Facing The Shooter: A visitor eyes painter Serge Lemoyne’s “Ken Dryden” at Montreal’s Musée des Beaux-Arts. (Photo: http://www.misspixels.com/ @misspixels)
The Rangers’ coach, Alain Vigneault, sent a message this week to his scoreless forwards, according to Larry Brooks of The New York Post, and it was this: score.
“This is a big deal,” said Prime Minister Stephen J. Harper, and for a moment was it possible to believe that he was talking about his forthcoming hockey book? It was, but he wasn’t: he was in Belgium, touting a trade agreement with the European Union.
Allan Stanley died today, the Hall of Fame defenceman who helped the Toronto Maple Leafs win four Stanley Cups in the 1960s. He was 87. In Timmins, where he was born, his dad was the fire chief. He played for the Holman Pluggers there. His uncle was another Hall-of-Famer, Barney Stanley, and he was the one (says Kevin Shea, from the Hall of Hockey Fame) to tell young Allan that hockey players drink tea with honey between periods, so that’s what he did. Allan was supposed to be on a plane in 1951 with another Timmins defenceman, Bill Barilko, but he stayed home instead.
One of his nicknames when he played in New York for the Rangers was “Snowshoes;” another was Sonja, “as in Sonja Henie, the figure skater.” That’s what one fan remembered, later: the treatment Stanley got from the hometown fans was “heartbreaking.”
“They booed Stanley when he was on the ice and soon they began booing him even when he was sitting on the bench,” Paul Gardella wrote in 1981, the year Stanley ascended to the hall of hockey fame. “In desperation, the Ranger coach, Frank Boucher, decided to play him only in away games, but that only made matters worse.”
Newspapers called him this solid citizen in 1953, not to mention the husky 27-year-old and large, resolute and unmarried. He was the superbly conditioned big fellow (1966) and the quintessence of the NHL defensive defenceman (1996). He was a prospector in the off-season; in 1964, he had 36 claims nearby Timmins.
Allan Stanley (Courtesy hockeymedia at http://www.flickr.com)
He went after the federal Progressive Conservative nomination in Timmins when he was 31 and playing in Boston, but the principal of the Schumacher Public School beat him to that, so he kept on with the hockey. He was a key piece of the Maple Leaf team that won the ’67 Cup, partnering for much of the year with Tim Horton. He played one more year after that, in Philadelphia, before retiring at the age of 43.
Meanwhile: Pavel Datsyuk can thread a needle in the dark, said an enthusiastic Detroit TV commentator.
And a reporter, this week, from The National Post paid a visit to The Blue Goose Tavern in Toronto, which is where Toronto’s Dave Bolland goes whenever he wins a Stanley Cup. Twice he’s done that. His parents live nearby, and his friends drink there. Some of them said it’s not “Dave,” it’s “David;” also his NHL nickname is verboten. “I think if you called him The Rat here,” said a waitress, “you’d definitely get punched in the head.” Continue reading
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