IN 1988–89, the Calgary Flames won 54 of 80 regular-season games, a team record. We never lost more than two in a row. Lanny McDonald scored his 500th career goal and his 1,000th point. Joel Otto emerged as one of the NHL’s top power forwards, a premier faceoff man. Al MacInnis was nominated for the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenceman. Sergei Pryakhin made headlines around the world as only the second Soviet to play in the NHL. Mike Vernon was nominated for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s most outstanding goalie. Colin Patterson turned checking and penalty killing into an art form. Joe Nieuwendyk had his second 50-goal season in a row. Joe Mullen scored 50 goals and set a new single-season points record for an American-born player. Doug Gilmour scored 85 points and was the best two-way centreman in the NHL. On right wing, Håkan Loob had another great season. A year earlier, he’d been the first Swedish player to score 50 goals in the NHL. He’s still the only Swede to do it. He’s also one of the few players in the world to win a Stanley Cup, an IIHF world championship and an Olympic gold medal. And I was credited with adding some offensive punch, having scored 14 goals and added 20 assists in 36 games. For me, it was a heck of a rookie season.
With 32 wins at home and only four losses, we were ready for the playoffs. I scored the last goal of the regular season in a 4–2 win over the Oilers. The Calgary Herald said the game had the “intensity level of a Sunday afternoon snooze on the couch.” The only big moment occurred when Dave Brown broke his stick over Pep’s ankle and they both got ten minutes. You can end a guy’s career with that kind of thing, and our assistant coach Doug Risebrough went absolutely haywire. He put his mouth up against the partition glass and started calling down the entire Oilers bench. They, of course, were telling him to fuck off and eat ass, which only made him madder. Meanwhile, Timmy Hunter mixed it up with Craig Simpson and forcibly took Simpson’s stick from him, carrying it to our bench.
Timmy demanded respect and got it. He really trained for fights. The key was balance and strength. What most people don’t realize is that it is really hard to fight on skates. Timmy had a technique of grabbing a guy and holding on to his sweater while bracing himself on his skates and then just hammering away. A lot of guys copied him. I got into it with Esa Tikkanen, who would hang on like a humping dog. He got in my face and followed me around the ice, jabbering nonstop in what we called “Tikkanese.” I would hold my hand behind my ear and come back at him with something like “Take the marbles outta your mouth” or “What? I can’t understand you.” This bugged the ever-living shit out of him.
We were unusually subdued as we came off the ice from that game. There was no question we were happy we had won, but now it was time to get on with business. In the dressing room, there was a low buzz. As usual, Crispy’s white shirt was too tight. He had unbuttoned the collar and kept yanking at the knot in his tie. Pep was moving around the room, carrying his 2-year-old baby. Nothing fazed him. He was grinning from ear to ear, and every guy he came up to tickled her tummy and called her cute. She was too.
With his big red mane and bushy mustache, Lanny was the Lion King, Mufasa. He commanded so much respect. He moved from man to man, gripping every hand, and even tough guys like Killer had to look down so he wouldn’t see them tear up.
Bearcat Murray was our trainer. He started with the Flames in 1980, when they moved to Calgary from Atlanta. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in the spring of 2009. You gotta love the guy, everyone did. He was an awesome trainer and the most humble person ever. He was totally self-taught.
Bearcat played hockey with and against my dad in intermediate and senior leagues in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in the 1960s. He was small—five foot seven, 124 pounds—but wiry and hardy. In fact, he started out as a jockey.
We liked Bear because he was always ready to go to war with us. He had even been injured behind the bench. In the 1976 World Hockey Association playoffs, the Quebec Nordiques played the Calgary Cowboys in the first round. Bearcat was the Cowboys’ trainer. In a game in Quebec City, there was this big bench-clearing brawl that also involved fans and the police. Bear was helping the guys when one of the fans, who had been straddling the cement wall with his foot over the edge toward the bench, kicked him in the face. Bear ended up with seventeen stitches, but the guy ended up in worse trouble because Bear grabbed his leg and pulled him down hard. And then another guy took a swat at Bear and he karate-chopped his attacker in the throat. Another crazy Nordiques fan took a run at Bear’s son, who was only 16. Bear tackled him and smashed him in the face. Bear says it was awful, and I’ve heard that the Cowboys goalie, Don “Smokey” McLeod, said it was the only time in his career he was ever scared on the ice.
The other day I watched a game and I could not believe how long it took the trainer to get to a player who was down. Bearcat was known for how quickly he got out to a player. He tried a few different types of shoes so he could handle himself on the ice. First was a pair of broomball shoes, but he says they came apart “like a two-dollar watch.” So he designed his own shoes with indoor track spikes that caught the ice but barely stuck out of the soles. He could walk around on a regular floor without too much trouble, and anytime they got dull he changed them, like golf spikes. Those shoes really helped him in injury situations. I remember how fast he got to Al MacInnis in a game we played in Hartford in 1993. Patrick Poulin had hooked Al, and he went into the boards wonky—feet first, doing the splits. Bearcat ran out and felt around and told Al he had dislocated his hip. Al was in serious pain, but Bear called an ambulance because he didn’t want to pop it back in—he was afraid he might sever an artery. Before I played for the Flames, Gary Roberts was in a fight and lying on the ice, hurt, underneath two guys who were still going at it. Bear ran out, grabbed Gary by the shoulders and pulled him to safety so he wouldn’t get cut to pieces by their skates.
Bearcat worked in public relations for the Flames after he quit training. He was a great ambassador for the game. Eventually, the Flames took him off the payroll, but he still does hundreds of school and charity events for the team, and he visits the suites at every game, signing autographs and stuff. The only thing he is retired from is getting paid. The guy is 76, but he runs around the Saddledome shaking hands like a 30-year-old.
Before each game, Bearcat used to make up a mixture called “magic tea”—apple cider vinegar mixed with honey and hot water. He said it made your system more alkaline so you could handle stress, and it was full of potassium, which he felt was essential to fitness and making muscles working properly. We’d also pop a cayenne-pepper capsule for energy.
The tea was good, and it usually worked. But in our first game of the 1989 playoffs, against the Vancouver Canucks, we were playing tentatively. The Canucks had finished 43 points behind us in the standings, and most experts were predicting we’d have an easy time eliminating them. They were underrated. After three periods, we were tied 1–1 and the game went into overtime. We lost and it was my fault. Paul Reinhart, who had just been traded to Vancouver for a third-round draft pick after eight years with the Flames, snuck in behind me and scored. Basically, we lost game one of the playoffs because a grizzled old veteran schooled a rookie. I thought, “That’s it, I have just fuckin’ blown it. I’m not gonna play again.” When I got off the ice, Crispy didn’t say anything, but I felt like any guy would feel—horrible. I had let my team down. I had made a mistake and it had cost us the game. I went right home, lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, replaying the goal over and over. If only. If only I had followed him into the corner. If only I had moved my feet a little faster, stuck out my stick, picked him up sooner. I was such a stupid fuckin’ beginner. It hurt. A lot.
As I got older, I learned that this kind of thing is going to happen. Every goal is scored because somebody makes a mistake. But you’re talking about a 20-year-old who doesn’t really feel he belongs yet and thinks he has let the guys down. I beat myself up all night. The next day, I was called into the coach’s office. Crispy, Tom Watt and Doug Risebrough knew what kind of competitor I was and knew that I would be pissed off at myself. Crispy had already had a few one-on-ones with me earlier in the season. Some were inspirational. Other times, “Get your fuckin’ head outta your ass. Tone it down. Quit taking so many bonehead penalties. You’re a target, easy to disrupt, and the vets have got your number, you fuckhead.” But the session I remember most is the one after that Vancouver goal. His eyes were full of compassion, and he said, “Keep ‘er goin, li’l guy”—Flower, Fuckface, Numbnuts or whatever name it was he called me that day. “We’ll let you have this one mistake.”
Before game two, I taped up my socks, moving very slowly so my hands wouldn’t shake. I dressed carefully, because everything I did was designed to bring me luck. Wind the tape three times over my left sock just below the knee. Rip it top to bottom, keep the tape tight to the roll, pat it into place. Pat it again. And then my right knee, same thing. Next, I’d tape the left sock just above my ankle. Wind, wind,wind, rip, pat twice. And now the right side. This left-to-right ritual had become more important to me after the Graham James thing. My world had been rocked and I needed something solid, something I could count on. So I became very superstitious about taping my socks. I knew if I fucked it up, we would lose the game that night.
True to his word, Crispy let me play. And I did well. I was hitting, making plays and then got one in, so I was able to let go of my anxiety. As soon as you get an opportunity to do something about your mistake, it goes away. But if you are sitting in the stands, there is not a whole lot you can do to redeem yourself.
We put early pressure on the Canucks goalie, Kirk McLean. Otts opened the scoring. Patterson added another just before the buzzer at the end of the second. We dominated, 5–2, and the series moved to Vancouver tied at one game each.
Our snipers tried to take control of the series in game three. Håkan Loob had such great hands. He shot one off McLean’s pads and into the net. Then I got hold of the puck and took it into the boards. I had two Canucks on me and passed across to Newie (Joe Nieuwendyk), who was standing by the net in the open, and he scored. Then Loob put one in on a wraparound. When you are offensively talented, you expect to make good plays every night. If you get an opportunity to score, it’s in the net. That’s just the way guys who have that ability have to think. Any time I could contribute offensively I felt really good.
After those two convincing victories, everyone thought the Canucks were finished. Everyone except Trevor Linden and the Canucks. We were dragging, so Crispy sent Gary Roberts out to pummel Brian Bradley to change the momentum, but it backfired. Bradley was a former Flame who felt he had been traded for a bag of hockey pucks. Crispy didn’t think much of Bradley. He felt the guy was in way over his head. Bradley thought he had something to prove, so he slammed Roberts to the ice. Then he scored a few minutes later.The Canucks jumped out to a 4–0 lead and held on to win. We were now tied 2–2 with a team we should have put away by now. They had no business winning, but that’s playoff hockey.
On April 11, fans in the Saddledome turned out in a sea of red, expecting us to regain the series lead. During the national anthems, I was so focused nothing around me existed. In those types of situations, when you are an elite athlete, 95 per cent of your performance is mental and 5 per cent is ability. I was thinking about all the things I did well—skating, shooting, hitting, passing. Positive affirmations. I’d started this ritual when I was a kid, and the Flames had psychologists who told me to keep it up. It’s the power of positive thinking: whatever you put out there, you are going to get back. I look back on my life, and from the time I was five years old, all I said was, “I’m gonna make the NHL, I’m gonna make the NHL, I’m gonna make the NHL, I’m gonna make the NHL, I’m gonna make the NHL.” And sure enough, bang, it all fell into place. Why? Because I put it out there.
We got started early. Loob centred the puck and Pep picked it up in front of the net and put it in just under the crossbar on the goalie’s glove side. Incredibly, he buried another one. Then I scored. Tight checking and a lightning-quick transition game gave us another 4–0 victory. It was a tough, physical game. One of our defencemen, Gary Suter, was toast thanks to a Mel Bridgman elbow. Gary’s defence partner, Brad McCrimmon, was totally pissed about it, especially because the Canucks had launched this big publicity campaign talking about what a bunch of fuckin’ goons we were. Yet in this game alone, Vancouver took a five-minute high-sticking major and broke Suter’s jaw with a dirty hit. McCrimmon told the press it was time to get serious and play hockey and fuck the PR campaigns.
We struck first in game six. Because of Suter’s injury, we had been forced to change our power-play lineup, so there I was, suddenly paired with Al MacInnis on the point for the rest of the playoffs. One man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity. I felt bad for Gary, but for me it was incredibly exciting. My job was to feed the puck to MacInnis, who had a howitzer. I had never seen anybody shoot a puck that hard, ever. He wasn’t the greatest skater, but he was built like a brick shithouse and such a smart, smart player. Because I was taking the place of Suter, a left-hand shot, I was playing on my off side. When I took the puck off the boards I was on my backhand. My job was to get it to my forehand and over to Al, not an easy task, especially since I’d gone from occasionally playing on the point to playing it on the number one power-play unit in the NHL.
Anyway, Trevor Linden replied and we were in a seesaw battle. Then Vancouver’s Brian Bradley broke away for a shortie that turned out to be the difference. The series headed to a seventh-game showdown.
Our power play scored first again in game seven. Loob picked up the rebound from Al’s point shot and Newie funnelled it in. What a lineup we had—it was insane: Al MacInnis, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007; Joe Nieuwendyk, who will be there soon; Håkan Loob, who should be there; me on the point; Gilmour will be there; Mullen, the highest-scoring American during his career, inducted in 2000; and Otto. But the Canucks kept fighting back in what would turn into a playoff classic. They tied it up with two in a row and the series went to sudden-death overtime.
The team was nervous, and we were playing nervous. I was sitting on the bench in overtime, my head swivelling back and forth. Every shot, every pass sent a jolt of electricity directly into my nutsack. The puck would go this way—“Yeah! It’s going in their end, we’re going to score!”—then that way, “Oh no!” Then Vernie made an unbelievable save on Stan Smyl, who somehow got past everybody and was heading in alone. That save, that single save in a split second, gave us the chance we needed. It saved our season and it bought Vernie a year’s worth of beer.
Overtime continued, with more back and forth. Then finally Loob shot it into the corner, Otto won it off the boards and centred it, and somehow Pep stuck it in the net. I’m not even sure if he got a stick on it. He might have scored with his skate—or his shin pad or butt crack, for all I know—but he was tough enough to fight his way to the net and in that crash of bodies, somehow the puck got in. The Saddledome exploded. I thought Crispy was going to pass out. This time, we came off the ice bear hugging and high-fiving. I remember entering the dressing room and just letting loose a big whoooo-hoo-whoo!
Everyone went out and celebrated. I did my own thing. I’d drop in at the bars, usually the louder, seedier places. And despite Shannon and our baby at home, I would end up in bed with some blonde puck bunny. I hadn’t been promiscuous until my move to Calgary. But after what I had experienced with Graham I was out to prove my manhood and women became sex trophies. During that period, I was young, famous and out for a good time.
The Smythe Division final matched us with an old Alberta rival—Wayne Gretzky, who was now wearing the black and silver of the L.A. Kings. I was pumped. We had a tough team—a smart, tough team. Our guys knew where, when and how to pick their fights. Timmy Hunter was probably the smartest fighter I ever played with. Never saw him get hit once. We were still on the same line.
I opened the scoring against the Kings, banking a fifteen-footer off their goalie, Kelly Hrudey. I almost got another with five minutes left, but Hrudey grabbed my shot labelled for the corner with his glove. Gary Roberts saved the day for us, grabbing a wild bounce off the boards and sending it into overtime. A few minutes in, Gilmour sped in on McSorley and checked him from behind, which made him serve up a pizza to Colin Patterson, and Patter passed it back to Killer, who ended the game with a beauty. Final score 4–3, and we were ahead in the series. But Hrudey stood on his head making 43 saves that night.
We started game two in a hurry with the first goal, and then one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen happened. It started when Bernie Nicholls turned and decked Vernie in the crease, and the ref put his arm up to signal a delayed penalty. While the play carried on, Bearcat came flying out on the ice to tend to Vernie. Meanwhile, we scored. Gretz was just beating the shit out of the boards with his stick, screaming at the refs that you couldn’t score with your trainer on the ice. Gretz would become quite animated when calls didn’t go his way. In Calgary, the fans really rode him for it. They would chant, “Whiner … whiner …” It was about the only rink in the world where people didn’t think Gretz was some kind of god.
In order to take the spotlight off Bearcat, Pep went after Dave Taylor. Pep could be a great instigator, and Taylor was one of the Kings’ most competitive veterans. He had played on their Triple Crown line with Marcel Dionne and Charlie Simmer, scored a ton of goals and assists and was captain for a few years before moving upstairs to management. Watching Pep and Taylor was like being at the zoo and seeing two big apes tangle.
When the game got going again, we were served another pizza. This padded our lead, and the game got really chippy. McSorley, who had been trying to get something going, went after Pep but was held back by Gretzky. McSorley got loose and just started beating on Pep, pounding on the back of his neck, inflicting real damage. A five-on-five broke out near the players’ bench. With all the fighting going on, the linesmen were split up. Lanny got pissed, dropped the gloves with Jim Wiemer, and they went dancing. Lanny was so tough, even in this, his last year. He was pummelling Wiemer. Lanny had guts, but he wasn’t a goon, and he was getting old. Not many 36-year-olds want to take on a 28-year-old, six-foot, 210-pound defenceman in one of his last games in the NHL. This was huge. The Kings had tried to bully us around, but Lanny was letting them know that would not fly. I mean, that is worth appreciating.
I used to call the Saddledome the Saddlemorgue, because everybody sat on their hands. It was one of the quietest rinks in the league. We had the best team in hockey, but too many suits in the crowd. I jumped up on the players’ bench and turned around, gesturing with my arms asking them to make some noise, to get involved. Then I wheeled and encouraged the other side of the rink to help out. The crowd went nuts. It was absolutely deafening for about five minutes. We piled on a few more goals en route to an 8–3 blowout and headed for Hollywood.
In Los Angeles, Sly Stallone pulled up in a stretch limo and told the cameras the Kings were going to turn it all around that night. Rocky was my hero. One of the highlights of my teens was being 13 with a two-hour dose of Rocky under my belt, and jogging in the dark, hunching my shoulders and punching at the blackness around me. Giving ‘er and humming that Rocky theme. If you look at my story and the Rocky stories, they are not much different. The guy comes from nothing, works his bag off, gets a break, fights Apollo Creed, deserves to win but doesn’t. Comes back and wins in Rocky II. In Rocky III, he loses somebody really important in his life, his trainer—and for me, that was my innocence—but he’s able to overcome and forge ahead.
I met Stallone after the game and was surprised he was about the same size as me—way shorter than I expected. He talked just like he does in the movies, low and slow with his mouth kind of pulled down to one side. “Hey, feisty li’l guy, I been watching you, man,” he said. “It’s cool.” I didn’t know what to say. On the inside, I was freaking out. I put out my hand and mumbled, “Oh, thank you, sir.”
John Candy was there too. Uncle Buck! Standing right in front of me. This was L.A. This was the shiznit, the place to be.
Once again, we opened the scoring, with Lanny’s line. Then Otts made it 2–0 by fooling Hrudey into going down, then putting it upstairs. The Kings decided to take aim at our top guns. Baumgartner flattened Mullen and the Kings cut the lead. But there was no stopping Mullen and Gilmour. Killer was getting really beat up in the playoffs. He was so determined that he got more than his fair share of pucks, sticks and elbows in the face. Bearcat tried to put Steri-Strips on his cuts, but he’d shake him off. Most guys would say, “I can’t go on. Get me stitched up.” But not Killer. He would say, “Leave me alone, I’m fine. I’m playing hockey.” All he would let Bearcat do during a game was stop the bleeding. Geez he was tough. We took the third game 5–2.
With the Kings facing elimination, Gretzky scored first in game four. But a rebound out to Mullen tied things up. I found the puck, took it behind the net, passed it out in front, and Roberts muscled his way in and scored to take the lead. But Gretz showed great patience in front of our net and tied the game. “We’ll get it back,” I thought. “No big deal.” And we did. Thankfully, Rob Ramage played goaltender and stopped the puck with his glove when it slipped past Vernie, who was too far out of the net. Rammer had so much heart, he gave us spirit and extra edge. Then a second effort from Newie gave us the lead and the series, four games straight.
Gretz was a real sportsman. He credited Mullen and Gilmour and said we were one of the most disciplined, methodical teams he had ever played. I loved the guy. Gretz was the kind of guy you could tell your kids you wanted them to be like. During the series, he scored the 86th playoff goal of his career, passing Mike Bossy as the NHL’s all-time leading playoff scorer. Right after that last game, he was asked about it. He said he would trade all his goals for a Stanley Cup any year.
Two series down, two to go. There was so much pressure on our team from the fans and media in Calgary. They wanted to win a Stanley Cup so badly because Edmonton had been kicking our asses every year—in football too. Our city needed something to take pride in, and having Vancouver take us to seven games showed everyone how fragile we could be. We had lacked confidence, but Lanny’s fight and the sweep of the Kings brought it back.
In the Campbell Conference final we went up against the Chicago Blackhawks. They were a chippy team, and if you wonder why, well, look at who was coaching, Mike Keenan. Here’s a guy who has never played in the NHL, yet he thinks he’s the big cheese. I don’t know how far he made it in his hockey career, maybe tyke? And you’ve heard all the stories about Keenan and his mind games. He’ll pick on a third-or fourth-line player and ride him, just grind him down.
One of his standard tactics is to intentionally bump into his victim coming out of the showers and call him a fag. “You fag, I saw you looking at the guys in the shower. You fag.” After weeks of this shit, the player snaps and Keenan will be like, “Who are you to talk to me like that? I’m your coach, show some respect.” But I heard it backfired when he was hard on Dave Manson, who played for him in Chicago. Apparently, Manson had had enough mental abuse and went into Keenan’s office, grabbed him by the shoulders and hung him right on the hook on the back of the door. I thought that was great. It’s funny how some coaches have a whipping boy that they use as an example. The problem with that is that word gets around about the asshole things this coach does. And after a while, nobody listens.
Chicago had talent. At centre they had Denis Savard, Troy Murray, Adam Creighton and Jeremy Roenick, but we had Newie, Otto, Killer and me. At left wing they had Steve Larmer, Dirk Graham, Wayne Presley and Duane Sutter up against Colin Patterson, Pep, Gary Roberts and Brian MacLellan. And we had Mullie and Håkan Loob on the right wing, backed up by Lanny and Tim Hunter. On defence, Gary Suter was out with a broken jaw, but we had veterans Brad McCrimmon, Rob Ramage, Al MacInnis, Jamie Macoun and Ric Nattress, as well as rookie Dana Murzyn. They had depth too: Keith Brown, Bob Murray, Steve Konroyd, Bob McGill and Dave Manson. We had Vernie in goal and they had Alain Chevrier. It was Chevrier’s first playoff.
In the first game, Chicago targeted Newie, who was bloodied several times. Newie was tremendously hardy. A lot of guys who took the beating he took in front of the net would have moved out of there. He was just getting chopped to pieces. Bearcat turned for help to the Calgary Stampeders’ trainer and learned to make special padding to protect Newie’s ribs and spine. Newie was great in front. He and Roberts had played lacrosse together before they made the pros, and he had unbelievable hand-eye co-ordination. He had swift feet, was a good stickhandler and had a really quick, accurate shot. That’s how he scored 50 goals in his first two seasons.
Macoun opened the scoring with a rocket through Chevrier. Then Newie broke into the clear on a Chicago line change and—bang!—it was in. Finally, Brian MacLellan was in the right place at the right time, finding himself in front of a wide-open net, and we took the game 3–0.
The Blackhawks bounced back with three quick goals in the first period of game two. They hung on to win 4–2, sending the series to the unfriendly and noisy confines of Chicago Stadium.
The Gilmour line jumped on the Hawks early in game three, with Mullie finding the target. I was doing my thing, chirping at them and getting under their skin, drawing some penalties. Steve Konroyd knocked me down and Keith Brown pitchforked me behind the net. Loob was cross-checked by Brown, Mullen was slashed by Troy Murray—with no penalty called—and Newie was flipped upside down by the blue line, but he got his revenge on the power play. As the clock wound down, Mullen iced a 5–2 win. We led the series 2–1 and the Hawks expressed their frustration. A battle broke out between Pep and Manson. Savard and Otts were sizing each other up when goalie Alain Chevrier shoved Otts, pinning him against the bench. Otts got loose and put Savard in a bear hug, then Chevrier jumped on his back from behind. All three came down and wrestled on the ice. Hunter, McCrimmon, Graham, Larmer and Konroyd joined in, and it was an all-out square dance.
No doubt these fights were part of Keenan’s fuckin’ tactics, but they didn’t work this time. We were so much better than they were talent-wise. Like I said, you are not going to see a lot of teams like ours, with so many future Hall of Famers.
In the fourth game, Newie took six stitches on the bottom of his tongue thanks to a high stick from Konroyd, but we were dominant. We outshot the Hawks 12–3 in the first period. Late in that period, Chicago’s Jeremy Roenick hit Colin Patterson from behind, crushing him into the glass, and got five minutes for boarding. Then Dave Manson slashed Otts on the leg. The hack was so vicious that Otts went down and had trouble getting up. Remember, Otts was a tough, tough guy. The last thing he wanted was to lie around on the ice. The ref, Andy Van Hellemond, ignored the infraction, which made Otts even madder. So when he was finally able to get to his feet, Otts skated over to the Hawks’ bench and went after Manson, jabbing at him with his stick like a Masai warrior, and he was sent to the box.
A minute later, Rob Ramage slashed Steve Larmer and we were two men down. Larmer passed to Trent Yawney at the left point, and he gave it to Savard, who was standing next to Vernie. Vernie got a piece of it, but the puck made it past him. Savard was dangerous. It was his 46th career playoff goal.
Next, Gary Roberts was off for tripping Bob Bassen and we were down a man again. But MacInnis passed to Gilmour and it was in. We went on to overtime. Roberts drop-passed to me and I moved it across, point to point, to Al, who took a couple of long strides, put his head down and just gave ‘er. From Alain Chevrier’s point of view the puck must have looked like a cruise missile coming right at him. It went off the outside of his left pad and just under his glove and we were ahead in the series 3–1. Chevrier saved the Hawks from a major thrashing, but he said it didn’t really matter how he played because he didn’t stop the puck enough to win. Crispy, who had been riding the glass with excitement, leaned over and kissed the first pretty face in the crowd. In his excitement he didn’t realize it was Al MacNeil’s wife, Norma.
I was the fifth one out of the gate for game five. We were looking to wrap up the series. As I skated past Keenan, he started lipping me and I beaked, “What are you gonna do? Hit me with your man purse?” I heard him say, “Oh you little shit, we’re gonna get you,” so I looked him in the eye and said, “Bring it on, man. If you wanna come out here, I’m ready. Me and you, right here, right now. Let’s go. You think you’re tough? You’re not tough.” I always hated it when opposing coaches yelled at players. For what? I used to just laugh at ‘em.
Loob blocked a clearing pass and set up Newie in the slot. Mike Hudson tied up the game late in the second on a centring pass off Vernie’s stick. Ric Nattress set up the game-winner as Brian MacLellan tipped it through Chevrier’s legs. Newie got the insurance goal by skating through their entire team. We were on our way to the Stanley Cup final. It was a proud day, but no one was jumping up and down in the dressing room because we knew we had a lot of work to do. Lanny reminded us all, “It’s not party time yet.”
The final series featured the two best teams in the league—us and the Montreal Canadiens, who had finished second overall. We opened the series in Calgary because we’d finished first overall in the regular season. Man, were we ready to put on a show. After Stéphane Richer picked the corner on a power play to give the Habs a 1–0 lead, my line got it to MacInnis, who evened the score. Patrick Roy was an amazing goalie, maybe the best of all time, but in this series, MacInnis got his number early and his big slapper had Roy shit-scared all the way to the Cup.
I had two of the biggest Flames as my wingers, Timmy Hunter and Brian MacLellan. Not only were they the biggest, they were two of the strongest guys you’ll ever meet. When I first saw MacLellan take off his shirt in the dressing room, his arms were so ripped that his biceps looked like cantaloupes. I thought, “What am I getting myself into? I’m gonna get killed.” Crispy called those two guys snowplows ‘cause they cleared the way for me.
I was on left point with Al and we broke in on a three-on-one and scored again. Then Larry Robinson came back and banked a centring pass off Jamie Macoun and the score was even. After that, the most amazing thing happened. Out of the blue, Jamie Macoun made an unbelievable little feather pass. I broke in on the left wing, and as soon as it was on my stick, I snapped it and caught Patrick Roy off guard. It went right between his legs. I will never forget that feeling. It was like watching a girl take her clothes off in front of you for the first time. Unbelievable. Hunter grabbed me and Macoun grabbed him. Even though it was early in the second period, we could taste victory. After that, we protected our lead, playing defence like we could. When the game ended, I was pumped. “I scored a game-winning goal in the Stanley Cup finals. Wow.” I wonder how many times that goal was re-enacted on the streets of Russell, Manitoba.
Growing up, I liked the Canadiens. My heroes were Guy Lafleur, Guy Lapointe and Yvan Cournoyer. Hockey Night in Canada would often switch over to the Montreal game because the Leafs played so terribly. My Grampa Fleury was a huge Montreal fan. My whole family was. In fact when we won the Cup in 1989, my cousin Dave was so pissed off he ripped his phone off the wall.
After that first game, we were focused and in a good place as a team. When you win because your fourth-line guys like me are chipping in with big goals here and there, it makes life even sweeter.
In a playoff series, you really want to win your first two home games before heading to your opponent’s rink. It gives you a stranglehold, and even if they win their two home games, you’re still tied. Unfortunately, we fucked that up.
Game two was close. Two awesome teams playing each other. The whole series came down to a break here and a break there. Personally, I could not get one. We had a power-play opportunity in the first period. I moved in from the point, picked up a pass and saw an opening just above Roy’s shoulder, but my shot hit the post. Then Larry Robinson blasted a screen shot through Vernie: 1–0, Canadiens. Chris Chelios set up Mike Keane, and Vernie came out to cut him off, but Smith scored on the vacated net to make it 2–0. We stormed back, but Chelios made a miraculous skate save. Then Newie put one in. Next, Otto’s tough play in front tied the game. The Canadiens pulled ahead with a nifty back pass from Brian Skrudland that set up a slapshot from Chelios. They held on, tying the series at one game apiece.
Chelios and I had a good rivalry, but we used to go out and have beers together after regular-season games. I made him better and he made me better. If you are an elite athlete, you want to play against the best guys the other team has every night. You want to stick it up their asses. Games where you play highly competitive guys, like the Montreal series, made me a better player. If you play against Joe Blow, where’s the challenge in that? You know you’re going to beat him. Still, it was another sleepless night as I agonized over everything that had gone wrong in game two—a backhand that I couldn’t get up, shots that had gone wide, and that first shot that hit the post. It really bothered me. I kept thinking, “Son of a bitch, a goal right then could have made the difference.”
Game three was played in front of a sellout, shirtsleeve crowd of 17,909 at the Forum. Montreal scored first, then we got a break with a five-on-three. I was set up in front and made a great shot, but Roy read me and came up with the puck. I had never played a goaltender like this. Finally, Mullie tipped in a pass from McCrimmon and tied it up 1–1. The Canadiens scored, but the net was off the magnets and referee Kerry Fraser waved it off. The crowd took him to the mat over that one. On another power play, I took a pass and deked with it at the blue line, then passed it over to MacInnis. He sent it to Mullen by the net and we scored. Calgary 2, Montreal 1. But immediately after that, Bobby Smith evened it up for them. Gilmour regained our lead with a phenomenal effort, fighting through both defencemen and just pounding it in. We hung on until there were forty-one seconds on the clock in the third period, then Mats Naslund scored on a desperation slapshot.
This sent us to OT and thirty-five minutes of the best hockey a guy could ask for—until Kerry Fraser made an unbelievable call. I never liked that guy. I always thought he was jealous of me because, although he had an inch on me, he was a small guy who was only reffing, not playing, in the NHL. Every time he was in charge and I stepped on the ice, I might as well have stayed in the dressing room. He’d throw me in the penalty box all night. I once yelled at him that he was such a hot dog there wasn’t enough ketchup, mustard and relish in the world to cover him.
The veterans would take him in stride, but I didn’t have my anger under control, so I would toss a spark on the gas. This was always to my own detriment, but I couldn’t help it. Look at the ref’s role. He’s an authority figure, right? And I was already a little upset by authority figures in my life. I looked at Fraser as my dad, Graham James and the school principal I never liked. Each time he made (yet another) ridiculous call on me, I would skate past him and make a comment like, “Next time, kiss me before you fuck me.” He’d lift his head and scratch his chin and drawl, “That will be ten.” All those penalty minutes I got were not because I was scrapping.
Anyway, I think Fraser was still embarrassed from the bruising he took in calling off the Montreal goal, so he made a tripping call against Mark Hunter. At that time, it was unheard of to call a penalty in OT, let alone a marginal tripping call—thirty-five minutes in. Fraser did the same thing to the Flames in 2004 in game four of the final against the Tampa Bay Lightning, giving Tampa a five-on-three advantage and basically handing them the Cup. Some say that call in 2004 cost him some status and the officiating job in game six. But back in 1989, I doubt Fraser was called on the carpet. John Ziegler was the president of the NHL at the time, but he didn’t seem to me to do much except collect a paycheque. The other guy calling the shots was Alan Eagleson, and what was he going to do? Tell Fraser he’s out of line? Especially when he is busy stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the player pension fund at the time? The Canadiens took advantage and beat us in a heartbreaker, 4–3.
We needed the next game to stay alive. And Crispy had to come up with something unexpected, something to throw the Habs for a loop. We had the number one power play, so he instructed me to draw as many penalties as I could. “You’re small and fast, you little fucker, so keep your feet moving and stir up some shit.” My first chance came when Petr Svoboda high-sticked me. We scored on the power play. Later, Svoboda told the Calgary Herald, “I hate to play against small guys. When they’re small, tough and fast it’s hard to catch them. It’s frustrating. Every time you touch him, [Fleury] goes down and it’s just ridiculous. The referees have to take a closer look at him. You don’t want to let stuff like that go to your head, but it’s too bad we get the penalties and end up having to work twice as hard to kill a power play.” Hey, I was a competitor, what did he expect? If you hook me and I can draw a penalty, I am going down.
Next, Larry Robinson cross-checked me. I fell and Robinson was pissed when Joe Mullen scored. He told the Herald, “I can see if I went behind and rammed him, but I didn’t. I just came from behind and gave him a little nudge. There are more than a few dives going on out there. Maybe we have to play a non-contact game or something because I don’t know what’s going on.”
I was really becoming a pain in the ass for the Habs. Guy Carbonneau was next—he got called for hooking. The game was all about clutch and grab—it was like skating through a jungle. Eventually the NHL would change the rules to open the game up more, but by moving fast to the net I was forcing the Canadiens to spend time in the box, and they were sore. In the same article in the Herald, Carbonneau said, “I just had my stick on him and he dove. That’s the kind of game that’s happening. You can’t say it’s Fleury’s fault because for his team it’s a good thing. The refs have to get to know him better. It’s only his first year and I’m sure he’s going to be watched more. It’s almost like it is for Claude Lemieux now. He used to draw a lot of penalties, but they watch him closer now and don’t call penalties as much.”
For me it was all about the W. We beat them 4–2. Crispy got a real kick out of goading Montreal. “Theo is fast and he’s quick. They’ve got to do something to slow him down and they’re taking penalties. But that’s what speed does. It demands you stop him anyway you can.”
Game four was the biggest game of my career to that point. It was also the most violent. Don Cherry had been beaking off on Hockey Night in Canada about how I was too small to make it through the series and was going to get killed. This did not please my dad. So when my dad was being interviewed by Chris Cuthbert, he spotted Cherry along the glass, called him over and said, “Well, my kid has been fighting six-foot players his whole life. And I’ve seen him beat up a lot of big guys in his day, so I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t say that he is too small anymore.” And Cherry said, “I have to admit I would never have believed he could make it in the league and do what he is doing.” I thought it was cool that my dad stepped in to defend me.
Everybody in my family drove up to Calgary from Manitoba for game five on May 23. I had twenty or so people sleeping on the living room carpet, couches, chairs—even the kitchen floor in my little two-bedroom apartment. I was desperate for tickets. I would go up to the ticket lady, Mrs. Anne Marie Malarchuk. She was married to Clint Malarchuk’s brother Garth, who was also a goalie. Anne Marie always hooked me up. Like the mothers in Russell, she was extra nice to me. Some of the seats were nosebleeds, but who the hell cared? It was the Stanley Cup final.
The Canadiens were still off their game. Twenty-nine seconds in, big Joel Otto got a break. He went in alone and Roy went down in a half-butterfly, stopping the puck with his left pad, but it bounced back toward Otto, hitting him just above his glove and—bam!—into the net. Otts wasn’t the most skilled guy in the world, but he worked as hard as anybody and he was really good defensively. We were up 1–0.
The rest of the game was back and forth, back and forth. Vernie made some unbelievable saves. He was insane. Vernie was five-nine and weighed 155 pounds. For a guy that size, he was as big as a house. Vernie always tested the fittest at camp. He was in awesome shape, and it was really working for him.
We made it 2–0 on the power play, then Bobby Smith replied and it was 2–1. MacInnis kept us out in front with a slapshot from the blue line. I was on Smith a couple of shifts later. He moved out from behind the net, beating me to the puck, and passed it over to my old buddy, winger Mike Keane, who cut the lead to a single goal. Thankfully it did not make the difference, and I headed home that night one win away from the Stanley Cup.
Back to Montreal for game six and a chance to win the Cup. It was just surreal. Before the game, my mind was playing tricks on me. I was saying to myself, “Can you believe you are here? Can you believe this is happening?” I went to the Forum early because I couldn’t sleep in the afternoon. Inside the arena, I grabbed all four of my sticks and walked in the pitch-black all the way up past the reds and whites to the blues. I just sat up top, taping my sticks, sipping a cup of creamy, three-sugar coffee, drinking in all the Stanley Cup banners and squinting down at the ice. I could almost see the Forum ghosts moving around the ice. I imagined the old-time goalies, with pads only about half a foot wide and scabby gloves and those funky masks they used to wear. I thought of all those Montreal guys who played there—Jean Béliveau, the Rocket, Guy Lafleur. If I could have held on to that feeling, I would never have touched a drug or another drink. Sitting there was magical. “Wow, man,” I thought, “you have gone a long way.” That time in the Forum is a memory that will stay with me forever.
I had experienced a major win at the World Juniors, so I knew what the process was. “Don’t get too excited, just stay calm. You can’t start thinking instead of reacting.” My play had to stay instinctive. As I skated out on the ice that night I just wanted to shit with excitement. I was thinking, “Where the hell are my dad and my mom sitting? They must be going bonzo.” Fleurys are French—emotional, crazy. I felt an exhilarating anticipation, mixed with anxiety—“Fuck, can we just win and get this over with?”
Colin Patterson opened the scoring for us. He raced into the Montreal zone on a forecheck and stole the puck. Before the Canadiens knew what hit them, it was in the net and we were up 1–0. Claude Lemieux tied the game on a rising slapshot. Then a piece of hockey history: Lanny McDonald jumped out of the penalty box, picked up a pass from Jamie Macoun and snapped it in. Lanny raised his arms in celebration like a 10-year-old, eyes and mouth wide open. It’s a highlight you see over and over again on Hockey Night in Canada.
Did I care for Lanny? Who wouldn’t? When I was 9 years old, he was playing for the Colorado Rockies and Don Cherry was the coach. I won tickets to a game and managed to snag his autograph. First day of training camp with the Flames, I looked for my name on the lockers and who was I sitting beside? The man himself. It was trippy. Now I was his teammate, watching him score the biggest goal of his career. I started jumping up and down on the bench, just losin’ it. “Yeahhhhhhh!!!!” Crispy was trying to climb up the glass behind him. The entire team went nuts. What a story! In his last NHL game, Lanny gets a picture pass and fuckin’ shelves it on Patrick Roy like it’s nothin’!
Vernie continued to play outstanding for us. He took a big hit behind the net. It was a sign of the Canadiens’ frustration and it drew a penalty. On the power play, Killer scored a huge goal to make it 3–1. The Habs cut the lead to 3–2 when Claude Lemieux went after Vernie again. He stuck his foot behind Vernie’s skate, kicking his feet out from under him, but the goal was counted anyway. Crispy blistered the ref with his opinion, but the goal stood.
When there was about five minutes left on the clock and I knew I was not going to get another shift, I began counting the clock down. But it would not go down fast enough. I would watch a little of the play, then look up—“Aw, whaddya mean only ten seconds gone by? What’s going on?” Gilmour played the game of his life and put a lock on it with an empty-netter, and then finally—10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 … and helmets, sticks and gloves were flying and everybody washed over the boards into a big dog pile. Crispy picked me up and swung me around. And then I carried the Cup around the Forum ice. I couldn’t believe it!
I was one of the first guys off the ice, and there was champagne in the room. So I started shaking one of the bottles, and the cork popped off and hit Rick Wamsley right between the eyes. Wamsley was Vernie’s backup, a really good goalie and a great guy in the room. He was one of the funniest guys on the team. He was nearly ten years older than me and I respected him, so I immediately said, “Oh, man! I’m sorry, man.” He grabbed the bottle—“That’s okay, kid”—and he started guzzling champagne, wearing this big, shit-eating grin while a toe-sized welt grew on his forehead. I got hammered, and was having the best time of my life, but we had to catch the charter back to Calgary. I would not take my equipment off until Bear said, “Hey, everybody’s getting on the bus.” I showered fast and changed, and we drank and partied some more on the plane and landed in Calgary about four in the morning. I was annihilated. Not just drunk, but exhausted. That night seemed to last for months.
There’s a tradition that continues to this day—every player gets to keep the Cup for a day and overnight. Usually, they take it back to their hometown and have a party for family and friends, old coaches, people in the neighbourhood who helped them make it to The Show. Some of the parties get pretty wild. The Cup has splashed around in more than one swimming pool, and at least once some guy has left it behind in a taxi. I was the last guy to get the Cup overnight because I was the youngest on the team. When I picked it up at the rink in November 1989, I remember saying to myself, “Hey, I could take it to Mexico if I wanted—who would know?” There was no Cup handler back then. Today, a representative of the Hockey Hall of Fame escorts the Cup all over the place. He’s like a Secret Service agent guarding the American president, only in this case he’s wearing white gloves and hauling the Stanley Cup.
I had a bunch of friends over and took some pictures with it. Then, when it was time to go to bed, I said to Shannon, “I’m sleepin’ with the Cup tonight. Out.” I put it right in bed with me, one leg over the bottom and arm around the neck—just like one of those body pillows—and slept with it. I remember waking the next morning, running my fingers over all the names engraved on it and finding mine and thinking, “Cool.”