IN MY FIRST full NHL season, 1989–90, I had 31 goals and 35 assists for 66 points altogether. Things started out well for me. I remember a game against the Hawks in November when I put up two goals and an assist. Their goalie, Alain Chevrier, was still pissed about the playoffs, so he had a few comments for me each time I skated past. And I had some choice remarks for him too. At the end of the second period, he tried to trip me with his stick, so I fell right into him. He lost it and started to beat me with his blocker. It turned the game into a real war between us. I thought I had one in when Newie made a pass and I sniped the puck toward an open left side, but Chevrier sprawled across and snagged it. The game was 4–3 for the Hawks, with seven minutes left, when I found myself in front. I snapped it in and beaked him, “Take that, you sawed-off little runt.” Revenge is sweet.
We had some remarkable games as a team that season. We crushed the Leafs 12–2 on February 23, and toward the end of the year we were on a six-game unbeaten streak and won the Smythe Division title by nine points over the Oilers, finishing second overall in the NHL. It looked like we had a good chance to repeat our Stanley Cup championship. But by the playoffs, things had started to go south. We got knocked out in the first round, partly due to a goal in game six that was clearly in the net but was called back. If that goal had counted, we wouldn’t have lost in overtime and who knows what might have happened? But we were eliminated early and our coach, Terry Crisp, got his walking papers that May.
Today, Crispy has the best job ever, as a broadcaster with the Nashville Predators, but back then he had problems with the Flames’ owners. They had asked him to hold it down on the bench because fans were complaining about his language. Personally, I liked the guy. Crispy always had time for his players.
No excuses, but I was injured after Christmas—a second-degree sprain of a medial collateral ligament just before Valentine’s Day. I didn’t get out of the way quick enough when some big Quebec Nordique freight train came at me. It was kind of scary, and as I hit the ice I thought, “Aw heck, I just made it to The Big Show. Is this what it’s going to look like for the rest of my career?” I finished the game, of course. I was playing on the best team in hockey, and there was no way I was going to wimp out. By the end of the third period my knee was pretty wonky. I could not put much weight on it, and I could bend it both ways, but I had learned how to block out pain. Go somewhere else.
At the end of the 1990–91 season, I sustained another fairly serious injury. We were in Los Angeles, and I ran into Tony Granato. We were two yappy little guys. I did not particularly like Mr. Granato, so I went out of my way to try to hurt him but ended up hurting myself. I’ve since met him off the ice and he’s a great guy, but I was jealous. He was a college guy. He’d just been named to the NHL all-rookie team, and because I’d started halfway through my first season, my stats weren’t good enough to put me in consideration. He was always in my face, most of the time with jokes about my height. This was particularly irritating because he wasn’t much bigger than I was. He’d say, “Oh you little fuckin’ short shit,” and I would respond, “They are going to take you out of here in a body bag, asshole.” The usual clever back and forth. What I should have done was grab him and beat the shit out of him—embarrass him in front of everybody.
So it was late in the regular season, and we were getting killed, losing really badly to L.A. Tony was coming up the ice and I was stuck in the railway tracks. He made a move and I went to stop him with my knee out and—bam! Knee on knee. Down I went.
It was particularly bad timing for me. I was only three goals away from fifty for the season. Luckily, we had four full days off after that game. I came back to Calgary and did some physio. We were scheduled to play Vancouver next. I was hurt really bad, my knee was super loose, but c’mon, I was three goals away! So I participated in the morning skate and then saw the doctor. I was sitting on the table and he started reefing on it. I mean, the bone was moving from one side to the other. It fuckin’ hurt like hell. I acted like I didn’t notice. “Feels fine.” I had to play. I had to get to fifty. He told me to squat down and duck-walk around his entire office. Each step was like a knife ripping up my entire leg. He was watching my face, so I kept it neutral. I shrugged, hopped back up on the table and shook it around. “No problem, doc.”
He stared at me a minute, trying to figure out why I could not feel this knee that was so obviously torn up. I kept grinning at him like I was really happy it was all better.
“Okay,” he said, “everything is fine. Let’s see how you feel in the warmup. Bearcat will tape your knee.” He and Bearcat stood at the edge of the boards, watching. Circling, I caught my toe on an edge and my knee was jarred. It Ping-Ponged—crunching bone against bone—for a second and I dropped. Bearcat started out the gate, yelling, “What happened there?” I got up, said, “Aw, I just fell the wrong way,” and skated away. Riser got wind that I was on the ice. He was the Flames’ GM by this time and he ordered me into his office. The doctor had told him I had a six-week injury, and because I was our best scorer Riser was thinking I should rest in order to be back for the first round of playoffs. “Theo,” he said, “forget the fifty goals. This is not about fifty goals, we gotta make sure you’re ready for playoffs.”
I shrugged. “My knee doesn’t bother me, seriously.”
Riser didn’t believe me. “You gotta think about the team. You can’t be playing hurt.” I looked him straight in the eye. “Doug, it doesn’t hurt. I feel good.” That night, I got a hat trick and made my target. God was looking after me.
We met up with the Oilers in the first round, but by that time my knee was hamburger. Thankfully, it didn’t look injured and when I taped it up, that gave it some real stability. I was going for ultrasound treatments, icing it and using electrical stimulation on it, but during the course of the game I would get a little twang and start hanging on by my fingernails.
It was just an unbelievable series. Edmonton had finished the season twenty points behind us, but they brought everything they had to that series. Each game was like a game of road hockey, like you’d play on the street in front of your house. And it was a dream series for a player like me—an absolute war. Men were men, and if you weren’t a man you got put out of commission early. You know how you see players tap each other with their sticks and it’s called slashing? What we did was come at each other with full baseball-bat swings. It was nuts. But it was fun, so much fun. Sather put the defence pair of Jeff Beukeboom and Steve Smith on me every shift. Beukeboom was Newie’s cousin. He was six foot five, 230 pounds, and Smith was six-three and 215. Every single shift of every game I played, I was up against those two giants, and their sole purpose was to try to wear me down. They used anything they could on me—cross-checks, slashing, elbows, whatever it took. It felt like I was part of the Battle of Falkirk from Braveheart, and I loved it. I loved that kind of pressure. These are the situations an elite athlete dreams about playing in, wants to be a part of. I know that there is nothing in my life, with the exception of my kids being born, that will give me another blast like playing in those types of situations. People don’t find themselves in situations that spectacular in everyday life.
We split the first two games in Calgary, both by 3–1 scores, then Edmonton won the next two at home, putting us down three games to one. Fifty goals during the regular season and I still hadn’t scored in the series. Again, I’m not offering excuses, but my knee was killing me. Back in Calgary for game five, we won 5–3, avoiding elimination and sending the series back to Edmonton.
It was a really, really close game, back and forth, and it went into overtime. Mark Messier circled back and was looking to pass across the ice. I anticipated it, scooped up the puck and skated right between Beukeboom and Smith in a foot race—which was easy ‘cause those guys were big and slow. Suddenly, I was one-on-one against their goalie, Grant Fuhr, and as I stickhandled the puck toward the net, it jumped onto its edge. I saw a tiny opening between Fuhr’s legs—a gap literally the width of a sideways puck. I lifted my back skate and shot. It went in. In the blink of an eye I had scored the biggest goal of my entire life—on one leg. I felt like I had a rocket strapped to my back as I moved past the net with my stick in the air, then ran down the left side of the ice past our team. I made it to centre ice and went down on my knees, punching the air. Momentum took me sliding into the boards while I pounded on the ice. I could see Newie coming at me full steam, a grin as big as an ass crack plastered all over his face. I flipped over and hit the side boards with my feet in the air while everyone piled on.
Those five seconds made life worth living. No drink or drug that I have tried since—and I’m talking about cocaine, weed, whatever—compares to the feeling I had at that moment. If you tune in the NHL Network, they probably show that goal fifty times a day. I remember being on Hockey Night in Canada with Don Cherry and Ron MacLean afterward. I was a little smoother than I had been at Piestany but still out of breath with excitement.
That win allowed us to go back to Calgary for game seven, April 17, 1991. It was a phenomenal opportunity for us. Glenn Anderson was going down the left wing near the boards. I had him lined up, and just as I went to hit him he ducked and I went right over top of him, hitting my right shoulder square on top of the boards. I don’t know what made more noise—the sound of my shoulder dislocating or the crunch against the wood. I got up, struggling to get it to pop back in and yelling at Bearcat to come help me. He bent down and had me hang over his back so that gravity would pop it back in place. It did and I skated back into the play.
The muscles in my shoulder had been stretched and torn and were screaming at me. With everything on the line, I allowed the team doctor to shoot me up with local anesthetic. Before the game, he’d asked me if I might be more comfortable if we put some freezing in my knee and I had agreed. Now, with my shoulder on fire, I was like, “Pull-llease!!!” He did it right in the dressing room. It was no big deal, and I have no clue what he put in there. All I know is that when I got the shot, I could move my arm around and my knee wasn’t full of sharp, broken glass. I would enter a world of hurt by the time I got home, but painkillers and a couple beers took care of that.
But you know, that is the way hockey was back then. That was the old school, and I am damn proud of it. I have more respect for that era than any era that came after. The players were true-blue guys—men. There was something special about the group from the early ‘80s through the salary cap era. It consisted of a breed of player that you’ll never see again. I am talking about Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Mark Messier, Steve Yzerman, Ron Francis—so many unbelievable guys. Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Paul Kariya and Chris Pronger. All of them played the same way—creative and hungry. Now you have your top three guys on every team and everybody else is just a Stepford wife. They all look the same, they all play the same. This is how the game has evolved.
We were up 3–0 after the first period, and I had scored one and had an assist on another. The Oilers were even by the end of the second,and they pulled ahead in the third on a goal by Anatoli Semenov. Then, with two minutes left to play in the third, Ronnie Stern put one in for us and we were tied at four. We ended up going to overtime, and at 6:58 Esa Tikkanen banked it in off Frankie Musil—a lucky goal. You go from being on top of the world to the lowest point humanly possible. And for me, emotional pain was a lot tougher to deal with than physical pain. As soon as I hit the dressing room I just started bawling. I couldn’t believe hockey was over. Al MacNeil, one of the Flames’ great hockey guys, always made me feel a little better. He always had something nice to say. I would wonder what it might have been like to have a father like him. I know things would have been easier, that’s for sure.
I look back now and I think, “Fuck, that was insane!” It was all about playing, all about winning, all about the team, and I didn’t want to let the team down. Losing to Edmonton was a heartbreaking early playoff exit.
I went on a good drunk for a few days. I started out at a bar, and when it closed I found a buddy’s place. I drank everything in his house—beer, whisky, whatever. Then back to the bar. I kept it up thanks to a little help from cocaine and marijuana. It took me four or five days with no sleep to get the loss out of my system. This became standard procedure for me at the end of every year. I set my record for consecutive days partying in 1998, when I stayed up for the entire Calgary Stampede—that’s ten days. Hey, as long as hockey season was over I figured I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Do you think I really cared that I had someone at home waiting up all night for me? It was the end of the year, man. I was just having fun.