STORIED STAN

Stan Mikita was part of some great hockey stories in his storied hockey career. Here’s a sampling ...

GROWING UP

In 1948, Mikita’s parents sent eight-year-old Stan from present-day Slovakia to what they hoped was a better life with an aunt and uncle in St. Catharines, Ont.

Mikita never played hockey until he watched neighbourhood kids on his street from a window and gradually became brave enough to get closer and sit at the curb. When finally allowed to participate, he chopped down the first player who went around him, but an older boy took him aside to show him proper stick etiquette.

THE CURVED BLADE

In the mid-1960s at practice, the right-handed shooting Mikita’s wooden blade cracked at a weird angle when it stuck in the boards. Too tired to fetch a new one in the dressing room, he shot a puck hard, expecting it to break, but noticed it had more velocity by the sound of it hitting the boards. He took six more shots with the funky sensation before the stick broke.

He intentionally bent (and snapped) a few blades before perfecting a curve with a combination of heat and water. Much to the chagrin of goalies, it caught on in the NHL and likely spurred those remaining without masks to get one.

TEAM CANADA ’72

Proud to be picked and hoping for some personal revenge for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Mikita played in Games 2 and 3, a win and a tie for Canada in the Summit Series. Before the series, he put his European slang to use, trying to teach teammates how to call the Russians unflattering names linked to male genitalia. But none could get the accent right.

Coach Harry Sinden made him team captain for an exhibition in Prague against Czechoslovakia.

WAYNE’S WORLD

When making his 1992 film, Toronto comic Mike Myers thought of featuring Tim Hortons doughnuts, but as the setting was Aurora, Ill., he picked Mikita, who gave his blessing and even offered himself up for a cameo.

“As a kid, I remember there were certain teams and players that we liked to call ‘defoliants’ — they would destroy the Leafs,” Myers told the website BarDown. “Stan was one of those guys who seemed to always score a clutch goal against us. And he was a fantastic centreman. We just wished he played for the Leafs.”