The Goal of My Life (6 page)

I was used primarily as a penalty killer in that first season, getting the odd shift here and there. I had three goals and three assists in thirty-two games and got to appear in fourteen playoff games, adding another two goals and three assists.

After a fourth-place finish in the regular season, we advanced to the playoffs and stunned Chicago in seven games to go on to the Stanley Cup finals against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was a great thing to happen to me in my first
NHL
season. I was excited as I had great bonuses in my contract for making the playoffs and for winning each series, so it was great on a couple of fronts.

We led that final series 3–2, with game six at the Detroit Olympia, with us having a chance to close it out at home. We trailed 1–0 before I scored on a breakaway against Johnny Bower early in the second period to tie it 1–1, by far the biggest goal in my brief
NHL
career.

Bobby Baun would eventually score the game-winning goal in overtime – one of hockey’s great goals since he scored it playing on a broken leg – to tie the series. Toronto then blanked us 4–0 at Maple Leaf Gardens to win the Cup, leaving me in tears. We were just one win away from being able to win a Cup in my rookie year, and we had two chances to get that win!

We had great players on that team, including the great Terry Sawchuk. He was the best goalie of his era, in my mind, and boy was he tough to beat in big games. Bill Gadsby was
also terrific, standing up at the blue line and delivering crushing hits to anybody who tried to get in his way. Baun’s overtime winner in game six deflected off his stick, however, and it cost him his best chance to win a Stanley Cup. He played for twenty seasons, with Chicago, Detroit, and New York, and he never won a Cup.

Despite the frustrations, it was an exciting period in my life, there is no disputing that. I was playing in the
NHL
and making some good money. In the playoffs that first year, I drove into the Olympia parking lot in a 1954 Dodge that cost me all of $200! I’ll never forget someone yelling at me, “Hey, Henderson! Why don’t you just get a horse and buggy?” So of course, I had to get a new car. I bought a 1964 Pontiac Parisienne two-door hardtop, a beautiful car back then, for $3,267. I still have the receipt from that car as a keepsake!

In my second year, 1964–65, I was playing on the fourth line, behind the great Gordie Howe as well as Bruce MacGregor and Floyd Smith. I was still not getting a lot of ice time, but at least I was starting to be accepted as a member of the team because it was clear I was there to stay. I got into all seventy games, picking up eight goals and thirteen assists for twenty-one points and killing penalties, and I’d learned to contribute defensively when called upon.

In addition to the wingers who were ahead of me on the depth chart, we had terrific players and seven future Hall of Famers, like Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, Norm Ullman, Gordie Howe, Bill Gadsby, Terry Sawchuk, and Marcel Pronovost. There were a lot of great players on that team, but none greater than Howe, of course. There was nobody
tougher to play against than Gordie, who could really dish out the punishment, as everybody in hockey knows. I played with him and against him and saw what a fierce competitor he could be.

Lindsay was another all-time great, to be sure. He had been retired for four years after leaving the Chicago Blackhawks when he rejoined us that season. He was forty years old by then and was 170 pounds at the most, but he was still as hard-nosed as ever, picking up 173 minutes in penalties and playing the same rugged style he did in helping Detroit win four Stanley Cups in the 1950s.

Ullman and Delvecchio were top-notch stars, of course, and our acrobatic goalie Roger Crozier was rookie of the year and first-team all-star. Crozier was terrific that first season and became known for his spectacular saves while having some good years in Detroit. We finished first that year with eighty-seven points, but we were upset in the first round of the playoffs by Bobby Hull and Chicago in seven tough games.

The 1965–66 season was a breakthrough year for me, really. After an injury to Ron Murphy, I was moved to left wing for the first time and would wind up playing that position for the next fifteen seasons. Playing on a line with Ullman, I scored twenty-two goals and added twenty-four assists for what was a pretty darn good season in the
NHL
back then, as there were only nineteen players who scored twenty or more goals in the
NHL
that season. Ullman, who made it to the Hockey Hall of Fame, was such a pro – what a treat it was to play on a line with him. I started with him that season and stayed with him on a line for basically the rest of my
NHL
career.

There was no first-place repeat that season, however. We slipped into fourth place with seventy-four points as Montreal claimed first. But we had a great playoff and almost came up with what would have been a huge Stanley Cup upset.

It started in the first round when we knocked out Chicago in six games, the same team that had upset us the year before. Then in the Cup finals against Montreal, we won the first two games at the Montreal Forum and had them on the ropes heading back to Detroit.

We blew that series, however, losing the next four games. Make no mistake about it: Montreal had a great hockey team, but we didn’t help our cause by our behaviour in that series. Instead of practising hard and being disciplined, we spent more time in bars and at the racetrack than we should have. The Canadiens were far more focused than we were, and our coach, Sid Abel, couldn’t control the team. Abel was a decent guy, but he had a lot on his plate being both
GM
and coach and he had difficulty relating to a lot of our players.

Henri Richard scored the Cup-winning goal in game six of the series on a controversial goal that looked like it might have gone in off his hand (it sure did to me because I was on the ice at the time!). But the goal stood and we lost the Cup right on Olympia ice, a moment in my career that still bothers me to this day. We were so close, and a little more discipline might have made the difference.

It was a great lifestyle, the life of an
NHL
player, but it took a bit of getting used to, especially for a kid from Lucknow. I didn’t drink until I turned pro, for instance, but, boy, you had to learn to drink if you were going to hang out with
NHL
players. The biggest surprise of my life was seeing first-hand
how much these guys could drink! We’d go out for a team lunch after practice when we were on the road and have a few beers. Then we’d be out for dinner later on and we’d have a few more beers. Some guys knew when to stop, but many didn’t and developed problems later on, unfortunately.

NHL
salaries back then weren’t nearly what they are today – to say the least! – but you could make a very good living playing hockey compared to most other sports, and that certainly made it easy to enjoy life on the road, if that’s what you really wanted to do. I was just interested in carving out a good career for myself and my family for as long as I could.

And it was a decent living back then, when you considered the prices of things. There was little negotiating; you just took what they offered you. My first-year contract was for $7,000, which was the
NHL
minimum, plus a $1,500 signing bonus. When we made the Stanley Cup finals I picked up another $6,500 in bonuses, so that made for a great year financially – $15,000 total. That is a pittance compared to what players are getting today, obviously. But remember what I paid for my car, and I bought my first house for $10,300, so it certainly was a different world economically.

As the years went by, agents became very helpful in contract talks. But when I went back in to negotiate my second deal prior to the 1964–65 season, I really didn’t know what to ask for, so I wound up getting what they told me I’d be getting, which was a $1,500 raise. I got the same raise the following season.

By the start of the 1966–67 season, I was looking for more. Sid Abel was the Red Wings’ general manager and coach at the time, and he wasn’t an easy guy to try to hammer a deal
out with. He told me he thought I had done a good job and he was prepared to offer me a $2,500 raise. The thing was, he acted like he was doing me some huge favour by offering me any kind of a raise. I figured I’d played three years in the league and was coming off a twenty-two-goal season – a year when only nineteen guys had scored twenty or more – so I should be up for a lot more than that.

“Well, Sid,” I said. “I was thinking of a lot more than that, actually. I was thinking about a $5,000 raise.”

I have no idea where I came up with that figure, but I’ll never forget his reaction.

“Are you out of your mind, Henderson?!” he bellowed. “You can forget that. You’ll take this deal or I’ll bury you so far in the minors they won’t find you with a shovel!”

So much for stress-free negotiating, I guess! But I figured I had some leverage. The team’s owner, Bruce Norris, really wanted to beat Chicago more than any other team, as his brother Jim owned the Hawks. Bruce was an intense competitor, and we were opening up at home against Chicago that season. There was no way he wanted to go into that game without his best lineup, so I thought my best chance to get a better deal was right then and there. I knew our owner would not want to be embarrassed against his brother’s team in the home opener. My strategy was simple: Norris’s desire to win would take precedence over trying to save more money, and eventually the message would get back to Abel to sign me before the season started. It was all a matter of timing, as far as I was concerned.

The negotiating went on and on, and the raise even got up to $4,000. I have to admit, Eleanor was petrified, telling me to sign the deal. It was a lot of money back then. But I had
a feeling that my strategy was sound, and I was playing well in the exhibition games. I truly believed Norris would give in.

Well, our talks went on, right up until the morning of that first game. I had no idea if I’d be playing, as I still hadn’t signed, and neither I nor Abel were budging. But finally I was called in by Abel on game day.

He was madder than a you-know-what. But guess what – I got that $5,000! He literally threw a contract at me to sign and said, “Don’t tell anybody what you are making!” Well, I didn’t, and I also played with gusto to make sure I earned every penny of that contract. Looking back on it, I wished that I had asked Sid if I was right in thinking that Bruce Norris would cave in to my demands in order to win. It would have been interesting to know.

It worked out pretty well for me, and I didn’t disappoint. Early that season I scored four goals and made sure they realized they didn’t make a mistake in signing me to that kind of a deal.

Hockey sure has changed since then. Players have a lot more say, and with agents and high-priced contracts, well, let’s just say that nobody argues over a lousy five grand anymore! You still have holdouts, of course, but the dollar figures are a lot higher. And with all the multi-year contracts in today’s game, most players don’t have to constantly haggle about their deals like we had to do just about every season.

But that was the way things were done back then. Abel was no different than a lot of other general managers at that time, including the
GM
I would play for later on, Punch Imlach. Imlach even had a chair in front of his desk with legs he had shortened by several inches. He would ask you to sit in the chair, which was so low to the ground that you’d
be looking up at him, a power-play technique he would use during talks. I remember more than once getting up out of that seat, telling him I didn’t want to look up at him while we talked. It just felt ridiculous.

I would have a lot of difficult contract talks in future years (like just about every year), so this was a sign of things to come. Players just didn’t have the clout back in those days, and you had to look out for yourself because nobody else was going to look after you.

With that negotiation behind me, it was time for the 1966–67 season, which was not a good one for me healthwise, or for the Red Wings, unfortunately. I was hurt for a lot of the season, and it limited me to just forty-six games. I did score twenty-one goals, so I was very productive when I did play, but I had torn chest muscles and groin and knee problems that really held me back, including some breathing problems that required me to go to Arizona for a few weeks.

We missed the playoffs that year, and we had one issue after another, it seemed. Doug Barkley’s career came to an end when he took a stick to the eye, and that was devastating to him and the team, as he had a chance to be one of the best defencemen in hockey. Marcel Pronovost was dealt to Toronto and Bill Gadsby retired, so that really hurt our defence. We seemed to be on the downside in a hurry, after making it to the finals just the year prior.

I was healthier at the start of the 1967–68 season, but our defence was in shambles in the first year of the expanded, twelve-team
NHL
. We allowed a league-high 257 goals, more even than the six expansion teams.

So I guess that something had to give. And something did, and it was big – and it involved me.

I
LOVED PLAYING IN
D
ETROIT
. I
WAS PLAYING WELL
, I felt we had a pretty good hockey team, and all in all, life was going fine for me. My career was really just starting, and I was able to produce.

How could I not love playing in Detroit? I was only a kid – I was more awestruck than anything else. The city itself really didn’t do anything special for me, and we spent most of our time in Windsor after we moved there anyway. But the atmosphere in the arena was tremendous, and the rink was filled every night.

They had great hockey fans in Detroit, with a real passion for the game. It was the six-team era of the National Hockey League (up until expansion in 1967, of course), and tickets were a scarce commodity. It was very lucrative for me too; the Red Wings had a tremendous bonus structure, and in my first few years there, we went to the finals and semifinals, so the extra money certainly helped. But even though the money was good – and I needed it with a young family to
look after – primarily I was just so thrilled at being able to play in the National Hockey League. Every day, I had to pinch myself because I had made it to the best league in the world. “Holy moly!” I would say to myself, looking around that dressing room. “There’s Gordie Howe. There’s Bill Gadsby. I’m actually playing with these guys.” I thought I was in heaven.