The blown call and the whistle
A new book by Damien Cox sheds fresh light on the Gretzky-Gilmour incident — and the aftermath
An excerpt from Damien Cox’s new book about the 1993 conference final between the Maple Leafs and Kings — The Last Good Year: Seven Games That Ended An Era ... As overtime started, (Alexei) Zhitnik shot the puck into the Leafs zone, and (Wayne) Gretzky snared it in the corner. He worked his way back up the boards, absorbed a two-handed slash to the hands from (Jamie) Macoun and moved the puck back to (Rob) Blake at the right point.
(Referee Kerry) Fraser was positioned on the far side of the ice. Blake returned the puck to Number 99 just above the hash marks along the right boards. Gretzky waited, and when (Doug) Gilmour, the nearest penalty killer, didn’t move towards him, he stepped towards the net, wound up and fired a slapshot. The puck hit Macoun in the leg and bounced directly to Gilmour. The two stars, Gretzky and Gilmour, converged on the puck. As the Leafs centre leaned over to play it, Gretzky tried to lift his stick and instead pitchforked Gilmour on the chin with a barely detectable flick of his stick. With thirty-seven seconds elapsed in overtime, Gilmour fell to the ice like he’d been shot.
It had all happened so quickly. Gretzky’s shot, Macoun’s block, the bouncing puck, the flick of the stick by the quickest hands ever to play the sport.
Fraser had a clean line of sight on the play but appeared to be either looking at the net or searching for the puck. From where he was standing, the net was at eleven o’clock, Gilmour was at one o’clock. “I did not see it. If I didn’t see something, I didn’t want to guess. But something didn’t smell right. It’s just an instinct you develop,” Fraser says.
Gilmour was cut. He wasn’t spurting blood, but he was cut on the chin. “When I went to Gilmour, I said, ‘Doug, tell me what happened?’ He said, ‘Wayne shot the puck and the follow-through hit me in the chin.’ I said, ‘That’s not a penalty, then.’ He said, ‘Okay.’ ” Following through on your shot and hitting an opponent was not a penalty. But it had all happened so quickly even Gilmour didn’t have it right. It hadn’t been Gretzky’s follow-through. Television replays clearly showed he had jabbed Gilmour’s chin with his stick when both were reaching for the loose puck.
Gretzky sheepishly circled far away from the referee, which seemed suspicious to Fraser, who was used to Gretzky trying to argue calls. “He always wanted to sell or tell,” says Fraser. Gretzky knew what he’d done, but obviously confessing was out of the question. Fraser called the linesmen together to confer. Millions watching on TV knew what had happened even if the referee didn’t. “Wouldn’t this be something if Gretzky was thrown out for a high stick!” said (Harry) Neale on the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.
Linesmen had that power, but they also knew that if they did report that they’d seen a high stick, Gretzky would be booted out of the game. You couldn’t blame an official for not wanting to be part of that ugly scene. “Neither linesman was sure. So I had to eat it,” says Fraser. Three officials on the ice, and not one of them saw the high stick? It seemed dubious. “Clearly, as the replays showed, Gretzky should have been penalized,” says Fraser. “There’s nothing worse, believe me, than the helplessness of feeling something happened and you didn’t see it.”
(Wendel) Clark argued briefly with Fraser. But the Leafs captain had never been one for long, drawn-out beef sessions. He’d say his piece then accept the verdict with the stoicism of a farmer. He knew there was no changing Fraser’s mind. The game went on.
With less than ten seconds left in the power play, the visitors had defended effectively, not giving up a chance. It looked like they would get back to playing at even strength. But then (Bob) Rouse, (Peter) Zezel and (Dave) Ellett all ventured below the goal line behind (goalie Felix) Potvin to battle for the puck with (Luc) Robitaille and (Tomas) Sandstrom. Three Leafs, two Kings.
The odds were on the visitors coming up with the puck. But it was Robitaille who burst out of the pack with possession. He circled out and looked for a teammate. Gretzky had started at the far boards, waiting for the right moment, staying away from the play, draw- ing no attention. It was his David Copperfield moment. He’d scored 871 goals in the NHL to that point, including regular season and playoff competition. He’d won nine Hart Trophies as league MVP. Yet somehow he’d managed to make himself disappear in overtime of an elimination Stanley Cup playoff game.
Gretzky slid into the open spot by the Leafs post unchecked. Robitaille’s pass was perfect, and Gretzky redirected it in one motion. The puck headed towards the middle of the net and hit Potvin’s right knee, but then it bounced high into the net at 1:41 of overtime. In a wild, controversial finish, the Kings had a 5-4 victory, and the series was going back to Toronto for Game 7.
The postgame scene was chaotic. Both teams quickly began to pack their gear and prepare to head back to Toronto. Celebrities milled about. Cindy Melrose, Barry’s wife, carried a sign in the hallway between the two dressing rooms — just forty feet apart — that read “Kings cheer while Cherry wines” and noisily taunted Hockey Night in Canada personality Don Cherry for his pointed criticisms of her husband. She’d become a regular on a popular LA morning radio show during the playoffs and wasn’t afraid to make her opinions known. Loudly. “She was a cheerleader for the Cincinnati Stingers when I first met her back in 1978,” recalls Melrose. “She’s no shrinking violet.”
In the Leafs dressing room, things were a little ugly. “A lot of the guys looked like they were down and out. Things were said that pissed me off, things that, to be a championship team, you just don’t say,” (Glenn) Anderson says. “It would have never happened in a different room. It was just guys frustrated. Maybe they didn’t play as much as they wanted to. But the timing was wrong in my opinion.” The veteran winger felt some of his teammates were pointing the finger at him for his penalty late in regulation. “I know they were blaming me. They were looking for an excuse,” he says. “I just kind of let it slide. I didn’t want to stand up and say, ‘Shut the f--- up and get ready for the next game.’ The game was over.”
The next day, Fraser flew back home to southern New Jersey, and called his father, who for years had recorded all the NHL games his son officiated. “My dad said, ‘Well, we had a little excitement here last night,’ ” says Fraser. His father had fallen asleep in his favourite chair, and at about 3:30 a.m. had woken to a commotion outside. He had a little motor home parked out back, and he looked out the window to see a car ramming into the trailer hitch of the vehicle. The car then backed up and rammed the motor home again.
Dressed only in his underwear, Hilt Fraser whipped open the patio door, grabbed an axe he had at the back door for splitting wood and chased the car down the street, delivering a few solid blows before the car drove off into the night. On hearing his father’s story, Fraser called NHL security, and a few days later he got a call from league security boss Al Wiseman. “They’d found the car in a body shop in Kitchener (Ontario) getting repairs for damage from an axe,” he says. “They questioned the man. He was a Leafs fan from Kitchener, and he was pissed off at my call and had gone to my hometown looking for my family home.”
It didn’t stop there. Fraser’s mother, Barbara, kept getting obscene phone calls from irate Leafs fans. “My mom was probably tougher than my dad. She was a real hockey mom,” says Fraser. “So I gave her one of my whistles, and like a good hockey mom, she tied it onto a skate lace and hung it on a hook by the phone. As soon as an obscene phone call came in, she had the whistle, and she would blast it into the phone. So the obscene phone calls stopped.” Almost two decades later, long after Hilton Fraser had passed, Barbara began to suffer from dementia and moved into a seniors residence. When her sons went to clean up the family home so it could be sold, they saw some things remained unchanged. “By the phone in the house, the whistle was still on the skate lace,” says Fraser.