Goaltenders' Union

Greg Oliver

Description

In hockey, goalies have always been a contradiction - solitary men in a team game, the last line of defence and the stalwarts expected to save the day after any and every miscue and collapse from his teammates. It's no wonder that anyone who played the position has had his sanity questioned; yet some of the biggest innovations in the game have come from its puckstoppers. In The Goaltenders' Union, Greg Oliver and Richard Kamchen talk to more than 60 keepers of yesterday and today, finding a common thread in their stories and building a portrait of the goaltender.

Sujets

• Hockey sobre hielo
• Ice hockey

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 16 octobre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781770905849
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

To our favourite goalies growing up.
For Greg, it was easily Ken Dryden, though Michel “Bunny” Larocque was always a close second—he was stuck behind Dryden on the Canadiens’ bench and had an unforgettable nickname.
For Richard, it was Bob Essensa of the Jets, whom he got to interview for this book; special mention goes to the chirpy and positive Allan Bester, Toronto’s acrobatic underdog—the complete opposite of Richard, who is decidedly more Ron Hextall–like.


INTRODUCTION
The Goaltenders’ Union is not an imaginary code or a joke shared among forwards and defencemen. It’s an unofficial but very real brotherhood and support group for those who put themselves in harm’s way as they bravely and stoically guard their teams’ net.
“We all got along real well. We got together, had a beer, and discussed the shooters,” Chuck Rayner, the star goaltender of the New York Rangers in the 1940s and early ’50s, said of the small circle of goalies in his era.
Terry Sawchuk, a staunch admirer of Rayner, saw his hero in top form from the other end of the ice as he shut out Detroit in a 1-0 victory. Sawchuk skated over to congratulate Rayner at the final buzzer.
“Chuck Rayner is the best, that’s all. It’s a great thrill playing against a man you used to idolize, and when he comes up with that kind of performance, well, you just feel you’ve got to say something,” Sawchuk said.
The Montreal Canadiens’ Gerry McNeil refused to take over from Bill Durnan when the latter pulled himself from the nets in a semifinal series against Rayner and his Rangers in 1949–50: “I didn’t want to take his place. Dick Irvin said, ‘You’re playing,’ and I said, ‘I’m not playing unless Bill tells me to play.’ So Bill told me. At first I’d thought he was getting kicked out. But it was him that didn’t want to go out.”
Cesare Maniago said he always respected his peers, perhaps not to the point of celebrating one of their big saves against his own team, but he did not find happiness if they let in a soft goal either: “There would usually be a few words between goalies when you were skating around during the warm-up. Or you’d be standing beside each other and you’d say things like, ‘How’s it going? I’ve had a good week, or a lousy week.’”

Roberto Luongo of the Panthers chats with Jose Theodore of the Canadiens during an All-Star game practice in 2004. (George Tahinos)
No fiercer competition existed than that between the Canadian and Russian National Teams, especially in the early days of North American All-Star competition against the Red Army. And yet, before the first game of the ’72 Summit Series, retired Montreal Canadiens great Jacques Plante, accompanied by a translator, discussed with Soviet netminder Vladislav Tretiak the shooting habits of the NHLers he’d be facing that night in Montreal.
“To help me visualize it, Plante showed me everything on a blackboard. Then he said goodbye and left,” Tretiak wrote in his eponymous memoir. “I will always be very grateful to Jacques Plante, whose suggestions helped me so much.”
In 1974, Tretiak and the Soviets met another team of All-Stars, this time those of the competing World Hockey Association (WHA). Then, it’d be Canadian starter Gerry Cheevers who’d offer encouragement. “Before the game, he would come over and hit me on the pads with his stick, his way of wishing me good luck,” Tretiak wrote.
Goalies’ friendships also continued past their playing days and into the world of the goalie coach, where Jeff Reese, in Philadelphia, would call up Sean Burke, in Phoenix, for advice on dealing with Ilya Bryzgalov. “He didn’t know him, so he was just, at times, looking more for what is his personality like … is he joking about that? It takes a little time to get to know Bryz,” said Burke.
After a hard night for one of their peers, even the seemingly nastiest, most competitive of goalies have offered their condolences and encouraging words. After a horrendous night for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who left a young Allan Bester hung out to dry against the mighty New York Islanders, Billy Smith came calling. That would be the same Smith who wouldn’t shake hands in the playoffs if his team had been eliminated, and the same Smith who used his heavy lumber as a weapon against anyone who got too close to his crease.
After the game, Bester was sitting dejected in an empty visitors’ dressing room still wearing half his equipment when Smith stopped by to check in on him. It’s a memory Bester recalls vividly to this day:
All of a sudden, I heard, “Allan! Get your head up!” And I looked up and it was Billy Smith standing in the doorway. “Allan, don’t you hang your head. We should have scored 17 goals tonight. Not we could have scored 17, we should have scored 17. You stood on your head! Don’t you ever hang your head after playing like that.” That’s the International Goaltenders’ Union for you. People don’t think of Billy Smith as having that type of sportsmanship. … But he took the time out to stand around and wait for me, and then when he didn’t see me come out, he walked into our dressing room and came in to tell me, a young kid of 19 years who’s trying to break into the league, to get your head up and don’t you ever hang your head. That was special. That’s one of the things I’ll always remember.
“It’s such a unique position,” said Corey Hirsch, who bounced between the American Hockey League to the NHL from 1992 to 2003 and was recently the goaltending coach for the St. Louis Blues. “It’s not like being a player, it’s not like being a defenceman. It’s a completely different position. You’re not scoring goals, you’re making saves, so I think that’s why we feel a connection to each other. We know what the pressure is, we know what it feels like to be in those situations. And we know what it feels like to be the goat, and we know what it feels like to be the hero. There’s no in-between about a goalie.”
WHO ARE THESE MASKED MEN?
Goaltenders have reputations as solitary, mercurial figures. This reputation isn’t without foundation and is, in some cases, well earned.
In his autobiography, Glenn Hall wrote, “We were always considered loners. I was a loner because I couldn’t relate to anybody. I’d go for walks by myself to get ready for a game, going over the other team and its players … I liked it best when nobody recognized me. Before a game, I kept to myself because I was so miserable I didn’t think anyone would want me around.”
Tony Esposito, who succeeded Hall in Chicago, wouldn’t talk to anyone before games either, preparing himself to play from the time he got up in the morning. After going through the same ritual each and every time for a home game—morning skate, laying out his equipment, returning home to eat and nap—his wife would drive him to Chicago Stadium.
“I used to tell Marilyn, my wife, to be ready to leave at 5 o’clock, or else,” Esposito told Dick Irvin for his book In the Crease . “We never talked in the car going to the game, never. Even when the kids started to drive down with us, no talking. If I was going to fail, it wasn’t going to be because I wasn’t mentally prepared. On the road I usually roomed by myself. But if I ever had a roommate, it was the same thing. No talking.”
Cesare Maniago explained, “Before the game is when I would say most goalies, including me, weren’t just one of the boys. When it’s getting near game time you want to be left alone. The other guys talk, defenceman with defencemen, forwards with forwards. But the goalie wants to be by himself.”
Rhyming off the habits of the goaltenders who played under him in his numerous NHL stops, former coach Mike Keenan is almost wistful, the descriptions spiriting him back to the dressing rooms of the 1980s and ’90s.
Ron Hextall would take off only one pad and rock back and forth. Grant Fuhr was a rocker too. Mike Richter was a silent enigma. Pelle Lindbergh would sit between periods with all his gear on, including his helmet and gloves. And then there’s Eddie “the Eagle” Belfour: “Eddie used to spend a couple of hours a day sharpening his skates on game day. It was just totally a mental routine. It had nothing to do with his skates. It was just his way of focusing and getting ready,” said Keenan.
Superstitions were nothing to take lightly, and Islander Billy Smith would go berserk if anyone tampered with how he’d laid out his equipment. Jacques Plante could play worse than a green Junior B third stringer if someone interfered with his preparations. In Without Fear: Hockey’s 50 Greatest Goaltenders , Johnny Bower said: “He was great on the ice, but off the ice, Jacques was one of the most superstitious people I’d ever met. When he came to Toronto in the early ’70s, you’d walk into the dressing room to find his equipment laid out on the floor in the order that he would put it on. If anyone accidentally touched or moved the equipment, you might as well have left him on the bench for the rest of the night because his focus would have been disrupted.”
Maybe the greatest of them all, Terry Sawchuk needed continual reassurance and comforting. Near the end of his career, when he was with the Rangers, he rarely saw any action, but when he did, he’d nervously ask reporters afterwards if he’d embarrassed himself. Even in his salad days with the Red Wings, he needed convincing he hadn’t let anyone down.

Jean Beliveau shoots on Glenn Hall. (IHA/Icon SMI)
“You always had to be careful with Terry. He became more sensitive every year,” teammate Benny Woit said in Shutout: The Legend of Terry Sawchuk . The peculiarities, odd habits, and phobias of goalies were easy fodder for the press. How does one ignore Plante knitting in the dressing room? Or Gary “Suitcase” Smith taking off all his gear—including a dozen pair of socks, which was a whole other story—between periods for a quick shower? The most popular stories, howev