GUMP WORSLEY

My Springfield teammate, Hall of Famer Gump Worsley.

GUMP

ON OCTOBER 15, 1990, WE HAD HALL OF Famer and four-time Stanley Cup winner Lorne “Gump” Worsley on the show. Gump always reminded me of a little elf; he had a dry, deadpan sense of humour.

I first met Gump in the New York training camp. He was with the big club and I was with the minor leaguers. I remember his exchanges with Rangers coach Phil Watson. It was amazing to me how he and the coach would give each other shots, and vicious ones at times.

But I guess if you win the rookie of the year award like Gump did, the coach will put up with it. The next time I met Gump was in 1959–60, when he was sent down from the New York Rangers to Eddie Shore’s Springfield Indians in the American Hockey League. He was being punished. If you acted up or were a smart guy, you got sent to Devil’s Island for punishment.

Like I said, Gump had that deadpan sense of humour. When Gump played in New York, he’d always face a lot of shots. One day, a reporter asked, “Gump, which team gives you the most trouble?”

Gump replied, “The New York Rangers.”

Not everybody liked his humour, especially Phil Watson. One day, his coach told him, “Worsley, you gotta get in shape. Lose that beer belly!”

Gump said, “Shows what you know! I don’t drink beer. This is a whisky belly.”

That was one of the things that got him sent down, at age 30, to Shore and the AHL for punishment. In those days, if you were playing in the NHL and either not playing well or acting up, they threatened to send you to Shore.

I remember the day he was sent to Springfield. We were playing in Providence and New York sent him there to meet us.

So we play the game and we hop on the bus and head right back to Springfield. It’s a two-hour drive, so we get there around 1 A.M. Gump just stood there by himself with his bags; everybody had left and he had no idea where to go or what to do. He said to me, “What’s going on, Grapes?”

I said, “Come back to our place.”

We went and had a few pops first and then went to the apartment. Rose and I were living in a small one-bedroom apartment. So we got up the three flights of stairs. We had hardly any furniture, no sofa or anything.

Gump said, “Where am I going to sleep?”

Cindy’s crib was out in the hall, and Gump being about five foot six, I said, “Well, sleep in the crib.”

So the next morning, I’m sleeping in, I got a hangover, and Rose comes and yells, “Get up, get up! There’s a dwarf sleeping in Cindy’s crib.”

I said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s only Gump,” and we went back to sleep.

—

I loved when those NHL guys came down to the minors and got on the bus. They were used to taking a train or a plane, now they had to go 10 hours on a bus.

I remember Gump on the bus, going stir-crazy, walking up and down the aisle. So he was standing right at the front of the bus at around 3 A.M., staring straight ahead, looking at the road going by.

So I went up and whispered in his ear: “Gump, just think of it as a long runway.”

Like I said, Gump was always a guy with a deadpan sense of humour.

DON:	OK, Gump, what are you doing now?
GUMP:	I’m talking to you.

That really cracked up the audience.

DON:	Remember when you slept in Cindy’s crib?
GUMP:	I was tired. Well, maybe a little bit more tired than I thought.
DON:	Yeah, you were 30 beers tired.
GUMP:	What? Remember, I don’t drink beer.
DON:	That’s right. Phil Watson talked about your beer belly.
GUMP:	I told him I don’t drink beer, I’m a V.O. person.
DON:	That was just before Phil Watson sent you down to Springfield.
GUMP:	That was one of the reasons. But I told him I was there [in New York] before he came there and I’d be there long after he was gone.
DON:	And you were. Do you remember Shore’s practices?
GUMP:	I loved them.
DON:	Loved them? Why?
GUMP:	Because I didn’t do anything. Like in most of my practices.
DON:	But Shore seemed to love you. Why?
GUMP:	Well, he thought I was coming down and was just going to go through the motions and horse around. But I played hard. I wanted to get out of there.

Gump did play hard. He had an 11–3–1 record in the three weeks he played for Shore.

Gump and I had a little ritual before the dropping of the puck of each game. Just before the game started, I would skate up to Gump and say, “Geet?” and Gump would reply, “Ghoo?”

It started out before one game. I said to Gump, “Did you eat?” and Gump said, “Did you?” and it got shortened down.

Don’t ask me why we had that stupid conversation, but we must have won the first time we had it, and so superstition took over and we kept doing it.

Then, after his stint in Devil’s Island, the Rangers called him back up to New York.

DON:	When you went back to the NHL, did you feel sorry for us guys in the minors?
GUMP:	I felt sorry for everyone in the minors. I played in the minors a long time. I played in Saskatoon, I played in Vancouver [in the Western Hockey League], I played in Quebec City [in the AHL], I played in Providence, and so I did my time in the minors.
DON:	Now, you won rookie of the year [in 1953 with the New York Rangers], and then the next year John Bower takes over your job. What happened?
GUMP:	I asked for a $500 raise and they sent me to the minors. Camille Henry wanted a $500 raise and he got sent to the minors too.
DON:	Ya know, you talk about great players. Camille, they called him Camille the Eel. Henry was something. He was one of the smoothest players ever.
GUMP:	He could score goals. He could put the puck in a letterbox, as we used to say back then. He weighed about 155 pounds soaking wet, but nobody could hit him. One night, we were playing against Detroit and he put four behind Terry Sawchuk, and Terry chased him right down to centre ice. He was going to hammer him.
DON:	One of the stories I love is that a big defenceman was trying to get him all night and couldn’t. Then, late in the game, he pins Camille against the boards in the corner. He literally picked him up and said, “Now what are you going to do?” Camille looked at him and gave him a big kiss on the lips and the guy dropped him and he skated away.

FROM THE OUTHOUSE TO THE PENTHOUSE

FOR ALL THOSE YEARS THAT GUMP slugged it out in the minors and struggled in New York, the hockey gods ended up smiling on him.

DON:	Now, you went from New York to Montreal, from the outhouse to the penthouse.
GUMP:	Just about. I spent 13 years in the league, and then I won my first Stanley Cup. I was 35 years old.
DON:	Tell us about Toe Blake [the legendary Montreal Canadiens coach]. He was tough, but a great coach.
GUMP:	You know, he never yelled at you in front of the other players. He always took you aside and let you have it, but never in front of the other guys.
DON:	You played a lot. Any coach pull you?
GUMP:	Yep, Toe did in Detroit. I was having a tough night, you know. I’ve had a lot of those tough nights. I get the hook and I skate to the bench, and I go to throw my stick and my blocker came off and knocked Toe’s fedora flying. So we get on the train in Detroit after the game to go back to Montreal. We hit Toronto and they keep us there till three in the morning and then off to Montreal. I’m sitting in the diner car, having breakfast with Jean-Guy Talbot, and I am expecting him to give it to me good. Blake comes by with a picture of me, and Toe said, “You weren’t mad in that picture,” and kept walking.
DON:	The guys loved him.
GUMP:	Oh, they’d run through a wall for him. He knew what he was doing. He knew how to handle people, and that’s the big thing in coaching.
DON:	You were sent down to the Quebec Aces.
GUMP:	I got sent down in 1963–64. I pulled my hamstring in Toronto and I was told to go down there for two weeks by the team’s vice-president, Ken Reardon. I gave him a dime before I left, but he never called me back. Training camp the next year, I got the call back.
DON:	I remember you came to Rochester and you started for Quebec and we pounded you 10–0.
GUMP:	You wish.
DON:	In 1965, you win the Stanley Cup. Tell us about how it feels to win a Cup. It must have been a thrill.
GUMP:	Well, I don’t think you can explain it to people. It’s just a feeling you get. When you’re a kid, you always want to win the Stanley Cup, ya know, go play in the National Hockey League and then go win the Stanley Cup. There is really no way to tell your feelings.
DON:	The next year, you had a problem with Montreal.
GUMP:	It was 1970. Claude Ruel took over and we didn’t see eye to eye. So I walked up to Sammy Pollock and said, “See ya later.” Those weren’t the exact words I used. He said, “No one quits the Montreal Canadiens.” Well, I just did.
DON:	What did Claude do to make you want to quit Montreal?
GUMP:	Well, you can only take so much. He was on my case all the time. I was never a practice player, never.
DON:	Like Gerry Cheevers.
GUMP:	Same thing, and Claude knew that. I’d been playing for Montreal for six years like that. He saw me practise. Now he wants to change me at 39 years old. So I went to Minnesota and we made the playoffs and Montreal didn’t. Boy, did my wife like that. A reporter from Montreal called her and asked her about it, and boy, did she rip the Canadiens.
DON:	I remember one game you played in Boston when you were with Minny. How many shots did you get on you?
GUMP:	I had 68 shots against me. With three minutes to go, the Chief, Johnny Bucyk, shot it, I stopped it and then promptly put it in my own net—4–4 the game ended. I go into the dressing room. My tongue is hanging down to the floor. A reporter came up to me and said if I had two more shots, it would have made a great story. I was too tired or I would have whacked him.

NEVER WORE A MASK

IT’S FUNNY TO SEE THE GOALIES today as compared to when Gump played. Look at Tampa Bay’s Ben Bishop: he’s six foot seven, so on skates he’s almost seven feet tall, and he’s got big equipment. Gump was five foot six and it looked like he was wearing a spring jacket when he played net. I asked Gump this question 16 years ago, and it is even more relevant today.

DON:	Why do you think there are so many goalie injuries in today’s game?
GUMP:	No respect. Teams have two goalkeepers. When we played, we only had the one goalkeeper. Players would come in and they would stop and pull up. Today, they just keep plowing. If goalies have a mask and a helmet, he’s fair game.
DON:	You played 24 years pro, 5 leagues and 10 teams and never wore a mask. Well, did you wear a mask?
GUMP:	I’m wearing one now.
DON:	I know you wouldn’t wear your regular face on television. Now, did you have any serious injuries without the mask?
GUMP:	I only got hit around the eye once. They just stitch you up and send you right back out there. You know that more goalkeepers have lost their eyes since the masks than before?
DON:	How many games did you play in a row?
GUMP:	Sixty-eight.
DON:	Sixty-eight games in a row?
GUMP:	We only had one goalkeeper.
DON:	What happened if you got hurt?
GUMP:	You went back in.

I knew Gump would be a good interview. I had a great time and so did the audience.

In his career, Gump won the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year in the NHL, won the Vézina Trophy for best goalie two years in a row, won four Stanley Cups, and was voted into the Hall of Fame.

Not bad for a guy who slept in a crib in the hallway when he played for Eddie Shore in the minors.