High Sticking, Icing And Offside All At Once
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
I was the highest paid player on the Leafs in the late 30s, but even then I was only getting 9 bucks a week. King Clancy was getting $4 and he had to wash Smythe’s car and babysit young Stafford whenever Conny and his missus were at the track.
In ‘39, the war broke out. I tried to join up but the Government insisted I stay home because I was considered a National Treasure. But I still did my bit for King and Country. Every day I took McKenzie King’s dog for a walk.
After the war, I was sold to Detroit for 50 bucks and I was worth every penny They were great years, the Detroit years. I played on a line with Ted Lindsay and Gordie Howe. Sid Abel was still going over on his ankles at the time and sat on the bench until I taught him to skate.
Big Gordie was just a lumbering farm boy back then; it was me who showed him how to use his elbows- not the brightest thing I ever did. One day in practice he nailed me and knocked out all my teeth.
We didn’t have all the fancy equipment they have today. We never had nothin’. I didn’t even wear a jock, which my wife never stops yapping about, but I figured once a guy reaches 18 he’s passed his sexual peak anyway so it was too late to worry about it.
The goalies had pads but they weren’t the big bulky things they have today. Now you have to grease a guy to squeeze him into the net. All Turk and Bill Durnan wore when we played was an Eaton’s catalogue stuffed down each knee sock. It wasn’t even a whole catalogue; the girdle section had been ripped out and hung on the wall of the dressing room. That’s the only sex we had in the ‘40s.
I’ll tell you, if you noticed a guy staring too long at the Nemo girdle page you didn’t get in the shower with him. You waited until he had towelled off and was on his way home.
We never wore helmets either. If a guy put on a helmet in the 40s he would have been considered a shnootsie and kicked off the team. (A schnootsie is a guy who steps out of the shower to have a wee-wee.) We were always getting hurt and losing body parts.
Howe was the only guy on the ‘48 Red Wings who had teeth — even then he only had one. Whenever we went to dinner the rest of us had to wait until he was finished and then borrow his tooth. That’s why whenever you see pictures of the Detroit Red Wings in the 40s, there’s only one guy smiling — the guy with Howe’s tooth.
I remember the big riot in Montreal the night Clarence Campbell suspended the Rocket. Thousands marched down St. Catherine’s Street and burned my car. There had been a brawl on the ice and I had cleaned up on a half a dozen Habs and punched out the Zamboni driver. That just about broke my heart. I loved that car – a 32 Dodge Coupe. It was old but it was all I could afford. We still weren’t making much money. I think I was up to 20 bucks a week, but out of that I had to pay for my meals, my room and when we played out of town; we all had to chip in 50 cents for gas money.
I don’t know if you remember that riot, but the Frenchmen were pretty upset about Maurice getting benched. The Quebecois took the game pretty seriously in those days; and so did we. If the province had voted to separate that night, we would have let them go. Eventually the cops settled everyone down. There was only a dozen or so people killed and they were all Liberals so no one was going to get all worked up over that.
I played against the great Jacques Plante. You remember Jacques. He was the first pro goalie to wear a mask. It was his trademark, but it became quite a problem for him after a while. He got so used to wearing it he never took it off. His wife told me later that Jacques couldn’t perform in bed unless he had it on. It used to drive her crazy. She never knew if he was enjoying himself or not.
Once or twice she wasn’t sure if it was even Jacques in there. A couple of times she thought it was Jean Beliveau. She wasn’t complaining though. After it was over, she made him a bowl of pea soup and asked him for his autograph.
That was a long time ago. I packed it in shortly after that. I took a Bobby Hull slap shot off the side of my head in Chicago and when I woke up I was 87 years old and completely addled. Sometimes I even remember things that some people say never happened — like the night Eddie Shore and I slept with the Gabor sisters.
(Image Supplied)
