The Goal of My Life (18 page)

Without missing a beat, McKenny came right back with a line that had us all howling on the floor.

“You’d be quiet too,” McKenny said, “if you knew you were going to die in a half an hour.”

It had us in stitches – probably because it captured perfectly the way most of us were feeling! It loosened us up to the point where we went out and played a great game, getting a rare 4–2 win over the Flyers in their own building. And nobody had to die to get the two points either.

A well-placed joke or a good line really takes the steam out of a pressure-filled situation. McKenny was one of the best guys for that.

I’ve seen and played with a lot of great players over the years, but when you think of competitive and intense players, Ted Lindsay would certainly come to mind very quickly.

His nickname was “Terrible Ted,” and it was appropriate. He was just a little guy really, never weighed more than 175 pounds, but he sure was tough and never took a backward step when he was on the ice.

I remember one night in 1964 when Ted had come out of retirement after four years away from the game, when we were playing the Montreal Canadiens at home. Ted Harris of the Habs was a tall and rugged defenceman and a good fighter, but that didn’t bother Lindsay. Ted challenged him that night and more than held his own, despite giving away at least three inches and thirty pounds, and he was pushing forty by then! But Lindsay only knew one way to play the game and that was at full blast, all out, even when he was at the tail end of his great career.

There were a lot of nights where a lot of guys just didn’t want to play against Ted Lindsay, and who could blame them. It helped him to play with Gordie Howe for a lot of his career – a big guy who would come calling if there was any trouble. But Ted played with the persistence of a rattlesnake, took no prisoners, and never feared anybody out there.

Off the ice, Ted was just a terrific guy, a well-mannered man and gracious as can be. He was a wonderful teammate and one of the great wingers in the history of the game.

Similar to Ted Lindsay, John Ferguson was as nice a man off the ice as you could want to meet. He was actually kind of shy.

On the ice, though, look out! Something happened to John when he got out there. His eyes would glaze over and he’d
turn into one of the toughest guys you’d ever play against. Without that transformation on the ice, he probably wouldn’t have been the player that he was. And make no mistake about it; John Ferguson was a great player.

I remember one game against him when I was with Detroit. He came racing around his own net and I saw him coming with his head down. I hit him hard and knocked him flat on his back. It was a clean hit and I didn’t get a penalty, so play continued.

Well, after the next whistle, just as they dropped the puck, he suckered me with a hard punch! We went at it – and I didn’t win that fight either. That was the way he played – don’t mess with him or he was going to come after you and everybody knew it. He was one of the best fighters in the
NHL
during his career, so you certainly didn’t want him looking for you at any time.

He was as tough as they came and played with passion. Few people understood when he quit the game after just eight
NHL
seasons, but John was smart. He knew that a lot of fighters play a year too long, and that is always a bad thing for fighters. There are always younger guys coming along who are tough and strong and want to prove themselves, so he retired when he knew he should.

I only knew him as a fierce rival when he played, but then I got to know him very well when he was an assistant coach with Team Canada in 1972. John was a terrific guy, with a keen sense of humour, who really understood the game. He was a very valuable member of our team in 1972 and did a great job assisting Harry Sinden. I remember when we got to Moscow, he came and spoke to me personally.

“Paul, we need your line to play well over here,” I remember
him telling me. “With your speed, we know you are going to do well on the big ice surface.”

I will never forget him for going out of his way to speak to me before those games. It did a lot for my confidence and really helped me be ready for what was coming.

He provided me with another great moment many years later when he made a point of telling me how much respect he had for the way I had lived my life after hockey. He was very complimentary, and it meant a lot coming from him.

John was a real gentleman and an important member of the 1972 team. He passed away on July 14, 2007. We miss him.

W
HEN YOU START PLAYING IN THE
N
ATIONAL
H
OCKEY
League, you sometimes envision how your career is going to end. I certainly didn’t see mine ending the way it did – playing on a team where the owners basically went bankrupt!

I stayed in Birmingham to play for one more season in 1980–81. It became obvious as we got down to the end of the season that the ownership was out of money. In February, they made the decision to cease operations.

All of us players came to the arena one morning to discover our equipment was gone – talk about a major wake-up call! That was it for the team, obviously, and it was the end of my playing career as well. I was thirty-eight years old and still in great shape, as I had always looked after myself, but it was time for me to move on and look for something else to do with my life.

I knew that my days as a top-flight player were over. I still had the skills and smarts to fill a role – I had even turned down an offer to play for the Flames earlier that season – but
that wasn’t for me at this stage. As I always did when faced with a significant crossroad in my life, I consulted with Eleanor and came to the right decision for us as a family. That decision was that it was time to walk away from the game of hockey that had been so good to us – for good.

Some players are devastated when they are cut from teams, especially if they want to continue playing hockey. I wound up quitting when I wanted to, not when somebody else told me it was time to quit, and looking back on it I played eighteen seasons of professional hockey into my late thirties. That’s more than what I had hoped for starting out as a professional, so there was no reason to be uneasy about my decision to retire when I did.

Just because I was at peace with my decision to stop playing, however, didn’t mean that I was at peace with being out of hockey. Any player will tell you that it’s very hard to replace the buzz you get from being a professional hockey player. Half the fun of the game is in the dressing room, enjoying the camaraderie of your teammates, and you get to do that while playing a game that you love and making a decent living. Hockey is just a great lifestyle, both on and off the ice.

What exactly I would do next wasn’t clear to me yet. I knew I had some time to make a decision that was right for all of us, but trying to decide what path to follow after I retired from playing hockey wasn’t an easy task. I did know one thing – I certainly did not want to stay involved in hockey in any way, shape, or form. Cliff Fletcher, who was still running the Calgary Flames, asked me if I’d like an off-ice role, but that kind of thing – being a scout, coach, or manager – was never interesting to me. I loved to play the game,
but the business side of the game had never appealed to me. The thought of trying to build a hockey team like he did, or scouting, or whatever, did nothing for me. I didn’t have the passion for it, and if I don’t have any passion for something, then there’s no point in even attempting to do it, in my way of thinking. It just wasn’t for me.

My problem with a lack of direction was a common one among players who had left the game. I felt I was mentally prepared to take on a new challenge, but a lot of ex-players weren’t because they wasted a lot of their spare time when they were playing. Many of the players spent far too much time just playing cards. Those games were a good way for us to bond as teammates, but they sure didn’t help us prepare in any way for a good career after we stopped playing. And of course there was the drinking and socializing after the games – far too many players turned to alcohol or drugs as a way to relieve the stress we were under, trying to perform on a nightly basis in front of huge crowds in the arena and even more watching on
TV
.

Alcohol use is quite well documented in hockey, in both the
NHL
and
WHA
. Its excessive use has played havoc with far too many players and ruined some lives, unfortunately. More than a few players I knew ran into problems on account of their lifestyles while still playing. Add to that the fact that there really isn’t anything that can replace the rush of being a professional athlete after you retire. You go from having thousands of people cheering you on a nightly basis and making a tremendous living to – what? And when you are dealing with alcohol or drug issues, it makes it even tougher. I am so thankful that that is something I never had to deal with.

Things have changed a great deal now. First of all, the athletic conditioning and supervision of players have made it much tougher to be a huge partier and still play in today’s
NHL
. Teams have also come a long way in helping players with their “exit strategies.” Nobody really thought all that much about it when I retired as a player. You were pretty much on your own.

Today’s player also has it so much better in terms of how much money they are making – millions and millions now, instead of thousands and thousands when I played – and agents certainly helped in that regard.

But now it was time for me to find something different to do with my life outside of the game.

A friend of mine was establishing an office for E.F. Hutton, the brokerage firm, and he offered me a position with him. After considering that possibility, I got the necessary training in New York so I could be a full-time broker by the spring.

The sales part of the job was right up my alley, and in my first three months working for them I opened up eighty-seven new accounts. It wasn’t hockey, but it was a very competitive business, and I enjoyed it. But getting a green card in order to work legally in the United States turned out to be a real problem. I tried everything, but just couldn’t make headway with
U.S
. immigration officials. Even with the help of a newspaper campaign pleading my cause in Alabama, I couldn’t get the documentation I needed to work legally in the United States.
NHL
players could get seasonal work permits easily, but it was a different story for a Canadian wanting to work in the
U.S
. at that time.

This was a huge problem for me. One of my daughters was going to university in the United States at that time, and I had
two other daughters in private schools, but I couldn’t make a living in the United States. The logical option was to return to Canada. I was also considering a move into broadcasting, and there had been some interest in Canada. However, Harold Ballard had put a stop to that, so that door was closed for me. I was left with the dilemma of not being able to work in the United States and not being able to pursue a viable option for a career in Canada due to Ballard’s interference.

My family didn’t want to leave Birmingham, which was another issue. The kids were very content in school, and Eleanor just loved it. She was the entertainment chairman at our local church and was working at a local restaurant, as she’d developed into quite the gourmet cook. For years, Eleanor had raised our family and managed the household in the background of our marriage while I was Paul Henderson the hockey player, free to enjoy the limelight of an
NHL
career. Now she was gaining self-confidence and creating a wonderful life for herself. It was her turn to be able to do what she loved to do for once.

My family’s happiness was very important to me – always was. Yet here I was, once again threatening to push their wants and needs to the background so I could explore a new venture. I just didn’t want to do that. I made the decision to stay in the United States.

When we first got married, Eleanor and I both felt that this was a lifelong contract we were signing, till death do us part, and we both took it that way, so it should come as no surprise that we’ve been together for five decades.

I have nothing against divorced couples, by the way – sometimes people just marry the wrong person, and I can
understand that. A couple of my sisters made the wrong choices, and that happens in life, but Eleanor and I took our vows seriously and have built a terrific life together.

We’ve been very, very fortunate over the years. Our marriage has always been solid and it still is today. We’ve been blessed with three great daughters, Heather (born in 1963), Jennifer (1965), and Jill (1970). We have seven grandchildren and are proud of our family, as they’ve all turned into such solid people.

Jennifer is so like her mother, Heather takes after me, and Jill, well, she’s probably a combination of the two of us. They have brought such joy into our lives and given us all those wonderful grandchildren.