Brazil Street Page 14

  My Buddies and Me and NHL Hockey

  I couldn’t have found better buddies than Malcolm “Dickie” White and Tommy Dodd. I met Dickie first because he was my next-door neighbour, and I met Tommy in school a few years later. You couldn’t ask for two nicer friends or more loyal guys. I had other friends growing up, of course, but these guys were two of the best. We went to school together from the early grades at Holy Cross. Tommy and I graduated at the same time, while Dickie, a year behind, graduated the following year.

  Though Dickie and I spent most of our time together, Tommy would get together with us every once in while. We beat around as adventurous kids, but in the years we spent together, hockey was the common bond that kept us close. In the summer, I wanted to be a major league baseball player when I grew up, and in winter, like all kids, I wanted to be an NHL player. Hockey was as important a part of our lives as eating. We were friends before the game started but rival enemies when we got on the playing surface. Hockey was a great passion for Newfoundlanders of all ages. It still is.

  We played anywhere we could, like in our back garden on Brazil Street, which we converted into a hockey rink when winter came. We even spent weeks removing a curved bank one summer to make a flat surface for the drop of the puck come wintertime. We cleared it off when snow fell, then watered it to make the ice. When we got together to play, it would turn into a bitter rivalry, like in the NHL games on television. It was not just a game to us. We became mortal enemies! Sometimes we even played for money. One thing was certain: we all took the game of hockey very seriously.

  We had guys like Ed Sweeney, one of the best goaltenders you could hope for when someone slipped by your defence. There was Dave Murphy, who was tough, ready, and willing to take on any opponent who dared skate in front of him. You were better off trying to get around Davey than confront him straight on. Of course, Bobby Janes, who was as tough and broad as a heavyweight boxer and also hit like one, mostly played as a centre. My buddy Dickie White was built like Bobby and just as tough. Tommy Dodd loved the game and was ready for the drop of the puck any time.

  My brothers, Ed, Calvin, Hubert, and Angus, were welcome additions to any team they were on, and they all loved the game. When there were two teams or when Ed Sweeney was not around to play, Harry Husk from John Street made another great goaltender on the other side. There were others, too, like Tommy Brewer, who loved to engage in the game. Valentine (Vally), Bobby, Doug Gruchy, and Tommy, all from Pleasant Street and John Street, also frequented our back garden, or the spot we sometimes used on the St. John’s wharf for a quick game.

  We also played in Harry’s garden when he converted it into a large rink like ours. It was wide enough but sloped downward a bit, and the ball kept going over the fence when someone took a wild shot at the goalie. Someone would have to hop over the fence to retrieve it. The garden is now an empty parking lot next to the Delta Hotel on New Gower Street. Anywhere there was a game, or a rival willing to challenge us to a game, we were ready. And sometimes the games could get a wee bit rough.

  In those days, the National Hockey League was made up of only six teams: the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens, the Detroit Red Wings, the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the New York Rangers. When you talk to some of the baby boomers who love hockey, they will surely tell you that they were fans of one of those original six teams, and you can bet they are still faithful to their team, as I have been to my Detroit Red Wings for sixty years. My brothers were also big fans. Edward Jr. was a Montreal Canadiens fan, Calvin loved the Toronto Maple Leafs, Hubert was loyal to the Chicago Blackhawks (as was my buddy Dickie White), and Angus and Dad were diehard followers of the Detroit Red Wings.

  We were all religious watchers of the early NHL with our parents. Television had only come to Newfoundland when I was six years old, in 1955. My father purchased a second-hand set for twenty dollars around 1956. The picture was black and white—colour television wouldn’t become a reality until the early 1960s. Television was a big thing then, and when we got one, we were all in heaven. We had plenty of trouble with our old RCA Victor, and we would have to jiggle the antennas—two rabbit ears which were a pair of extension rods connected by two wires to the back of the set—to adjust the screen and get the “snow” out of it so we could watch a program.

  Hockey Night in Canada came on, live from the old Maple Leaf Gardens, with play-by-play commentator Foster Hewitt, or later commentators Danny Gallivan or Brian McFarlane broadcasting from the old Montreal Forum. We would only get the games in the middle of the second period because we had to wait for the CBC network from the mainland to hook up to our services in Newfoundland. So, we usually missed the first period and five or six minutes of the second.

  Another one of our favourite places to play was a fenced-in area on Water Street, just east of the CN station and in front of the St. John’s dockyard. This area, surrounded by barbwire fence, held oil drums—mostly full—ready for shipping to other ports. Some of those oil containers weighed about twenty pounds when they were empty, and we could easily roll them into place to serve as goalposts. We would pretend we were our hockey heroes, like Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks, Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins, Gordie Howe of the Detroit Red Wings.

  We had to climb over the wire fence because the gate was usually locked. A guard watched over the barrels so nobody would steal them, but most times he would just let us play. He never bothered any of us unless we caused him trouble. If we did, then out we went.

  In the early 1960s, a Newfoundlander named Alex Faulkner went to the Detroit Red Wings. He was the first person from the province to play in “the show.” His inaugural game, on November 7, 1961, was with the Toronto Maple Leafs, before he was traded to Detroit the following year. He played with my Red Wings for part of three seasons, from 1962 to 1964. Interest in NHL hockey was at an all-time high for people of the province. Here was a homegrown boy from Bishop’s Falls, Newfoundland, who had made it to the big game!

  People who hadn’t followed the game before were now strong supporters of it, especially after Alex’s season of 1963, when he broke onto the scene wearing the number 12 and scoring five goals in eight games, including two game winners, in that year’s playoffs against goaltender Glenn Hall. The Red Wings had just eliminated the powerful Chicago Blackhawks, who were the Stanley Cup favourites, and they would now face the Toronto Maple Leafs, Alex’s former team, in the final. They lost to the Leafs in five games, but Faulkner scored twice in the only game they won.

  Alex played with many of my hockey heroes, such as Gordie Howe, Terry Sawchuk, Alex Delvecchio, and Ted Lindsey. Later, he went on to play with the San Diego Gulls before coming home to Newfoundland to play with several teams here. He left the NHL after sustaining several injuries to his hand and knee. Faulkner played 101 games in the NHL, and he was elected to the Newfoundland Hall of Fame in 1994. One day in the late 1990s, I was playing golf with some friends at Clovelly golf course here in St. John’s, and I met Alex Faulkner for the first time. It was a real pleasure to talk to Newfoundland’s first man to reach the NHL! He signed all of our scorecards, which was a real treat for us.

  His older brother George could have made it to the NHL, but he decided to persuade Alex to take a shot at it instead. However, George did manage to earn a spot with Canada’s World Senior Hockey Team, coached by the infamous Father David Bauer. They proceeded to win a bronze medal in the Canadian Hockey Championships in Yugoslavia in 1954. George led the event, with seven goals and three assists, to become the top scorer. What great talent they were! People at the time said that George had the skills to make it to the big leagues. He played in the Quebec Senior Hockey League with the Shawinigan Falls Cataracts, which was then a farm team for the Montreal Canadiens. At that time, it was hard to break into the lineup on the Montreal team because they had the likes of John Beliveau, Maurice “The Rocket” Richard, Dickie Moore, Doug Harvey, Jacques Plant
e, and many other skilled players, so George Faulkner came back home and played hockey in Newfoundland. He was the right player with the right skills to be in the NHL, but it was the wrong time for him. He was elected to the Newfoundland Hall of Fame in 1984.

  There’s another interesting story here. The Faulkners’ younger brother Jack played professional hockey with the San Diego Gulls of the Western Professional Hockey League. Alex became the first Newfoundlander to play in the NHL, George the first to play professional hockey, and Jack to play in the WHL, making them the first three Newfoundlanders to play professional hockey! Not a bad legacy.

  The NHL was a different calibre of hockey then. Today’s players are pampered with million-dollar contracts, and though they are probably in better condition, they most certainly are not as tough as the players of the 1960s. For one thing, those old guys didn’t wear the protection players use today. No face protection for their eyes, teeth, nose, or head. Goalies like Johnny Bower of the Leafs and Terry Sawchuk of the Red Wings only started wearing face masks in the late 1960s after playing in the league for years. NHL guys in that era were tough as nails and fought toe to toe, mostly using their fists as weapons.

  My younger brother Angus and I followed in our dad’s footsteps and became Detroit Red Wings fans. I still cheer for the red and white after all these years. I remember watching a game between the Montreal Canadiens and our Red Wings at the house one evening. Dad didn’t like the Habs, who were leading the Red Wings by the end of the second period. A friend of my brother Ed’s came in to watch the game and cheered for Les Canadiens. When Montreal scored a goal, he jumped to his feet and cheered, “Great shot, Beliveau!” Dad swiftly escorted him to the front door, saying, “No one for the Canadiens is going to cheer for them in this house.” My older brother Ed was also a Habs fan, but he didn’t tell Dad.

  One night at “the wharf,” we took on a rival team from around the area of Carter’s Hill. I knew we were in trouble when I saw some of the guys they had on their team. Most of them were giants. They came over to the street one evening to challenge us to a game, saying they heard that we were practically unbeatable, and they wanted to play a “friendly” game to show us they had a good team, too. It was always lit up on the wharf, because the pole lights from Water Street shone on the fenced-in area. An old guy we called Shithouse Fred was the watchman. He was a great guy who let us play there as long as we didn’t damage the property. But what could we do to a bunch of oil barrels?

  I’m not sure who was playing that night, but I believe it was Dickie and Tommy Dodd on our team, with Bobby James, Willie Rodden, Dave Murphy, Doug Gruchy, and my brother Hubert, with Harry Husk as the goalie. I believe Tommy Brewer was there, too. Bobby “Bottles” James was built like a middle linebacker, and if he hit you . . . well, you knew you had been hit. Willie was pound for pound one of the toughest people I have ever known. Dave Murphy, when he did play, was another guy you didn’t fool with. We thought he ate nails for breakfast. Dougie was a masterful stickhandler, and Harry was a great goalie. Tommy, Dickie, and I could also hold our own.

  It started quietly, with each team evenly matched, passing the puck to one another efficiently, getting shots on both goalies, and generally enjoying a good game. We usually played two five-minute periods in our backyard, but with a bigger area to play on—approximately an eighty-by-thirty-foot rink—we increased that to three ten-minute periods. Thirty minutes was easy for young and vigorous boys. By the end of the first period, we were getting pretty scrappy when it came to slashing and checking. Tommy and Dave were keeping us in the game with tough defence. The rest of us were just having fun and playing our own game. Harry kept shutting them out in net.

  It was not just a game. It was bragging rights, especially when it came to beating a team from Carter’s Hill: they were known as a tough and scrappy crowd. Ed Sweeney, another great goalie who played in our back garden, couldn’t play that night, so we had picked up Harry as our netminder. He’d been hacked quite a bit during the game.

  It wasn’t until the second period started that I had a loose ball deposited on my stick and I was moving in on their goalie with no one between him and me. I was moving down the side of the wire fence when, all of a sudden, something hit me. One of the opposing team members had sideswiped me. He then creamed Willie from behind as he came up the left side, and as he fell, Willie struck the oil barrel goalpost with a force that knocked the wind out of him. He saw stars when he hit the ground.

  I felt my head and noticed a small bit of blood running down my face. I guessed I had gotten the cut when I struck the wire fence. It had to be from the guy who hit me, or maybe it was a high stick. My head had struck the fence, and I had hit part of an oil barrel when I fell.

  “You okay, Willie?” I asked.

  In a dazed state, Willie replied that he was, but he asked if anyone got the number of the truck that hit him. We all laughed at that.

  “Okay, it started out as a friendly game, but the boys want it rough,” I said. “Then let’s give them rough. By the way, Willie, the guy that hit you and me is the one with the Blackhawks jacket on, and he laughed his head off after he creamed us both. He’s acting like a hero to his buddies. You want I should go at him, or are you up to it? Never did much like that crowd from Carter’s Hill.”

  It was bad enough that he had hit me and Willie from behind, but not checking to see if we were okay was definitely a no-no. It was one of those unwritten codes of conduct. He had just walked away. And to add insult to injury, he laughed at us after the hits! To him it was just a casual hit and run, but not to us.

  Still smarting from the hit but not on the ropes just yet, Willie said to Dickie and me, “No, boy, I’m okay, and I owe him one. But let’s line him up. If he wants a rough game, let’s give him one back. Okay, boys?”

  We nodded.

  “You guys go after him with me tailing behind you. See if you can make him turn, and send him back my way.”

  We played for another few minutes, when Dickie gave me a nod. After chasing the guy for a few seconds, we made him turn around. Mr. Blackhawk spun back in my direction. He was too busy looking back at Dickie to see me coming. In all my days of playing hockey, it was the one hit I put everything into. I didn’t hit him fully—I just got his side as he moved toward me—but Willie creamed him. Mr. Blackhawk saw us at the last second, too late to turn. He hit the wire fence with a thud and then dropped to the pavement like a ton of bricks. I could hear him scream as he hit solid ground. Eye for an eye. Action on the pavement stopped at once. One of his teammates gave me and Willie a threatening look, but he changed his mind. After all, it was only two guys getting even with the fellow who had flattened them.

  I was in a bit of a panic, though. The guy was still down on the ground, groaning. Willie and I started to feel bad for him. I kneeled down to check him out while Willie stood over us. Looking him over, I took off my cap and waved it in his face to see if he was alert. After a few minutes, he came around and started to sit up. Still feeling bad, I apologized. Willie followed that with a nod. The Blackhawks fan shrugged it off, and my friends and I helped him up.

  He and Willie and I were still a bit wobbly, so we called the game and decided to play again the following weekend. All hands left the waterfront a short time later, no worse for wear. For a whole week I had a ringing in my ears like a CN train was coming down the track toward me.

  The next time we met, the scuffles were forgotten and we played the game without any dirty tactics. We lost that game. The crowd from Carter’s Hill showed us that they were the better team. And yes, we shook hands after it was over, with no bad feelings.

  My Kodak Camera

  In the 1960s, I discovered the world of photography. It was the start of some of the best times in my young life. I bought my first camera, a Kodak Hawkeye Flash Fun, which took what was then a new type of film, called Verichrome Colour Film 127. The camera h
ad a bulb in a push-in socket on the front that flashed when you snapped a picture. The instructions on the back of the camera said to use Verichrome pan film only when standing five to twenty feet away from your subject, but when using Colour Film 127 you should stand five to nine feet away. It was a young man’s delight! I’d never had anything like this before to call my own.

  That I was able to afford the camera out of my own money was quite a treat for me. I was on my way to finding my own Orphan Lake, a mythical place that Dickie and I had invented years before to signify when someone had everything they needed in life. I had a part-time job, money in my pocket, and no worries. Life was good. I was working, and in a few years I would be finished school. Not only that, I also had a savings account at the Bank of Nova Scotia on Water Street. As far as I knew, I was the only one in school who had one. The money I had saved was hard-earned.

  I was also the only one I knew who had a camera. At the time I was working two part-time jobs, Bob Glasco’s Meats and F. W. Woolworth’s, and over the last few months I had put away enough extra money to be able to pay for this superb invention without even touching my bank account. It cost me about seven dollars. The film cost me about two dollars for twelve exposures. But sometimes the flashes would misfire and I’d lose some bulbs. When this happened, the picture was wasted. You could end up having nine or ten usable pictures out of twelve.

  It had always been a dream of mine to own a camera. I wanted a wristwatch, too, and I eventually got one—a Timex worth about ten dollars—also with my own money. The wristwatch, a pocket knife, and clothes all came later—the camera was my first reward to myself for hard work.