooms. If he knocked on your door, you’d better let him in or else the door would come off its hinges. He would fire his huge chest against the door and break it down! And,
of course, the unlucky occupants of the room would be the ones who had to pay for the damage, so whenever Tim knocked on our door, nobody ever told him to get lost. You did the smart thing and opened the door and let him in!

His death in a car accident in 1974 shocked the hockey world. I was with him the night he died. It was just after a game at Maple Leaf Gardens, when he was playing for the Buffalo Sabres. Eleanor, Tim, and I were walking back to our cars, which were parked in the players’ parking lot a couple of blocks north of the Gardens on Church Street. With us was George McLagan, who worked for
Hockey Night in Canada
at the time.

We said our goodbyes, and hours later Tim was killed when he crashed his sports car on the way back to Buffalo. Eerily, less than a month later, George also died suddenly when he suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in his own car in his garage.

Both were cases of sad ends to great lives. Tim is still missed, and he won’t be forgotten by those who knew him and his amazing strength.

There have been many tragic figures in the history of hockey, and former Leaf Brian “Spinner” Spencer is right at the top of the list.

Spencer was a good guy, but he was also a little different. He had a tough start to his life, and maybe he never got over that, but his brother became a commercial fisherman and a real solid citizen, so it wasn’t all about upbringing, obviously.

Spinner was definitely off the wall, maybe even a little crazy. Other guys on the team tried to help him, as did I. But no matter what anyone did, he seemed destined to come to
a sad ending. He was just a wild man – he couldn’t get himself under control.

Once, after he had joined the New York Islanders, several of us met up with him in a club, and he had a .45-calibre gun in his jacket. That’s the kind of weapon that could really cause some destruction. Nobody could possibly need to have something like that on them, but Spencer carried it with him, even in public. Once, Spinner’s wife stayed over with Eleanor when we were on a road trip with the Leafs (the players’ wives would often do that while we were away), and Eleanor discovered that
she
had a gun under her pillow while she slept! She didn’t even seem to think it was a big deal when Eleanor found out; she just thought she needed it for safety and it was a good idea. Eleanor obviously didn’t think it was a very good idea.

Brian and I played together for a couple of seasons on the Leafs. Spinner was then picked up by the New York Islanders, then traded to Buffalo and later to Pittsburgh. He didn’t have a lot of talent, but he played with great heart and passion and was a good teammate.

His father made headlines when he tried to take over a
TV
station in British Columbia in order to get them to broadcast a Leafs game that Brian was playing in. He was killed by police officers in that incident.

When he could no longer play hockey, the lack of structure that comes with the hockey life caused his life to fall apart. He wound up living in a trailer in a Florida swamp and was charged with murder but acquitted.

He came and saw me in my office after that and asked me if I could help him find a job. His body was too banged up from his hockey career to do physical labour, but he was
thinking of returning to Toronto or maybe Buffalo to try to restart his life. I told him to stay clean and keep away from drugs and I’d try to help, as I had a lot of connections in business and figured I could find him something. I know he also asked Rick Martin and Darryl Sittler for assistance at that time.

I told him I’d look around, and to stay in touch. But he just couldn’t stay away from certain shady individuals, and about a month after I saw him, Brian “Spinner” Spencer was murdered.

When he died, the saddest thing was that it didn’t surprise anybody. It really was a horrible shame, but it wasn’t unexpected by any of us, which says a lot about how he was living his life.

It was hard to understand what was going through Spinner’s head, but I do understand how even a professional athlete, someone who you think has everything going for them, can still be so unhappy. It’s not just true of hockey players, it’s true of anyone who has a lot of success in life. The popular assumption is that success will bring you happiness, or that being wealthy will bring you happiness. It just doesn’t work that way. You have to learn how to handle life, both the good and the bad. And it’s how you handle adversity and success that will define you. We’ll all have success and failure at various points of our lives, and we need to learn how to handle both. Brian just couldn’t handle life.

I know it’s often difficult. The older I get, the more questions I seem to have about life – and the fewer answers. But over the years I’ve developed a lot more compassion for people who struggle, like Spinner. A lot of people who fall have nobody to pick them up, and unless you’ve walked in someone’s shoes you really don’t know what they’re going through.

I tried to help Brian, and now I try to help anyone who is in need the best I can. When I used to see beggars on the street, I’d never give them anything, always thinking, Why don’t you get a job and get off the streets? But now I always do. I finally realized that many of these people begging could never find a job because of mental health issues. Eleanor and I now give significant money to charities and will continue to do so. We have been so blessed and fortunate, and we have never regretted helping others who are in need.

There are lots of reasons why people’s lives unravel, but drugs, alcohol, and abuse are three of the main causes. They were a big part of Spinner’s problems. All I know is that I’ve never met anybody who has said, “Gee, I’m really glad I was hooked on drugs” – or booze, for that matter.

We tried to help players in our day, and there is even more help available for them now. The National Hockey League Players’ Association and the league are really trying to assist players with problems, and the people who run junior hockey are trying to do their part as well. It’s a different ballgame now; they have some pretty good programs and it’s much, much better than it was when Spencer played. Who knows whether he might have been able to be helped if he were playing in today’s era? People have to admit that they have a problem first, and then ask for help – that’s all there is to it. And a lot of them don’t ask for help soon enough. That was true then and it’s still true today. Whether it’s Brian Spencer or one of the players who have struggled with demons in recent times, you have to want to be helped before anybody can help you.

Even in the midst of the most pressure-filled games and stressful times, you have to be able to laugh. When you were around a guy like Jim McKenny, you couldn’t help but do so.

McKenny was – and still is – one of the funniest guys you are ever going to meet. He had the perfect sense of humour and knew the exact time to whip out that wit.

One time we were in the dressing room of the old Philadelphia Spectrum, and the mood was pretty tense. Back in those days, the Flyers were known as the Broad Street Bullies, and you knew that when you went in to play them there, you were going to get pounded. It’s where the term “Philadelphia flu” comes from, as a lot of players came down with the malady just before they had to play the Flyers.

We were sitting in the dressing room before the game one night, and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Our trainer, Guy Kinnear, walked in with some equipment and said, “It’s as quiet as a morgue in here!”