John Muckler has always been a craggy, no-nonsense hockey man. He might also be one of the world’s foremost experts on Grant Fuhr—a guy who’s never been described as craggy or no-nonsense. In Edmonton, Muckler had helped transform the Oilers from a one-dimensional scoring machine to a defensively responsible team spearheaded by the best money goalie in hockey, No. 31. The bigger the game, the better Grant got. Now, as the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres in 1993, a continent away from his Edmonton roots, Muckler again made Grant his go- to guy in the post-season. And their chemistry was as potent as ever. “We’ve got the best playoff goalie in hockey,” a smiling Muckler told reporters in the bowels of decrepit Boston Garden. The usually laconic Muckler was wearing that smile because his old standby had delivered yet again. Grant’s fourth career playoff shutout, a shocking 4–0 waxing of the powerful Boston Bruins on their home ice, had put the underdog Sabres up two games to none in a series the experts claimed would be over in four straight for the Bruins.
In the Sabres dressing room, Grant tried to explain his extraordinary record in the games that meant the most. “I think I enjoy it more than anybody else,” he told reporters. “Some guys seem to get a little bit uptight, a little bit nervous. I find it to be a little bit more of a challenge, because everybody picks their game up … I look forward to this time of year.”
And the Sabres needed it. Despite the scoring exploits of Pat LaFontaine (148 points, 95 assists), Russian phenom Alexander Mogilny (127 points, 76 goals in 77 games) and Grant’s former Memorial Cup nemesis Dale Hawerchuk (96 points, 80 assists), the Sabres of 1993 were not a team to be feared come playoff time. At the end of a mediocre season, they’d dropped their final seven games to wind up 23 points back of Boston in the Adams Division. To make matters worse, unlike typical Muckler teams, the Sabres were heavy on scoring but short on defensive talent—never a good formula heading into the meat grinder of the NHL playoffs.
In the Bruins the Sabres faced a team that had won 51 games and allowed 29 fewer goals than Buffalo. Led by Ray Bourque, Cam Neely and Adam Oates, and still featuring Grant’s old partner Andy Moog in net, the Bruins were the trendy pick to emerge from the Wales Conference to play in the Stanley Cup final. But someone forgot to tell Grant Fuhr. When the lefty with the lightning hands was working his magic, none of the statistics mattered. After a surprising 5–4 OT win in Game 1 on a goal by Buffalo’s Bob Sweeney, Grant was unbeatable in Game 2, pitching a shutout that silenced the Bruins’ baying crowd. He made 34 saves, several of them of the spectacular variety. Bruins head coach Brian Sutter, who’d battled Grant as a player with St. Louis, was grudging in his praise. “If Fuhr’s not standing on his ear, we win. He’s a world-class goalie. What can you do?” The dramatic victory upped his playoff record to 76–32 while running his personal post-season record to 3–0 at Boston Garden.
No wonder Lafontaine gushed, “He’s the best goalie I’ve ever faced, the best I’ve ever seen, and he’s playing better now than he ever has. I’m glad he’s on our side.” Grant just shrugged. “This is my time of year,” he told SI. “You play 84 games to get to the playoffs, so you might as well enjoy them once you get here.”
The chances of Grant ever playing in another playoff game, let alone shutting out the mighty Bruins in the hostile bear pit of the Garden, had seemed remote as he headed to the 1990 Edmonton Oilers training camp. Bill Ranford’s play had been wonderful in the previous spring’s Cup run, and the Edmonton media were saying that, with Ranford on board, Grant was too much bother with his injuries and side issues. Still, Glen Sather preferred to wait before making a move. Grant’s 60-game suspension had given Sather a temporary reprieve from the decision in the fall of 1990, but when the All-Star did finally return late in 1991 to play inspired hockey, Sather realized the time had come to make a decision on his goaltending situation. Following Ranford’s MVP performance at the Canada Cup in September, it seemed obvious who had a future in Edmonton and who would be moving on. Grant was still young at 28, but he had experienced a decade’s worth of NHL hockey (including long post-seasons) and multiple injuries in that time—never mind the supposed toll from his party lifestyle. Four years younger, Ranford seemed so much more youthful than Fuhr in the eyes of fans and media. Plus, he had plenty of tread left on his tires, having been a starter for only two of his years in the NHL since 1986. And Ranford wouldn’t need to be paid like Grant—a huge consideration in Peter Pocklington’s financially stressed world.
With Billy playing great you could see that the team was starting to change. The writing was on the wall. You just didn’t know when it was going to happen, and I never really thought it would happen right away the next year. So I went to training camp, thought that camp was going fine, the team looked good and such. Never saw a trade coming yet.
Despite Grant’s optimism, things were happening behind the scenes. As training camp loomed, Sather had received an offer he couldn’t refuse from his old Calgary rival Cliff Fletcher, now the GM in Toronto. Looking to turn the Maple Leafs’ fortunes around in the wake of owner Harold Ballard’s death, Fletcher needed to make a bold move. While several teams had indicated interest in Grant, Toronto’s package of players was the most attractive. (Plus it moved Grant out of the Western Conference and limited the chances of revenge—they’d all seen enough of Gretzky by that point.) So on September 19, 1991, the Maple Leafs acquired Fuhr from Edmonton along with Glenn Anderson and Craig Berube. In exchange, Fletcher surrendered Luke Richardson, Scott Thornton, Peter Ing and Vincent Damphousse.
We were playing an exhibition game in Ottawa, and Glennie Anderson, Craig Berube and I had the day off and went golfing. We all got traded together while we were on the golf course. But if you had to go somewhere, Toronto was pretty cool. As a kid, I grew up as a Leafs fan, because you either had Toronto or Montreal on TV, and I used to love watching Johnny Bower and Terry Sawchuk play goal for the Leafs. So if I had to be traded, I thought it was a great place to go.
When asked how he could trade a goalie of Grant’s calibre in the prime of his career, Sather admitted that the move was painful but necessary. “I’m sorry to see players like Grant and Glenn go, but I have to think in terms of the future of the Edmonton Oilers,” he said. “We’re getting some incredible young talent in return, and this team will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.”
Some were shocked that it was Cliff Fletcher who had nabbed Grant. He had, after all, spent many years trying to beat the nimble goalie and the Oilers in the Battle of Alberta. But it would not be the last time that a coach or general manager who had been victimized by Grant in the past would reach out to acquire him.
I had a lot of respect for Cliff even though his teams in Calgary were always trying to beat us in Edmonton. Cliff was a nice man to deal with. Very straightforward, very honest, fun guy to be around. And he said flat out, “We don’t have a good hockey team.” I didn’t realize at the time of the trade that it was quite as bad as it was, but he was right. It wasn’t a very good hockey team. After my experience in Victoria and then Edmonton, I just didn’t realize what a change it was to go from a really good team to a not very good team. For instance, being in Edmonton as long as I was, you never had to worry about reading off different defencemen. As soon as I got to Toronto it was a whole new group: now you’ve got to try and figure out what everybody’s thinking.
Going from a five-time championship team to the sad-sack Leafs was like going from the NHL penthouse to its outhouse. In the final years under Ballard, the Leafs had become a bad joke, drifting as an organization according to the doddering owner’s latest whims. Coaches and general managers came and went (at one point Ballard even promoted his public relations man, Gord Stellick, to be the team’s general manager). After recycled GM Punch Imlach engineered the Lanny McDonald trade to Colorado in 1979, Toronto did not tally another winning record until 1992–93. They missed the playoffs six times, finished above fourth in their division only once, and won just two playoff series in those dozen years.
Lack of solid goaltending became one of many glaring weaknesses for the newly hired Fletcher to address in 1991. He knew better than almost anyone what he was getting in Grant, and Toronto arguably hadn’t picked up a goalie with such a Hall of Fame resumé since Jacques Plante in 1970. Despite the recent bumps in the road, Grant was still a world-class goalie in Fletcher’s eyes, and his gamble on Grant was a much-needed shot in the arm to the Leafs—who were coming off another disastrous season in which they finished with the second-worst record in the league. Furthermore, they’d already seen GM Floyd Smith waste their first-round pick on a misbegotten trade for the Devils’ Tom Kurvers (New Jersey took Hall of Fame selection Scott Niedermayer with the pick).
Grant welcomed the challenge in Toronto with his usual wry sense of humour. When asked by reporters to compare the volume of shots he faced in Toronto to those in Edmonton, he quipped, “Well, at least it’s a good way to break in equipment.”
Toronto took some getting used to off the ice as well.
It’s completely different marketing-wise in Toronto than it is in Edmonton. The number of reporters and TV stations following you each and every day is amazing. There aren’t many cities you can go where you get report cards for practice in the paper. I actually got a kick out of it.
Cushioning the blow of the trade to such a circus was the financial reward of moving from impecunious Edmonton to a team with money to spend. With salaries across the NHL jumping, Grant was finally able to cash in on his status as a top goalie.
When I got to Toronto, Cliff wanted to sit down and do a new deal. And all of a sudden, I got a million dollars a year. After all the conflict in Edmonton with Glen [Sather] over money, this just happened so easily.
Though economic security had finally arrived, success on the ice was a little harder to find in Toronto. Pegged to reverse the Leafs’ defensive woes in 1991–92, Grant did in fact lower the team’s goals-against slightly, and in response, Toronto’s record in the Norris Division improved by 10 points in the standings (from 57 to 67). Armed with his new deal, Grant played the workhorse role Fletcher had envisioned for him. Despite a series of nagging ailments, he was the clear No. 1 goalie, appearing in 65 games while posting a 3.66 GAA and a 25–33–2 record (these numbers despite a 12–1 loss in Pittsburgh in which coach Tom Watt left him in net for every goal). Those critiquing the Leafs that season knew the problems did not lie with their newly acquired goalie, and that the fifth place finish in the division was due squarely to a puny scoring attack. The only team with a worse offence in 1991–92 was the expansion San Jose Sharks.
To remedy the non-existent offence, Fletcher engineered a dramatic mid-season acquisition of his former Flames star Doug Gilmour in a 10-player deal with Calgary on January 2, 1992. The trade was the largest in NHL history, sending Gary Leeman and four others to Alberta for Gilmour, Jamie Macoun, Ric Nattress, Kent Manderville and Rick Wamsley. The boost from the leadership of Gilmour—who was about to become the most popular Leaf of the decade—improved the club after an awful start. But it was not enough to gain a berth in the post-season. Toronto still finished three points back of fourth-place Minnesota in the Norris, and for the first time since starting junior hockey, Grant was forced to miss out on his best time of the year.
We still should have made the playoffs that year. That hurt a little bit, because it was my first miss of the post-season. That was a new experience. But you could see with Doug and the other new guys Cliff was bringing in that things were getting better.
It was a fun year. Andy and I roomed together for the first part of the year in Toronto, which is always entertaining. The drive to the rink every morning was a little longer than what I was used to in Edmonton. Twenty minutes to get you across the city in Edmonton, 20 minutes just to get you to Tim Horton’s in Toronto.
The early end to the Maple Leafs’ season allowed Grant to take his first major crack at playing pro golf, however. He teed it up at the Morningstar course in Parksville, British Columbia, to try to gain his tour playing card on the Canadian Professional Golf Tour (now the PGA Canada Tour). A five handicap at the time, Grant had visions of playing pro golf when his NHL career ended. Unfortunately, his first taste of the Tour was sour; he shot a two-day total of 174 to miss the cut.
What bothered me was that I was nervous that first day on the Tour. I was surprised by that after all the golf I played, and the big hockey games. I felt better the second day, but by then it was too late. Still, it was fun to see how we stacked up against the guys who made a living at it. I learned a lot.
The Leafs would find resurgence under Gilmour’s inspired leadership the following season. The future hadn’t looked so bright for the team in decades—only Grant would not get to revel in the Toronto hockey renaissance. A series of injuries restricted his availability, and through the start of February he had played only 29 games for the reborn Leafs.
I’d say that you’re usually only 100 percent on the first day of training camp. That’s it. After that there’s always something that hurts. But you adjust to it and get used to it. I think my style contributed a bit to the injuries I had through those years: using strictly reflexes and throwing myself all over the place probably hurt the shoulder and knee ailments a bit.
The injuries opened a door in Toronto for rookie Felix Potvin and, eventually, closed a door for Grant. While he would begin 1992–93 as the definite No. 1 in the Toronto net, the stellar play of “Felix the Cat” during Fuhr’s absences convinced Toronto it could do without the injury-plagued 30-year-old.
Grant remained confident he could regain the top spot in Toronto from Potvin in the long term. But, needing a winger to work with Gilmour, Fletcher decided to hedge his bets with Grant. Although the team was prospering on the ice, ownership complications in the wake of Harold Ballard’s death were forcing Fletcher to consider players on big contracts. Simply put, Grant was making too much to be a backup goalie. Barely two years after Fletcher had acquired him, Grant was trade bait again.
So just as we had learned the traffic part of getting around in Toronto, Cliff decided to make the deal with Buffalo in February of 1993. The Leafs were missing a couple pieces, and Cliff felt he could use me to get them from Muck [John Muckler] in Buffalo. I knew they were getting better, and it was tough to leave just as the team was about to get back in the playoffs. As it turned out they went a long way that year, to the semi-finals. That was the year Wayne and the Kings beat them in that seven-game series.
In fact, in the 1993 playoffs, Toronto would barely miss on the team’s first trip to the Stanley Cup final since 1967 (and a rematch with Montreal, whom they beat that year for their last Cup to date). But just as he’d played foil to Edmonton, Gretzky and his Kings scored a controversial win in seven games over Toronto in the Campbell Conference final. A non-call on a high stick by No. 99 on Gilmour remains a sore spot to this day for victory-starved Leafs fans.
As for Grant, the idea of No. 31 in blue and gold had piqued the interest of an old hockey connection. Sensing opportunity, John Muckler and the Buffalo Sabres pounced on the chance to shore up their own crease when they found out Grant was available. Buffalo acquired Fuhr on February 2, 1993, in what would, in retrospect, turn out to be an overpayment: Dave Andreychuk (who finished the year a 54-goal scorer thanks to 25 scores in 31 games playing alongside Gilmour), former all-star netminder Daren Puppa and a first rounder (respectable Swedish blueliner Kenny Jonsson) for Grant and a draft pick. But Muckler had coached Grant for eight years in the Oilers organization, and his word, more than anything else, convinced Buffalo GM Gerry Meehan the costly deal was worth the risk. “The price was high,” Muckler said, “but we got what we needed.”
So, another trade. It was okay, because Muck was there. I’d played for him in Edmonton, which made it an easier transition. I lived in Toronto for the first two and a half, three weeks after the trade, drove back and forth to Buffalo, getting comfortable. But Buffalo had a good team—they actually had a really good team there. That helped the move as well.
While Andreychuk helped vault the Leafs to their best year in decades, Grant’s impact wasn’t as dramatic as the Sabres had envisioned. They went 12–16–4 in the rest of the season, with Grant sporting a 3.47 GAA and .891 save percentage in 28 appearances (while going 11–15–2). His backup, the Czech wonder Dominik Hasek, actually put up superior numbers, but he had no track record in the post-season.
Grant did play excellent hockey in stretches for his old friend Muckler. The Sabres were going to need it against the Bruins, their first-round opponent, who were a perfect 8–0 to finish the season, landing just behind Pittsburgh for the best record in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. Buffalo, meanwhile, had not won a playoff series since 1983, and its fans had often been the victims of a post-season goaltending letdown despite reputable starters such as Tom Barrasso, Jacques Cloutier and Puppa. Fans were skeptical that this year, with an aging goalie—even one with Grant’s pedigree—was going to be anything different.
But Grant had not earned his reputation as the best playoff goalie of his generation by accident. Summoning up his best form from the Edmonton days, he found his A game at just the right time for the showdown with first-place Boston in the Adams Division semi-final. If Grant needed added incentive, it was no doubt provided by the fact that he was facing his former stablemate Moog. (It ended up being the only playoff series in which they played every game against each other.) Grant’s most vital contribution came in the Game 2 shutout in Boston: a 34-save contest in which Grant seemed to get into the heads of the Bruins shooters.
Even Boston’s management was feeling the nerves as the series headed to the Aud in Buffalo. “On the basis of the first two games,” said Boston president and general manager Harry Sinden, “I think we should win in Buffalo. But I thought we should win here, too.” Sinden’s caution was well-founded. Stabilized by Grant, the Sabres defeated the Bruins in overtime in Game 3 and 4, shutting the door on the Bruins’ big shooters in extra time both nights. It was the Sabres’ pugnacious forward Brad May’s “May Day” goal (immortalized by Buffalo announcer Rick Jeanneret) that sealed the improbable sweep. Buffalo moved on to face the Montreal Canadiens in the Adams final, while the despondent Bruins dealt with their earliest playoff exit since 1987.
Then the old injury jinx cropped up again for Grant. A groin injury incurred in the Bruins series seemed to hamper him in the next round against Montreal, though no one else could resist the amazing karma of the Canadiens that spring either. The Habs, on their way to an unlikely Stanley Cup win behind their superb goalie Patrick Roy, won all four games against Buffalo by scores of 4–3—three of them ending in overtime (the Canadiens went a perfect 10–0 in OT that spring, a mark that may never be matched). While Grant lost the showdown with eventual Conn Smythe winner Roy, it seemed his performance had earned him a new home in western New York. Even more important, it had restored his confidence. Soon he began sporting a mask that had five Stanley Cups painted on it, one for each of his triumphs. “It’s a reminder to me,” Grant told writers. “But mostly it’s a reminder to everyone else.”
In addition, playing for Muckler, despite his reputation as a grumpy disciplinarian, was still a comfort zone for Grant, and his new teammates began looking to him as a conduit to their coach.
The first full year I was in Buffalo was the first they brought in the new NHLPA rules restricting how many hours you could be at the rink. Muck’s old-school. That rule was not going to be a big seller, and we knew that. The first couple of days, we would practise for an hour, skate for an hour, stretch for an hour. The guys were going down with sore groins. They were getting tired. Guys I talked to, they were just running out of gas three or four days into camp. Some of the players thought that maybe somebody should mention to Muck that the guys are falling apart.
Being the player with longest experience with Muck, they asked if I minded having a word with him. I didn’t have a problem with that, even though I knew it wasn’t going to be a very cheerful conversation. I said, “I think the guys are done here.” I got the quick “you’re undermining my authority” speech, and we were out of the office in about two minutes.
I was giving him feedback he didn’t want to hear. Which I understood. At the same time, Muck will listen. He won’t tell you he’s listening, and he won’t ever tell you that you were right. But he does listen, and he was a good players’ coach. He just would not ever let you know that it was your idea.
Our practices got better after that. Just when you started to get too comfortable, you’d have another one of those practice days, but it wasn’t every day. So maybe I had some effect.
Settled in Buffalo with future wife Candace after another divorce, Grant sounded like he was planning to set down roots in the community. “I figure I’ll play five or seven more years,” he told SI. “I still have a few more people I want to torment.” Once acclimated, he set about finding a place to indulge his other sporting passion, golf. Getting onto the links helped him escape from the pressures of his job in net. But that first summer, an incident on the golf course would thrust him into uncomfortable territory as a national symbol of racial tension.
Grant had almost always shied away from addressing his place as a minority in a white-dominated sport. Generally he ignored the attention of those who called him a hero for all black hockey players while still recognizing the examples of Willie O’Ree and Mike Marson, who’d blazed a path before him.
It was the same when people wanted to write stories about me being a black player. It was more of a story to them than it was to me. The same with the guys on the team: it was more an outside story than it was an inside story. Some of the US cities, if you go down to Buffalo, Washington, and some of the different cities, it was way more of a story. But in Canada, not so much.
Grant’s colour, however, was an inescapable fact of his life at a time when political correctness was less prevalent than it is now. Some of his teammates in Edmonton had nicknamed him KoKo (after the WWF wrestler KoKo B. Ware), but Grant considered this part of the jocular humour of the dressing room, where everyone is teased. Other letters and comments from outside the room had not been as kind. Grant sloughed them off. Thanks to Bob and Betty, Grant saw the world as a place where character, not colour, defined you. While current standards would not tolerate the hazing Grant faced, he remains unaffected by the treatment and forgiving of those who teased him.
I figured I could waste a lot of energy getting upset about things like that. But what was the point? At the end of the day I didn’t want to be judged by anything but the way I played—what kind of teammate I was. So I left all that stuff to other people.
Unfortunately, there seemed no escaping race as a factor in his experience with the Transit Valley Country Club in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, New York. And this time Grant would be less forgiving. Alex Mogilny, Dale Hawerchuk and several Sabre team officials were members of the club, and it seemed a natural place for Grant to obtain a membership—until he learned from second-hand sources that he would not be offered a place at Transit Valley. Grant was told the rejection was because he was black.
A bunch of guys had joined Transit Valley. I applied there and got denied for no real reason. Then I found out what the reason was. That was kind of the first experience of that. It was like, “If that’s the way they think, that’s fine.” Which other people there took a lot more seriously than I did. If they don’t want you there, then you don’t really want to be there.
In an interview shortly afterwards, Grant implied that his race might have been an issue in the decision, and the story hit the papers in Buffalo, generating a national firestorm. A statement from the club insisted Grant’s attempt to gain membership was rejected due to “incomplete and incorrect” information on the application form. However, club officials refused to specify what that information was, citing that membership information was deemed confidential. The club received a huge backlash from the media and public, with accusations of racism and discrimination being levied against them. The fact the club had no black members stirred up the critics further. The week after the controversy erupted, the Transit Valley club was defaced when vandals broke onto the course and burned a swastika onto the 14th green. The club’s office received a barrage of bomb threats, and threatening phone calls alleging the president was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
There were also rumblings that the other Sabres personnel would cancel their memberships in protest if it were deemed racial bias had anything to do with Fuhr’s rejection. Grant was appreciative of the support. He noted, “I’ve met a lot of nice members [from Transit Valley], and I feel bad for them. They all get painted with the same brush. That’s unfortunate, because it’s not all the members. That’s what I’d like to emphasize.” The club apologized and offered him a membership after all. The apology was accepted, but Grant eventually declined the offer after being admitted to the Fox Valley Club in nearby Lancaster, New York.
They later came back and offered me a membership. I didn’t think it was appropriate at that time: it was easier to just let bygones be bygones and stay where I was and play. Actually, we lived in a neighbourhood in Buffalo on the Country Club of Buffalo which, at that point, was a traditionally white golf club also. They’re very friendly people. I had no problem going out there as a guest and playing. They wanted me to join and would have been happy to have me as a member.
Not surprisingly, the Transit Valley Country Club suspended its membership committee and formed a new committee to review the club’s bylaws and constitution, specifically to incorporate anti-discriminatory language. With a statement that included the line “The Transit Valley Country Club does not discriminate based on race, sex, religion or ethnicity,” it was obvious they were conducting heavy damage control.
It stirred up some feelings in people in Buffalo. I actually wanted no part of it. Didn’t really want to be part of the controversy. It was easier just to go to another golf club and play. Other people wanted it to go further along than it really needed to go, and I had no interest in doing that. I’d much rather just find another place where they’d rather have me play.
While Grant was a reluctant symbol of racial outrage, others took up his cause. Seeing the platform that Grant had as a black athlete in a white sport, they jumped on the incident. But Grant had always been unwilling to lead any crusades. When Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard had passed on Grant in the 1981 draft to select Jim Benning, Leafs legend Johnny Bower (then a scout for the team) said, “He was my number one choice. But the organization felt that we couldn’t draft a black player at that time. I told the team that we would regret it if we don’t choose him. And I stand by it to this day.” Ironically, Grant was a Leafs fan and would willingly play for Toronto after Ballard died, but he never criticized the Maple Leafs for the decision.
Then in 1988, Bob White, a coach and mentor to many black athletes in Montreal, used Grant to make a point about racial discrimination in Canada. “If Fuhr had been born in Quebec, he might not have made it to the NHL,” White says. “You can be recruited with a mask on, like Grant Fuhr. He was lucky he was out west, outside of Quebec. And it’s good he wears the mask.” A spokesman for the National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence said Fuhr was an easy target for prejudice. “They pick an acceptable target, someone they think is okay to treat as a non-person.”
It wasn’t like it was a crisis for me. My parents taught me that race doesn’t define you as a person. My parents had always brought me up that everybody’s the same. When you play hockey, you’re not black or white. A person on the street’s another person on the street. Everybody puts their pants on the same; everybody puts shirts on the same. You treat everybody the same. Back home, I think there were two other black kids at school—a couple of brothers, Donovan and Percy Whitaker—that was it. There were some Native kids in the school, and I played ball with and hockey with them. Everybody knew you were either a hockey player, or ball player, or you were one of the kids. There was never anything about race.
Still, working in America for the first time was an illuminating experience for the product of sleepy Spruce Grove, Alberta.
It was also my first experience playing in the States. It was kind of an eye-opener that, okay, everything you see on TV is actually true. It exists. The first thing I really noticed was when a friend from Edmonton had come down: we were sitting in a restaurant having breakfast, and he’d ordered brown toast. In Canada, you order brown toast, everybody knows you want whole wheat. Everybody got their breakfast and finished for half an hour, he hadn’t gotten his breakfast yet. There was this older black lady who was serving us, she didn’t take the order of brown toast very well. We had no idea. Nobody even thought twice about it.
All of a sudden, you knew you were in a different element. Words had to be chosen a little more carefully. What’s status quo at home is not status quo there. We were a little more careful about those things when we got to Buffalo.
In my opinion, it’s more an American deal that race means something—it means more there. Fortunately in the sports world, you’re an athlete first and foremost. Society should be more that way.
Though Grant is idolized first and foremost for his on-ice achievements by goalies of all backgrounds, young black players who followed him to the NHL, such as Jarome Iginla (from St. Albert, Alberta) and Fred Brathwaite, made a point of acknowledging his importance as a role model.
Fred called me when he came up in Edmonton. He wanted to ask my permission to wear No. 31 with the Oilers. I said it was okay. I knew Jarome from when he was four. His uncle was the manager and he was the bat boy on our team. Jarome was always a good pro. He still puts the time in, puts the effort in, he’s good with the kids and that’s what you really love to see.
After his playoff heroics for Buffalo in 1993, Grant thought he had found a place where he could become comfortable in the starter’s role for awhile. For a third time, however, he was about to find himself playing the warm-up act to a younger player—this time, to one who would eventually win a stunning six Vezina trophies. In the 1992 off-season, the Sabres had made a trade for Czech phenom Dominik Hasek, soon to be known as “The Dominator.”
Dom had started to play well and was starting to make his presence known. I had seen him from the Canada Cup in 1987 when he almost beat us singlehandedly for the Czechs. You knew Dom was good from that game alone. There was no question. Dom was great in Chicago: I remember that great breakaway save he made on Mario [Lemieux] in the 1992 playoffs. It’s just the Blackhawks had Eddie Belfour. Jimmy Waite was there; Greg Millen was there. Dom didn’t have the opportunity to play, and they had a lack of coaching. It just didn’t fit. He got shipped to the Sabres in a trade for almost nothing, and was already in Buffalo when I got there. Bet Chicago wishes it could have that one back.
As was often the case, Grant’s approach to conditioning didn’t help his case as the starter. In 1993–94, Grant came to his first full Buffalo camp well above the weight the Sabres wanted, exasperating Muckler. “One thing that maybe Grant doesn’t realize is that he’s not 20 years old anymore, he’s 30 years old,” sniffed his coach. “It takes a little bit longer to get the conditioning up. He knows that he’s going to pay the price. And we’ll get him in shape.”
Grant was still of the opinion that he knew best how to get Grant Fuhr ready to play, however. But as Muckler predicted, the price for carrying excess weight into the season was recurring troubles with Grant’s ever-worsening knees. While Grant attempted to get himself back to playing shape, the lithe Hasek, a training fanatic, stole the spotlight and the No. 1 job en route to the first of his Vezina Trophy seasons. The limber Czech was also a runner-up for the Hart Trophy that year. Even though Grant enjoyed sharing a Jennings Trophy with Hasek for the league’s lowest team GAA, his numbers that season were mediocre by his own standards—a 13–12–3 record with a bloated 3.68 GAA and .883 save percentage. Hasek, meanwhile, went 30–20–6 in 58 appearances, and had a stunning GAA of 1.95 (the lowest mark in three decades) with seven shutouts and a .930 save percentage (a record at the time). Even harder for Grant to swallow, Hasek started for Buffalo come playoff time and played brilliantly in a seven-game opening-round defeat at the hands of the New Jersey Devils.
I got to play for a year in front of him, and shared the job the second year. I got to see him play every day. Phenomenal work ethic. Every shot meant something even in practice. He took it to another level, which was great to watch. He understood the game better than most guys I played with. He was a student of it and wanted to know certain things. He was actually a lot of fun to play with: in fact, he reminds me of [Miikka] Kiprusoff a little. Kipper and Dom would be guys who had the athletic style—not the pure butterfly. Kipper was a little more in control than Dom. Even though he looked like he was all over the place, he was in pretty good control. You’d see him make a lot of second and third saves that most guys couldn’t get.
Although Hasek’s extraordinary rise and starring role in the playoffs made Grant feel expendable after the season, decisions about Grant’s future weren’t uppermost in anyone’s mind—at least not right away. In September 1994, the NHL owners invoked their first player lockout, a labour stoppage that stretched until February 1995. During the lockout, commissioner Gary Bettman prohibited teams from making trades or signing players. But when hockey finally started again, the Sabres had a problem to face: they couldn’t afford to pay two starting goalies the market value created by the new collective agreement. In the past, salaries and bonuses had typically been tied to team goals. But with salaries shooting upward in this new NHL economy, the criteria for getting paid was slowly morphing, and goalies were now being judged more on individual statistics than on wins or losses.
You had to get your numbers down now. Save percentage. Goals against average. I still said that the only thing that mattered was whether you won or lost, but now all of a sudden, come contract time, everybody wanted numbers. You could plead your case like, “I won X number of games, lost X number of games,” and they’d sit there and go, “Well, look at the other numbers you have.” It didn’t matter. “Would you prefer me to have great numbers and split the wins and losses?” “That’s not important.” Growing up through sports, I thought the winners usually get rewarded, the losers don’t. I think it’s still important. But this was a different philosophy entering the game at that point.
Adjusting to the new reality—and the spiking salaries—Grant drove himself to be in better shape to extend his career. As play resumed in 1995, he began using aqua aerobics as a way to stay fit, even though he couldn’t swim. As Grant explained to the late Jim Kelley of the Buffalo News about his workout regimen: “I had to decide if I still wanted to play in the National Hockey League and, if I did, at what level. Once I decided that I did want to keep playing, I knew I had to do something to make sure that I could.… There are some people in Buffalo and in the organization that feel they made a mistake in getting me,” he added. “I want to prove them wrong.”
Still, John Muckler could see which Sabre goalie had a bit less wear (Hasek was 30 to Grant’s 32) and the better numbers. It made for an uncomfortable dilemma. “Dominik was the best goalkeeper in the NHL last season,” explained Muckler as the Sabres assembled following the lockout. “Grant Fuhr’s history tells you he’s a Hall of Famer, and the way he’s played in camp shows he can still be a No. 1 goalie.”
You knew he was younger than I was. He was going to play most of the games. You knew the transition’s going to happen at some point. He had signed a long-term deal (at three years/$8 million) so he wasn’t about to sit on the bench. Neither was I. When you head to the bench as No. 2 goalie, you’ve kind of surrendered. I wasn’t ready to surrender just yet.
Even so, Grant saw the future clearly. “If I’m a betting person, I’d bet I’m not here by training camp,” Fuhr told the Buffalo News. “That’s just my assessment of the situation. Economics say I won’t be here next year. That’s a goaltender for you. Always aware of where players stand, whether on the ice or amid the salary structure. They’ve got to sign 17 guys or so over the next year and a half, two years. That doesn’t bode well for somebody that’s 32 and making $2 million a year. So reality says I’ll be moving.”
Reporters asked him if he might be ready to give up hockey if he got his pro golf card that summer. “I’d look at it,” Fuhr said. “I don’t know if I’d do it, but I’d look at it. Aw, I know I’d put in one more year [of hockey]. I may be a goalie, but I’m not dumb.”
In his own defence, Grant noted for the press that while Buffalo seemed a little rich in goal, the Sabres were not actually a deep team at the position. A second dependable goalie was not an extravagance—as his time in Edmonton had demonstrated more than once. Muckler could see the value, and wanted to keep Grant, but it would have to be at a lower price.
My contract was coming up, and Muck called me in and said, “I can sign a deal with you as a backup, and you can have as long-term a deal as you’d like.” I probably could have gotten a four- or five-year term as a backup. Or I could decide to maybe go somewhere else and play. They gave me the option. I wasn’t ready to be a backup, so I said, “Well, if you can move me somewhere to play, I’ll try that.”
When Grant stumbled out of the gate in the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season, playing just three games and allowing 12 goals, the decision to send him elsewhere in search of a starting job became academic. On February 14, Buffalo sent him to play with his old pal Wayne Gretzky in Los Angeles. The deal was Grant for Alexei Zhitnik, Robb Stauber and Grant’s former Edmonton teammate Charlie Huddy. Once again it was an overpayment by a team hoping to catch some of the old Oilers magic from Grant. It was also a reflection of the respect his name commanded despite a bumpy few years.
The trade did give the Kings two of the more easy-going goalies in the league, with Grant and Kelly Hrudey. Kings defenceman Sean O’Donnell said that no team in the history of the league ever had two more outwardly mellow netminders.
They shipped me to L.A., and Kelly Hrudey was having a career year there. The rest I wasn’t quite sure about, other than Gretz and a lot of former Oilers were there. I said, “Let’s go down there and see what happens.” I didn’t play very much the first little while. The first couple of games that I did play, I was horrible. Probably a little disinterested, knowing that you’d gone from somewhere where you’re not going to play to somewhere else where you’re not going to play. I sat with [Kings coach] Barry Melrose, and he said, “Your job’s to help the young guys develop.” Okay, fine. I didn’t play much for a while, but my golf swing got a lot better.
“When we made the trade, he was in Buffalo and he hadn’t been playing a lot,” Kings general manager Sam McMaster told the L.A. Times after Grant had settled in. “When he got here, I don’t think he was game-sharp and that just compounded the situation. If he had played the way he’s playing [now], it would have been a different situation …”
For Hrudey, having Grant as his competition was uncomfortable. “It was almost unfair for us to compete. In retrospect, you could see he was having a crisis of confidence. It was obvious to us things hadn’t gone well in Buffalo. His game wasn’t great; we weren’t great. I was concerned if he could get back to that level.”
By the last 10 or 12 games, they had fired Melrose, and Rogie Vachon gave me an opportunity to play, because we were pretty much out of the playoff picture at that point. I started to play better, better and better. I got my confidence back. So I knew I could still do it. The question was what role was there with the Kings? They said they wanted me—but for what?
I decided not to re-sign in L.A. I definitely had already decided that L.A. wasn’t going to be a good fit. They were going in a different direction. Kelly had had a great year, so it was going to be another one of those situations where you don’t know if you’re going to play or not. After that, I was sitting at home, trying to figure out where we were going.
That was the lowest ebb of Grant’s career. In the summer of 1995 he was back at home in Edmonton, without a team, without a fitting conclusion to a great career. Few, including the man himself, could have foreseen the dramatic turnaround that lay ahead.