Junior Canadiens enforcer Globensky lived life like Slap Shot, paid for it later
The 1968-69 Montreal Junior Canadiens were one of the best junior teams ever assembled.
That team included future Nhlers Gilbert Perreault,
Réjean Houle, Richard Martin, Jocelyn Guevremont and André Dupont. The Junior Canadiens finished the regular season with a 37-11-6 record, scoring 303 goals and allowing 171, and went on to win the Memorial Cup.
The next season, there were a few new faces, including Allan Globensky. The Junior Canadiens won the Memorial Cup again after a 37-12-5 season, with Perreault posting 51-70-121 totals before being selected by the Buffalo Sabres with the
No. 1 pick at the 1970 NHL Draft. Globensky finished that season with 0-6-6 totals and 181 penalty minutes and became as big a star as Perreault when the Junior Canadiens played at the Forum, which was often sold out.
“On veut Globensky! On veut Globensky!” became a favourite chant.
In the wild world of junior hockey in those days, skilled players such as Perreault couldn’t do what they did without being protected by someone like Globensky, who called himself a policeman on the ice.
“As a hockey enforcer (a ‘goon’ if you will, although I never identified by that term), I had a dirty job,” Globensky, 68, writes in his new book, A Little Knock Won’t Hurt Ya! My Life as a Hockey Enforcer.
“It was hardly glamorous, but it was certainly interesting.
“Some of these things would get me banned from hockey for life, or even land me in jail, if I did them today,” he adds. “The passing of four decades has given me some perspective, and has made me realize that the borderline insanity I experienced both on and off the ice should never have been acceptable, but it was. Those were the times we played in.”
While Perreault went on to have a Hockey Hall of Fame career, Globensky played one more season with the Junior Canadiens — posting 3-16-19 totals and 219 PIMS — before spending eight years bouncing around the minors and playing 42 games with the WHA’S Quebec Nordiques.
His most lucrative contract was a two-year, $40,000 deal.
Some of the stories in Globensky’s book seem to be right out of the movie Slap Shot, but the fights, bench-clearing brawls and blood were all real. The thing he remembers most is the fear he would feel in the days and hours leading up to a game — “scared to death about what I would encounter on the ice” — and how he was always only as good as his last fight, especially on home ice.
“Thankfully, I never got knocked down by one shot by anybody,” he said in an interview.
Life after hockey hasn’t been easy for Globensky, which has sadly become a familiar story with hockey’s enforcers. Globensky estimates he suffered 60-65 concussions from more than 90 fights and “countless blows to the head.”
Globensky has gone through two divorces and struggled with alcohol and depression. During the past few years, he has taken part in a concussion study group at Toronto’s Baycrest Hospital and believes he probably has CTE, although the neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head injuries can be diagnosed only after death.
A positive turning point in Globensky’s life came in 2007 when Dave Main, his best friend from his days growing up, came to visit him in Lewiston, Maine, where he had settled after his playing career, becoming a firefighter and later running a hockey arena.
Globensky was in a very bad state at the time and Main convinced him to come back with him to meet Carole Pilon, who they had known in high school. A year later, Globensky moved in with Pilon and they are now married.
“If I wasn’t on the 12 pills I take every day, I’m sorry, I’d be out of here,” the soft-spoken Globensky said. “I’ve had wonderful people pull me out of that hole before I blew myself up. I had a box of pills and I knew where the liquor cabinet was, and I knew exactly where I could do it without anybody seeing or hearing and maybe not even finding me for a week or two. There was no doubt that if it gets that bad — if I get into that hole so deep — I’m out of here. I still get into these mini-depressions. I don’t get it as bad, which is great. Anyone getting a major depression — unless you’ve been in their shoes — wow! It puts you through hell.
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world when I look at my wife and the people I have leaned on,” he added. “But not all of us have that.”