Grab bag: That time Gary Bettman made Wayne Gretzky a scrapbook

In this week's grab bag:
- Comedy stars
- All-star snubs
- A Selanne-inspired obscure player
- Stop telling me which scout are at which games
- And that time that Gary Bettman made the Canucks stand around and watch him give Wayne Gretzky a scrapbook.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

The end of enforcers

When I was growing up as a hockey fan in the ’80s, I knew every enforcer on every team. I could rattle off 30 or 40 names if you asked me to, and quite possibly even if you didn’t. I had them listed in order of ability on a page tucked away in the back of a notebook, and when I got bored during class, I’d update the rankings based on the most recent fights.

I got the latest release of Don Cherry’s Rock’em Sock’em Hockey for Christmas every year, and still do to this day. I own a custom-made Craig Berube no. 16 Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, quite possibly the only one still in existence. I can remember going into the bank with my allowance to figure out how to buy a money order so I could mail away for the Wayne Gretzky Hockey fight disc. In college, without easy access to cable TV and long before the days of YouTube, I learned how to connect with VHS tape traders so my friends and I could get caught up on the latest bouts.

I tell you all of this not out of pride or embarrassment or even because I think it’s all that interesting, but because I want you to know that when it comes to hockey fights, as George Carlin would say, my credentials are in good order. That’s important, because I loved enforcers back then, and even more, I hated lectures from snobby anti-fighting sportswriters who clearly had never enjoyed a good honest scrap in their life and had no right to talk down their noses to those of us who did.

All of which makes it a very strange experience to write these words: The NHL’s enforcer era is coming to an end, and I’m happy about that. I don’t want those guys in the game anymore.

Let’s start with some recent background for those getting caught up with the shift in the landscape. The NHL has always been a copycat league, and these days the trend is toward teams that can roll four lines that can all be trusted with meaningful ice time. That doesn’t leave much room for designated fighters, and teams have begun dropping them from the lineup. And because the tough guys are there at least part to neutralize other tough guys, each one that loses a job makes it tougher for the next guy to justify his. This summer seemed be the tipping point. The Bruins moved on from Shawn Thornton, the Maple Leafs demoted Colton Orr, and longtime tough guys like Krys Barch, Paul Bissonnette, and Kevin Westgarth all find themselves out of the NHL.

We’re not talking about the end of fighting altogether — at least not yet — but rather of the one-note heavyweight, the guy who’s there to drop the gloves and maybe throw a hit or two, and not much else. The job hasn’t been entirely eliminated; a handful of teams are still holdouts, especially in the Western Conference, and there are more than a few dissenting voices. But when even longtime advocates like Mike Milbury are jumping ship, it’s hard not to see this as less of a temporary trend and more of a permanent change.

All of which takes me back to those days of worshiping the game’s heavyweights, when we’d devour the highlights of the latest matchups and wage impassioned debates over whether Kocur could really hold his own against Kordic. Back then, I couldn’t have imagined a world in which I wouldn’t want those guys in the league.

Not everyone agreed; even then, there were always plenty of media voices railing against the NHL’s culture of violence. But most fans didn’t listen and most of the league’s decision-makers didn’t seem to care. The game needed its enforcers, the thinking went; they kept the rest of the players honest. Hockey was a dangerous game, but you were more likely to keep your stick down and your elbows in if you knew there was a monster at the end of the other bench waiting to hold you accountable.

That was most people’s arguments, but it was never mine. I didn’t doubt it, since it was everywhere, but it wasn’t my case to make, because I never played at a high enough level to know whether it was true of false. And it didn’t really matter, because I had a better reason to cheer on the enforcers and the chaos they caused: It was fun. It made the game more entertaining.

Some people recoil at that sort of argument, as if enjoying a fight just for the sake of it was unseemly. I never really understood why that was. The NHL, like all pro leagues, is an entertainment product; as much as we’d like to assign a higher purpose to our sports, the fact is that as soon as people stop enjoying them and wanting to pay to see them, they go away. If something makes the game more entertaining to enough people, then by definition it has value.

And as a fan, I always thought the enforcers were just about the most entertaining guys. I loved the whole package: the debates over who was the heavyweight champ, and who was next in line in the top contender’s spot; the quick scan of the lineup cards in an attempt to figure out who might pair off; the buzz in an arena when two tough guys lined up next to each other on a faceoff. The third period of a 6-1 blowout could be boring and unwatchable, but mix in a little bad blood and the possibility of a score to settle and it became can’t-miss TV.

That the enforcers were often the smartest guy on the team, and inevitably seemed to be the most active in the community, only added to the appeal. They’d serve up those patented death glares on the ice, but big smiles off of it. They loved their jobs, which is how you knew everything was OK.

When fighting started to drop, the game’s entertainment value dropped in my eyes. I know I wasn’t alone — find any classic scrap on YouTube and check the comments for disaffected fans bemoaning the loss of what the NHL used to be — but it quickly became apparent it wasn’t the sort of thing you were supposed to say out loud. So we argued about safety and rats and “policing the game” instead.

That stuff was important, but it wasn’t really the point. Fighting was just fun, and that was all that mattered. And I felt that way, and I made that case whenever I could, right up until it wasn’t fun anymore.

>> Read the full post on Grantland

Second Toronto team bid is being lead by... Kevin Maguire?

The big news in Toronto this week was the ongoing efforts of a mysterious group to place a second team in Toronto. The group had apparently met with the NHL's Bill Daly to discuss their proposal, but until today we didn't know who they were.

Well, now we do. Or at least, we know the group's front man: it's former Toronto Maple Leaf Kevin Maguire.

Wait, Kevin Maguire?

Kevin Maguire?

The guy that topped the DGB list of the worst Leafs enforcers of all time? That guy?

Apparently so.

Now look, I find the idea of a second Toronto team kind of intriguing. And that's especially true if the team wound up in Vaughan, since that's about as close as we'll ever come to my childhood dream of my hometown of Thornhill getting a team. (Proposal: get Charles Wang to move there, and bring back the Thornhill Islanders name.)

But really... Kevin Maguire?

I'm sure Maguire is a nice guy, and I don't have any reason to think that he hasn't become an excellent businessman in his post-playing career. There's no doubt that he has plenty of connections, and in his limited public comment on the situation he's never sounded anything other than completely reasonable.

But at the end of the day, he's still the guy who once did this:

As I wrote back in November:

It's never a good idea to fight Wendel Clark, but at least guys who played for other teams had some sort of obligation to try. There was something vaguely admirable about seeing another team's enforcer challenge Clark, willing to take one for the team even though he knew he was about to die.

But when Clark is your teammate, and you still try to fight him... you, sir, are the dumbest man in the history of time.

We later learned the backstory to the fight, including the fact that after they were done putting Maguire's face back together he actually came back to try to fight Clark again, which really can't be called anything other than a suicide attempt. And also, he got taken down by Russ Courtnall.

I'm sorry, I can no longer take this second team bid seriously. It's being front by a man who once thought it was a good idea to fight Wendel Clark when they were on the same team. His judgment simply can not be trusted.

Then again, we all knew MLSE was going to crush this bid under the mighty corporate boot. So if you're going to try to start a fight that you know you're going to lose, I guess Kevin Maguire is your guy.

The story behind the Wendel Clark/Kevin Maguire fight in practice

We recently named Kevin Maguire our worst Leaf goon of all-time, based largely on his inexplicable decision to fight Wendel Clark during a practice.

What was he thinking? Why would you ever want to fight Clark if he was your teammate? Did Clark hit him so hard that he suffered retroactive brain damage to 30 seconds before?

Well, thanks to a wonderful thread over at Rough House Hockey of old Wendel Clark newspaper articles, now we know the background.

Push comes to punch for the Leafs tough-guy; Clark has first 'battle' of training camp

Rick Matsumoto Toronto Star. Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Sep 16, 1986.

The hockey season officially got under way yesterday for Wendel Clark.

He got into his first punch-up of the season and, as has come to be expected in National Hockey League circles, he scored a decisive victory.

The Toronto Maple Leafs' prize rookie of last season accepted a challenge from another tough, young competitor, Kevin Maguire, and left the right winger, who spent the past two seasons with St. Catharines Saints, with a dandy black eye, a cut on the bridge of his nose and a severely-bruised ego.

He also left several ounces of blood on his sweater, as well as that of defenceman Bob McGill, who stepped in to break up the combatants.

The two clashed during the afternoon scrimmage at the Gardens. Clark took Maguire, who earned 273 penalty minutes in two seasons with the Saints, into the boards at Maguire's end of the ice. They exchanged shoves and glares as they shadowed each other back to Clark's end of the ice.

Suddenly, push turned to shove and the gloves came off. But, as many others found out the hard way last year, Maguire failed to get in the first punch.

Clark landed a haymaker flush on Maguire's right eye and, for all intents and purposes, the fight was over. Clark rained several more blows on Maguire's face and helmeted head and the latter swung back gamely, but the judges scored it a TKO for the Kelvington Crusher.

"That first one was the hardest punch I've ever been hit with," Maguire admitted later. "That was it. It was no contest after that. By the time I got my balance it was done."

Maguire, however, wasn't done. After being patched up, Maguire pulled on a clean jersey, returned to the scrimmage and immediately went after Clark.

"You don't let anyone get three or four clean shots at you and not want to even the score," said Maguire. "I was a bit off balance the first time. I'd have liked to have squared off with him, again, toe-to-toe."

However, Clark, who was nursing sore knuckles on his right hand, refused to drop his gloves the second time.

"I don't need to fight you, again," he could be heard shouting at Maguire as teammates interceded.

For the next few shifts the two combatants were prevented from being on the ice at the same time. Eventually, however, they found themselves face-to-face, again.

This time, the incident turned slightly ugly as Clark slapped at Maguire's menacingly raised stick with his own and Maguire reacted by jabbing Clark in the chest with his stick.

That's when Russ Courtnall jumped into the fray, put a head-lock on Maguire and wrestled him to the ice.

"First of all, Wendel had beaten him cleanly the first time, so there was no need to fight again," said Courtnall. "When you see guys with their sticks in the air you get a little scared. We can't afford to lose Clarkie to a stick."

Clark, who has shown he can play hockey as well as fight, shrugged off the incident as a natural occurrence in the annual battle to gain a big-league job.

The 19-year-old left winger, who scored 34 goals as a rookie, said he's not interested in prolonging the incident. That is, of course, unless Maguire renews hostilities the next time they meet on the ice.

"It's up to him," said Clark. "If he feels he has to do that to make the club, that's fine. I don't hold that against him. But if he takes a poke at me he's going to get poked back."

Maguire also emphasized that there were no personal feelings involved in the pugilistic exhibition.

"There was no intent behind the fight," he said. "It was just the way it happened. I'm not going to try to carve his eyes out or anything. His job is secure. Mine isn't. I've got to make my way onto the team. I've got to do what I can to do that."

While the combatants might not harbor deep animosity towards each another - and could possibly even become good friends if Maguire managed to make the Leafs - one thing is certain: They didn't go out to dinner together last night.

So on the one hand, now we know that the fight happened in Maguire's first stint with the Leafs, when he was a rookie trying to make a name for himself. That makes it a lot easier to understand.

On the other hand, we also know that:

• Maguire got all his blood punched out
  
• He actually returned to the ice and tried to fight Clark again, which has to be about the dumbest thing I've ever heard
  
• He got taken down to the ice by Russ Courtnall.

So I'm going to go ahead and say that Maguire retains his crown as Worst Leaf Goon.

Now head over to the Rough House Hockey thread and start reading. Trust me, it's a goldmine for Clark fans.

I'm still reeling from finding out that Clark and Joey Kocur weren't really cousins.

Five for fighting: The five worst Leaf goons

Over the years, the Leafs have had their share of entertaining tough guys. Tiger Williams and Tie Domi are two of the all-time greats, and guys like Ken Baumgartner, John Kordic, Craig Berube and Wade Belak all had their moments.

But you can't win them all. And if you're one of the guys below, you couldn't win any of them some nights.

In honor of Andre Deveaux's debut, and the inevitable flood of goonery that's about to start as a result of Brian Burke's arrival, let's take a look back at the five least effective Leaf enforcers.

#5 - Greg Smyth

Here's what I remember about Greg Smyth: I remember the trade that brought him to Toronto in exchange for cash(!) being announced during a mid-week Leaf game on Global TV. I remember him having hockey hair and a pornstache. And I remember he had two stints with the Leafs, once in 1993 and again in 1996.

That's it. I have no recollection of him ever doing anything with the Leafs. At all.

Neither does youtube, apparently, so here's a clip of Smyth fighting Bob Probert:

#4 - Nathan Perrot

Perrot was a minor league tough guy who had enjoyed a brief stint in the NHL with Nashville before the Leafs acquired him and assigned him to the AHL. He played a half season in Tornto in 2003-4, not doing much, and made the team in 2005-6. However, Perrot's claim to fame in Toronto is his (alleged) refusal to fight Brian McGrattan. That lead to the veteran Domi feeling obligated to step up, which didn't go well for him.

Perrot never played another game for the Leafs, who shipped him to the Stars for a late-round pick a week later. Oddly enough, he was reacquired by the organization in 2007 and played a handful of games with the Marlies, but never made it back to the NHL. He's currently in Russia.

Here's Perrot doing what Leaf enforcers do best: feeding Chris Neil.

#3 - Kevin McLelland

Remember when Kevin McLelland was one of Wayne Gretzky's bodyguards in Edmonton? He was a pretty good enforcer back then. A few years later, when he wound up with the Leafs in 1991... not so much.

Here he is taking on Mike Peluso. I'm using this clip because of the bonus clip at the very start.

#2 - Ryan Hollweg

He's terrible.

When Ryan Hollweg isn't trying to cripple guys with cowardly hits from behind, he's busy viciously attacking opponents' fists with his face. Here he is doing what de does best (bleeding) against Michael Rupp of the Devils.

#1 - Kevin Maguire

Maguire made his debut with the Leafs in 1987, then went on to establish a name for himself in Buffalo. He was perhaps best known for trying to fight Steve Yzerman, which isn't a good idea when Bob Probert is on the ice. (Watch the whole clip, and compare Probert to Stu Grimson's reaction to the Clark/Marchment fight. This is the difference between a guy who wants to fight, and a guy wants to look like he wants to fight.)

Maguire wound up back in Toronto in the early 90s, where he briefly formed a tag team with McLelland that gave opposing tough guys the chance to brutally beat up two Leafs on the same night.

But he earns top spot on the list based on this:

Yes, that's Maguire fighting Wendel Clark in practice.

I mean... what would have to... how could you ever think that...

Are you fucking insane?

It's never a good idea to fight Wendel Clark, but at least guys who played for other teams had some sort of obligation to try. There was something vaguely admirable about seeing another team's enforcer challenge Clark, willing to take one for the team even though he knew he was about to die.

But when Clark is your teammate, and you still try to fight him... you, sir, are the dumbest man in the history of time. That kind of stupidity is more than enough to earn top spot on this list.