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Donnie Hockey
(Loves To Post!)
USA
1514 Posts |
 Posted - 11/24/2010 : 3:17:24 PM
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On Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1977, the WHA Cincinnati Stingers traveled to Birmingham, where Bulls head coach Glen Sonmor had just acquired reputed thugs Dave Hanson and Steve Durbano in a trade with the Detroit Red Wings and had recalled another goon, Frank Beaton, from the minors.
The Bulls' starting lineup that night against the highly-skilled Stingers featured Durbano, Beaton, Serge Beaudoin, Gilles "Bad News" Bilodeau, and Bob Stephenson. The Stingers, under the auspices of head coach Jacques Demers, started Robbie Ftorek at center, Del Hall on left wing, Jamie Hislop on right wing, with Ron Plumb and Barry Legge on defense.
After the puck was dropped, Beaudoin started pounding on the 5-foot-10, 160-pound Ftorek. Bilodeau squared off against Hislop, who wasn't much bigger than Ftorek and totaled all of 17 penalty minutes that season. Durbano went after Plumb, who never accumulated more than 66 penalty minutes in any of his eight professional seasons.
After the fights were broken up, referee Peter Moffat gave the Stingers additional penalties, and captain Rick Dudley (and radio play-by-play announcer Andy MacWilliams) went ballistic. Demers threw sticks on the ice and tried to get at Birmingham general manager, Gilles Leger.
"This proves to me Glen Sonmor is not a hockey man," a livid Demers said after the game. "I put real live hockey players on the ice. He put out goons."
Said former Stingers defenseman Barry Melrose, "The thing I'll always remember about that fight is they had this minister come out and say a prayer before the game. He's at center ice, going, 'And God please protect these players and deliver them from harm and watch over them.' And the minute they drop the puck this war breaks out. Duds went crazy that game, and after that we changed the look of our team."
Demeres and Dudley were each suspended for one game for their actions during the game, which was dubbed the "Thanksgiving Day Massacre." Dudley went to team management and demanded they add some muscle to protect the smaller Stingers players, such as Ftorek and Claude Larose.
Stingers director of player personnel Jerry Rafter made a call out to the North American Hockey League, where Paul Stewart had been toiling. Stewart had fought most of the WHA's tough guys in previous years in the NAHL, and nobody with the Stingers had to explain to him why he was being called up to Cincinnati for a three-game tryout. He held out for five games, which led to one of the more interesting careers in hockey being born.
Said Dudley, "I did it for a purpose, but he actually liked to fight. He'd fight anyone, anywhere, at any time, and you had to admire him for that."
Stewart's first game was against the Indianapolis Racers and he didn't get a shift. The next day he asked Demers about his lack of ice time. "Don't worry," Demers told him, "We're in Birmingham tomorrow. You'll play."
"It was all the guys I'd fought in the North American league, so I knew what I was up against," Stewart said. "To quote Yogi Berra, it was deja vu all over again. They were trying to intimidate me in the warmup: 'We're going to kick your ass.' I just said, 'You'll know where to find me.'"
That night, in his version of the natural hat trick, Stewart fought Beaton, Bilodeau, and Beaudoin. |
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Edited by - Donnie Hockey on 11/24/2010 3:19:12 PM |
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