Every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, former NHL player and referee Paul Stewart blogs for HockeyBuzz on issues related to officiating and changes in the game over time. In a special column today, he is substituting for Eklund.
In my very first game as an NHL referee, I substituted mid-game for an injured Dave Newell. Today, I'm substituting for a vacationing hockey blogger who calls himself Eklund. Progress? I'll let you be the judge. I jest.
Anyway, in an all seriousness, one thing I have to give myself credit for is that I may not have had much natural talent and I may not have been the best or brightest, but I think I've managed to lead a pretty unique life.
People often ask me if hockey in the 1970s was really like the movie "Slap Shot." As someone who was an enforcer in a variety of minor leagues as well as the WHA and NHL, I can vouch for the fact that the movie was pretty true to our lives at the time. During my time in the NAHL, AHL and WHA in particular, I played with and against -- and dropped the gloves with -- many of the players around whom characters in the movie are based. That includes pretty much all of the real-life players who were cast in prominent roles in the movie.
Something that many people don't know, however, is that I actually had a bit role in the movie myself. If you look closely, you can see me a couple times in the scene where the Chiefs are playing against the Long Island Ducks -- best known for Paul Newman's Reggie Dunlop character incessantly taunting Long Island goalie Tommy Hanrahan (portrayed by actor Christopher Murney) about his wife Suzanne's, um, lifestyle preferences.
Can't spot me? I'm the Ducks player wearing a yellow helmet (hey, I had to make myself noticeable somehow in my approximately one second on screen in two quick shots). You can see me battling a Chiefs player along the end wall behind Hanrahan. A few frames later, I'm skating the puck out in front of the net just before the goalie charges out to attack Dunlop, which ultimately allowed the Chiefs to score a cheap goal into the vacant net.
For my grand and glorious cameo, I received $500 and a copy of the movie script autographed by Paul Newman. As with many of the other NAHL players given roles in the movie, I showed up on the day they filmed my scene. With the camera on the ice, we were basically told to "play hockey" and filmed in strategically placed locations on the rink.
More interesting than my tiny non-speaking part in the movie is the story of my real-life interactions with players depicted in the movie. If you read my
Tales from the End of the Bench blog that talks about my playing career, you may recall that I had an epic pair of fights in the WHA with Jack Carlson.
Jack was the direct inspiration for one of the three Hanson brothers in Slap Shot, but was unable to appear in the movie with real-life hockey playing brothers Jeff and Steve because he had been called up to the WHA for the playoffs. I also did battle with Dave "Killer" Hanson, who substituted for Jack as a Hanson Brother in Slap Shot and whose first name and nickname was combined with Jeff and Steve's last name for the Dave "Killer" Carlson character portrayed by Jerry Houser.
My fellow Boston native, Ned Dowd, was the original inspiration for the entire film. Dowd chronicled a season in the NAHL with the Johnstown Jets (which, of course, became the Charlestown Chiefs for the film) and his sister, writer Nancy Dowd, turned it into the screen play that became Slap Shot. As someone who played a policeman role in the NAHL for the Binghamton Dusters, I will tell you that the Dowds really did "capture the spirit of the thing" in what Nancy ultimately produced.
Most of the incidents that happened in the film really did happen. They just didn't happen within the course of the same game or over a week or two. Incidentally, Dowd had moved on from the NAHL and was no longer in the league by the time I was playing for Binghamton.
Within the movie, Ned Dowd is represented by the character of Ned Braden (portrayed by Canadian-born actor Michael Ontkean, who had previously played ECAC collegiate hockey at the University of New Hampshire). Like his film counterpart, Dowd was a college-educated American who played more of a finesse style game rather than liking the rough stuff; although the real-life Dowd was a pretty big guy, especially for that era of hockey, at 6-foot-3 and over 200 pounds.
In the meantime, the real-life Ned Dowd was cast in the movie in the role of Ogie Ogilthorpe; the sneakiest and most notoriously dirty fighter in the history of the league. As many of you know, that character was very directly based on Bill "Goldie" Goldthorpe -- they even made Ned's hair look like a darker version of Goldthorpe's wild blond afro. Goldthorpe compiled 1,132 penalty minutes in just 194 professional games, and was every bit as unpredictable and mean-spirited as the fictitious Ogilthorpe was purported to be.
Goldthorpe intimidated a lot of people with his reputation. He didn't scare me. Goldthorpe and I were briefly teammates with the Dusters, and I guess he found my presence -- as another player who was a frequent fighter -- as an affront to him.
On December 14, 1975, the day that I completed my degree at the University of Pennsylvania, I picked up a newspaper and looked at the sports section. I saw that the Dusters were mired something like 30 points in last place in the North American Hockey League. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I picked up the phone and called the Binghamton team's office.
Back in those days in hockey, there were no gate-keepers to wade through. There were no associate assistants to the executive assistant to the assistant general manager. There were maybe three or four people who worked in the entire team office, and it was not uncommon for a minor league general manager to double as the public relations manager, the head of sales and the head of marketing.
At any rate, all it took was one phone call. I explained that I had just played four years of college hockey and was a big guy who could bring toughness to their lineup. I may have added that I was the grandson of the late Bill Stewart -- a Stanley Cup winning coach with the Chicago Blackhawks, a longtime NHL referee and Major League Baseball umpire and an important figure in the development of the U.S. national hockey team.
I asked for a tryout. I was told to report to Binghamton at my own expense. The next day, I left my then-wife, all of my clothes but the ones that were on my back and my bag of hockey equipment, and our half-decorated Christmas tree to head to upstate New York to take my shot -- possibly my only one -- at living out my dream of playing professional hockey.
The tryout went well. The team told me to stay put. In my first game, I had a fight and fared well. I became a member of the team. Shortly thereafter, I attended the team's Christmas party.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around. It was my new Dusters teammate, Goldie Goldthorpe, with whom I had not yet had a chance to interact. He had recently cleared waivers in the WHA and was himself new to the club.
"Are you Paul Stewart, the tough guy?" he growled.
"Yes," I said, not liking his tone of voice. "And you are?"
Goldthorpe promptly sucker punched me in the face.
"I'm the muscle around this team," he sneered.
I challenged Goldthorpe to meet me outside in the parking lot. Then we went at it full force. I was bigger than he was, and got the upper hand. Finally, I lifted him up off his feet and threw him to the ground. I explained that we were teammates but I'd be damned if he was going to get away with starting a quarrel with me and then pulling the cheap stunt he tried.
Goldthorpe responded by biting me. I wound up having to go to the hospital for a tetanus shot.
During our brief time playing for the Dusters, I got into it several other times with Goldthorpe. One time, we had a game in Johnstown where Goldthorpe went into the stands to fight a fan. At intermission, we were back in the dressing room and I was trying to get the troops rallied. Goldthorpe, who was swigging from a bottle of Coke, screamed "Shut up!" at me and threw the glass bottle at my head. He missed and it shattered on the wall.
I got the last laugh on this one. Goldthorpe's timing could not have been any worse. Just before he tossed the bottle, a visitor walked into the dressing room and ended up getting his clothes splashed by the soda (but fortunately, not cut by any glass shrapnel). The visitor was Paul Newman's brother. Oh, and after the game, Goldthorpe ended up getting arrested and subsequently charged with assault for the fight in the stands. Talk about a bad night.
The real-life Goldie Goldthorpe did not get offered an appearance in Slap Shot. I ended up getting the aforementioned cameo.
Coming tomorrow, in my regular blog space, I will have another special blog: a Thanksgiving-themed blog to give thanks to the on-ice tough guys and refereeing mentors to whom I owed my active playing and officiating careers. The real-life "Ho-gil-torp" will not be making an appearance in that list.
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