GRIN & BARE IT
Rangers great reveals story behind his infamous Game 7 smile
So, there was Odell Beckham Jr., caught by the television cameras smiling and clapping in admiration of the Steelers’ Antonio Brown after the wide receiver’s touchdown catch against Big Blue on Sunday in Pittsburgh.
This recalled likely the most infamous incongruous smile incident in New York sports history, the one in which Rangers captain Vic Hadfield was caught on television smiling in the Spectrum penalty box in the final minute of his team’s 1974 Game 7, 4-3 semifinal elimination defeat to the Flyers.
Monday, Hadfield talked to The Post and, once and for all, explained what happened that fateful Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia.
“Fans know how I played and how proud I was to be a Ranger,” Hadfield, the grit and muscle accompanying Jean Ratelle’s and Rod Gilbert’s élan on the GAG Line, said by phone from his home in Oakville, Ontario. “I wasn’t laughing. There was nothing funny about our losing that game and that series after all the effort we’d put into it. It was very hard to take for all of us.
“I was in the box [serving a bench minor assessed at 19:09] and the attendant congratulated me on what we had accomplished and how hard we had played. He told me we should all be proud of what we’d done. I turned to thank him, and I must have been smiling at him at the time, and that was it. But that’s what was on TV.
“It wasn’t an issue with the team. It was explained at the time,” said Hadfield. “A lot of people don’t know that I shouldn’t really have been playing at that time, my ankle was so swollen that I had to wear an extralarge boot just so I could get my foot in.”
Hadfield is 76 and awaiting knee replacement surgery next month, his leg issues (“Bone spurs growing on bone spurs”) having prevented him from attend- ing the Rangers’ opening night 90th Anniversary celebration at the Garden on Oct. 13. The Vic Hadfield Golf & Learning Centre in Oakville supports charitable endeavors, notably the Daniella Maria Arturi Foundation for Diamond Blackfan Anemia research.
“I had known the family, and when we finally lost her at three years of age to that disease, we created the foundation to create awareness about a very rare condition,” Hadfield said. “I’m a very private person, but with the help of [the late] Sen. [Arlen] Specter of Pennsylvania and people from the NHL, we’ve held charity golf events and overall, more than $35 million in five years was raised.
“We were able to create a room at the Long Island Children’s Hospital with the help of the great doctors there. We’re working on it.”
But back to 1974. Three weeks and one day following the Game 7 defeat, Hadfield — one of the most popular players in franchise history — was exiled to Pittsburgh after 14 years wearing the Blueshirt, traded to the Penguins for modestly talented defenseman Nick Beverley. It seemed causeand-effect, but Hadfield knocked down that theory.
“Bill Jennings made the call,” Hadfield said, referring to the club president. “He wanted to break up the team. “Brad [Park], Jean [Ratelle], Eddie [Giacomin] were gone in another year or so. I think Bill was still a little pissed off that some of us were going to jump to Cleveland of the WHA a couple of years earlier if we didn’t get better deals with the Rangers.
“It wasn’t from Emile. I talk to Emile every month, just check in to see that everything is good with him,” that era’s No. 11 said of general manager/coach Emile Francis. “The trade certainly nothing to do with that instance in the penalty box.
“This should finally explain it for anyone who didn’t understand.”