Kevin Biestra Posted October 24 Posted October 24 (edited) Well we were talking about existing hockey books in another thread and recommending the best ones in existence. These are 20 players who I think have interesting stories that would look good in 300 page format, though in most cases I can't testify to their abilities as writers. Some writers have a command of language that can make a story worth but barely worth justifying a book readable (e.g. moderate celebrity musician and actor Carrie Brownstein) whereas some (e.g. Jeremy Roenick) are certainly able to tell their own story competently but don't elevate it. If anyone runs a publishing house...feel free to pay these guys to write their books. But if nothing else...these are some names worth looking up if you have an interest in hockey history... 1. "King" Richard Brodeur Our own King led us almost singlehandedly to the 1982 Stanley Cup Final and has the unique experience of running into the Islanders dynasty on the highest stage. But he also went to the final of the WHA's Stanley Cup (the AVCO Cup) twice and won that Cup once, defeating Bobby Hull and the Winnipeg Jets in the final. The WHA is full of Paul Newman from Slap Shot type stories, and I think The King might have been one of the only players to play every season of the WHA. He was a long term franchise goalie for the Canucks and the Quebec Nordiques. He was also the first ever Memorial Cup MVP and his records in that tournament from 1971 or so stood for something like 35 years. 2. Mike Foligno On the one hand it might be expected when someone like Gordie Howe or Bobby Hull produces a Hall of Fame son. It's more interesting in its way when just a very good player creates a sort of family dynasty in the NHL. Foligno was a solid 80ish point player at his peak, a leader of the Buffalo Sabres in the 80s, and among other things, used to piss off the opposing team because he would jump after scoring a goal to celebrate. 3. Randy Holt and Paul Baxter I don't know if these two guys can even spell their own name or not, but they hold the NHL and WHA records for penalty minutes in a game (I think 70something for Holt and 60something for Baxter). Baxter, now a forgotten name, also led the entire NHL in penalty minutes in 1981-82. 4. Tiger Williams He is the NHL's all time penalty minute leader with a lead over 2nd place almost like Wayne Gretzky has with points. But he was also an NHL All Star, had a run to the Cup final in 1982, and has more career goals than Henrik Sedin. Made a middle age comeback of sorts with the Vancouver Voodoo in the 90s in professional roller hockey. There's no way this guy doesn't have stories for days. 5. Jim Kyte As far as I know the only NHL player in history who was deaf and made it to the big league, where he had a pretty long and successful career. 6. Gary "Suitcase" Smith Almost won the Hart Trophy for the Vancouver Canucks in 1975, and then was the goalie of record for the last team to win the AVCO Cup in the WHA's final season. Known as Suitcase for bouncing around from team to team and surely has some stories from all of the relocations. 7. Ken Morrow The only player who was part of both the 1980 USA Miracle on Ice and the New York Islanders dynasty of the 1980s. This guy was part of the biggest events in hockey history twice over. 8. Dr. Randy Gregg No that's not a Dr. Mark Recchi type insult. Gregg was an actual medical doctor during his playing career, the Ken Dryden of medicine if you will...on top of which he was a notable part of the Edmonton Oilers dynasty. Finished his career as a Vancouver Canuck in the early 90s. 9. Jim Paek Will have stories to tell from the Mario Lemieux Penguins of the 1990s that won back to back championships, in addition to which he was the first Asian player to win the Stanley Cup. 10. Mike Liut Beat Wayne Gretzky for the Pearson / Lindsay Trophy as league MVP in 1981, one of remarkably few players to beat Gretzky for such an award in Gretzky's 2+ points per game heyday. Was also goalie for Team Canada in the Canada Cup during that tournament's prime, had a late career resurgent final act in the early 1990s, and became one of the game's top player agents after his playing days. 11. Vaclav Nedomansky A fairly recent addition to the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was the first Eastern European to leave the iron curtain and play in the NHL. 12. Peter (and Marian and Anton) Stastny Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have a pretty good combined autobiography where they take turns and tap each other in to tell their perspectives on various chapters of the band's history and rise to the top and their lives outside of music. I kind of figure Peter Stastny and his two (very close to Hall of Fame caliber) brothers could tell a pretty good story in such a fashion, including their apparently cloak and dagger transplantation to North America. 13. The Seven Sutter Brothers A story could also be told rather well I think by the six Sutter brothers who played in the NHL and the seventh, who was supposedly the best hockey player of them all but stayed at home because he was needed to keep the family farm afloat. 14. Gilles Meloche Now a mostly forgotten name, he was one of the all time NHL leaders in career games by a goalie and played on multiple NHL teams that are also now forgotten for being defunct and relocated, and which were practically WHA teams - The Cleveland Barons, California Golden Seals, etc. 15. John Garrett Would have some WHA stories to go with some of the other guys and it is forgotten now that he was one of the best goalies in WHA history (post-season All Star team). Also played in the 1983 NHL All Star Game as we well know and was almost MVP, came off the bench as the backup and helped get the Nordiques to the Stanley Cup semifinal and almost the final against King Richard, then had his lotto 6.49 GAA season at the very end of his career and an impressive second act of life as a broadcaster. 16. Terry Ruskowski Another guy who should have WHA stories for days. A two-time AVCO Cup champion in the WHA, he played with Gordie Howe in Houston and then Bobby Hull in Winnipeg, before going on to a good NHL career afterward. Was a very respectable 60-80 point player. 17. Brent Ashton He was Mike Sillinger before there was a Mike Sillinger, bouncing from team to team to team throughout his career, despite being a very good up-to-75 point player when he was named 7th best LW in the league. Played for 8 teams including the now extinct Quebec Nordiques and Colorado Rockies, all after starting out as a Canuck. Retired with 998 games played. 18. Paul Coffey When it was all said and done, he had done the Mike Sillinger / Brent Ashton tour by the end of his career, but not before doing things achieved by nobody else in hockey history not named Bobby Orr. His 138 points is one behind Orr's 139 for most in a season; his 48 goals is unmatched even by Orr himself. Part of the Oilers and Penguins dynasties and then a third act as a Norris and almost Hart Trophy winner with Detroit. Considered the best skater in NHL history, is now writing more of the story as an assistant coach in Edmonton with last year's run to the final. 19. Rick Bowness His playing career involved 6 years in the NHL and 8 in the minors, mostly on middling and bad teams which probably was a fertile ground for stories from the 70s and 80s, but he followed this up with perhaps more seasons and more games as a head or assistant coach than anyone in NHL history, and capped it off with a run to the Stanley Cup Final as a head coach many years after people thought he wouldn't be a head coach again. 20. Mel Bridgman A first overall NHL draft pick by the Broad Street Bullies in Philadelphia, he didn't become a 130 point player like Hawerchuk or Dionne or Lafleur but instead carved out a solid career as a 50-to-90 point tough guy year after year until he had racked up 977 games with five different teams. His final games were with the Vancouver Canucks, where he was a veteran leader during the legendary 1989 7th game overtime series versus Calgary, in Trevor Linden's rookie year. 21. Ivan Boldirev Born in Yugoslavia, he played over 1000 games with six different teams (including the California Golden Seals) in the 1970s and 1980s, including being one of the key Vancouver Canucks for the 1982 run to the final. He was traded together with Darcy Rota twice in his career, and had the best season of his career out of nowhere at age 34 when he should have been hanging up the skates, playing on the Red Wings with Steve Yzerman during Steve's rookie season. Boldirev was second on the Red Wings in scoring, only four points behind Stevie Y. 22. Tony McKegney Now a mostly forgotten very good player of the 80s, he was a consistent 20 to 40 goal scorer (over 300 in his career) and one of the NHL's first black players. Along with his contemporaries Dirk Graham and Grant Fuhr, they were the first black star players in the NHL. McKegney received votes for the postseason All Star Team in three seasons. 23. Dirk Graham A Vancouver Canucks draft pick, Graham (mentioned in the above entry) won the Selke Trophy and was not only the first NHL captain with black ancestry (in Chicago) but also the first NHL coach in that category as well. 24. Dennis Hull In any other family he would have been the superstar instead of Bobby's brother. Five NHL All Star Games, the postseason All Star Team, 40 goals and 90 points in a season...but he says when he goes back to his hometown the sign says "home of Bobby Hull" and every time he visits he stops the car and writes "and Dennis" in pencil underneath. On the verge of being a Hall of Famer himself he surely has some great stories not only from the glory days of the old Blackhawks but of the impossibility of getting out of an incredibly long shadow. 25. Pete Mahovlich See the above regarding Dennis Hull. "Frank's Brother" Pete had two 100-point seasons in the NHL, four Stanley Cups and twice was in the top ten in voting for the Hart Trophy. He probably has some interesting perspectives not just on the Canadiens dynasty of the 70s of which he was a part, but on playing with Ken Dryden, whose shadow also obscured the impressive career of his own brother Dave. 26. Dave Dryden His brother Ken cast a long shadow, first as a goalie and then perhaps even moreso as a writer. But Dave has a heck of a story of his own. He debuted in the NHL in the 1961-62 season and didn't retire from the NHL until 1980. He was in the WHA for almost its entire run and in its final season, won its version of both the Vezina and the Hart Trophies and was one of the only goalies ever to record 40 wins in a season (in the NHL or WHA) before shootouts and OTLs and all that made it a much more human accomplishment in the last 20 years. Would he dare pick up a pen and take up another career in Ken's shadow? 27. Paul MacLean We don't have Dale Hawerchuk's autobiography and never will, but we do still have his forgotten 100-points-in-a-season Jets teammate who had an impressive career on the ice, and also has more stories to tell as an NHL coach of the year in life after his playing days. I always welcome stories about old teams from the 70s and 80s that became extinct (original Jets, the Nordiques, Scouts, Golden Seals, Colorado Rockies, etc.). 28. Mark Howe In addition to providing more insight about Gordie, Hall of Famer Mark has a story of his own to tell. His 1980s Flyers would have been a mini dynasty of their own had they not run into the Oilers in the final in 1985 and 1987. He also had separate careers with the Red Wings and with his Dad and brother Marty in the WHA (where Mark scored 40 goals and 100 points in a season). He did it all, he saw it all. People would probably discount his story a bit because like some of the other names on this list, it is told from the shade of an impossibly large shadow...but it is surely one worth hearing. 29. Al Secord He might have been called one of the power forwards of the 80s if the term had existed for hockey at the time. 50 goals in a season, 300 penalty minutes in a season, 2000 penalty minutes in his career. Then at the end of his playing days he had a Mike Keane run in the minors for a few years when most players of his caliber wouldn't have considered such an option, considering it an insult or an indignity...but Secord rode the buses and played full seasons like Crash Davis in Bull Durham. 30. Rob Brown A forgotten NHL star of the late 80s, Rob Brown had 115 points in the NHL in his 2nd NHL season with Mario Lemieux's Penguins...and then within a few years was sent down to the minors...for YEARS...where season after season for four straights years he had between 107 and 155 points...then at around age 30 worked his way back to the NHL for a second career of a handful of years. His junior career was also the stuff of legend...173 and 212 points in his last two WHL seasons. 31. Andre Lacroix He retired as the Wayne Gretzky of the WHA, the career scoring leader in a league that featured Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, Dave Keon, Mark Howe, Mark Messier, Mike Gartner, Frank Mahovlich and Gretzky himself. He would have an interesting bird's eye view from the top of this now largely forgotten league that was darn close to as good as the NHL, and which still survives today in the form of the Edmonton Oilers, Utah HC, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche etc., which were absorbed more or less "as is" as full fledged NHL teams. He led the WHA in scoring twice, including a season with over 100 assists, and has a healthy lead (well more than 100 points) over #2 on the all time career WHA scoring list. Perhaps he should be in the Hall of Fame...but nowadays his name is largely forgotten. 32. Real Cloutier He scored 75 goals and 141 points in a single WHA season (separate years) and led the league in scoring twice. He also had the stuff to be an NHL Hall of Famer, twice with seasons where he nearly did and would have broken 100 points had he not been limited to sixty-something games. He too would be able to tell the story of the WHA, and also add a fair bit about the NHL including playing with the newly minted North American fugitives the Stastny Brothers and Michel Goulet. He also won the WHA's Stanley Cup with our own Richard Brodeur in net, defeating Bobby Hull in the final. 33. Marc Tardif With the above two names, he rounds out the trifecta of WHA scoring legends who never got their due. He led the league twice in scoring with 148 and 154 points, the latter season placing him in a category with only Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Bernie Nicholls and Connor McDavid. Also part of the legendary Quebec Nordiques championship team with Cloutier and King Richard...and a two time Stanley Cup winner as a support player with the 1970s Montreal Canadiens dynasty. He saw it all. 34. Joel Quenneville Usually I don't need a book to explain a player's memorable bad moment. It just takes a sentence... Todd Bertuzzi, yeah I smashed Moore. Rob Ramage, yeah I drove drunk. Marty McSorley, yeah I tried to chop Brashear's head off. Dale Hunter, yeah I hit Pierre Turgeon after he scored. Ulf Samuelsson, yeah I took out that knee and that knee and that knee and that knee and that knee and that knee and that knee and that knee... But Quenneville actually has a lot of insight into the innerworkings of the Aldrich situation with the Blackhawks that he can share if he chooses to, and former teammates of Quenneville spoke very highly of his leadership as a player and his character. The stories from his playing days would also be pretty interesting I imagine...I find it interesting to hear about making things work on a series of bottom feeding teams as he did like the Colorado Rockies, early Devils, Hartford Whalers, etc. for pretty much all of his career. Both his playing and coaching days are probably worthy of recounting, and he is one of the somewhat rare figures in a scandalous incident that could actually generate some wisdom with his recollections of it. And unfortunately the following players are no longer with us to write their own stories in their own words, but I would be interested in the stories of... "Cowboy" Bill Flett Vladimir Krutov John Ross Roach Brad McCrimmon Keith Magnuson Dale Hawerchuk Edited November 5 by Kevin Biestra 1 Quote
GrammaInTheTub Posted October 25 Posted October 25 I’d love to learn more from the early USSR defectors - I’ve only read the cover of night stories told by others but not those players personally 1 Quote
Kevin Biestra Posted October 25 Author Posted October 25 (edited) 1 minute ago, GrammaInTheTub said: I’d love to learn more from the early USSR defectors - I’ve only read the cover of night stories told by others but not those players personally Reminds me that Vaclav Nedomansky is on the list, the first Eastern European to play in the NHL. Mogilny and the Stastnys have stories to tell as well. Edited October 25 by Kevin Biestra 1 Quote
Baratheon Posted October 25 Posted October 25 1. Why don’t we hear much from Richard? Private man living a quiet life? 4. & 6. Wut…. Is there actually NOT an autobiography written about Williams or Smith? Quote
Kevin Biestra Posted October 25 Author Posted October 25 6 minutes ago, Baratheon said: 1. Why don’t we hear much from Richard? Private man living a quiet life? 4. & 6. Wut…. Is there actually NOT an autobiography written about Williams or Smith? The King is friendly and accommodating and happy to make appearances but isn't thrust into the limelight much since he retired. He sometimes gets featured for his post-playing career exploits as a painter. 1 Quote
Snoop Hogg Posted October 25 Posted October 25 Brandon Reid. His autobiography would be only one paragraph long. Quote
nuckin_futz Posted October 25 Posted October 25 Even though we all hate him from 2011 Shawn Thornton must have some interesting stories. I have never seen a more bizarre path to the NHL than this guy. He literally rode buses and chucked knuckles for a living for 9 years in the minors before carving out an 11 year NHL career. 20 years of pro hockey from a 7th round pick is not too shabby. Quote
Kevin Biestra Posted October 25 Author Posted October 25 (edited) 14 hours ago, nuckin_futz said: Even though we all hate him from 2011 Shawn Thornton must have some interesting stories. I have never seen a more bizarre path to the NHL than this guy. He literally rode buses and chucked knuckles for a living for 9 years in the minors before carving out an 11 year NHL career. 20 years of pro hockey from a 7th round pick is not too shabby. I think the "brother hidden in the long shadow" probably often has a good story. Dennis Hull is a bit of a natural comedian and both he and Pete Mahovlich were quite close to Hall of Fame caliber themselves. Imagine making it to the NHL and scoring 100 points in multiple seasons and being the forgotten brother in the family. Dave Dryden would have some WHA stories as well although his brother has now also cast a long shadow as a writer. Also I agree about Thornton likely having stories from all that bus riding...which is why I have guys like Brent Ashton on my list. Al Secord and Rob Brown are two more. Secord was a 50 goal scorer in the NHL and then at the end had a Mike Keane run in the minors for a few years when most players of his caliber wouldn't consider that. Rob Brown had something like 115 points in the NHL in one season with Lemieux's Penguins and then within a few years was sent down to the minors...for YEARS...where season after season he had 100 to 150+ points...then at around age 30 worked his way back to the NHL for a second career of a handful of years. Edited October 25 by Kevin Biestra 1 Quote
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