CLEAR THE TRACK
... Shack is back to celebrate Rangers legacy
TORONTO — A group of Ranger alumni will meet here for Thursday’s game as they have across the continent in different cities on selected nights throughout the season in a program that is Adam Graves’ brainchild.
And among the half-dozen former Blueshirts to convene for this contest will be one of the unlikeliest alumnus imaginable, a man who, but for one exception, has been disconnected from the franchise for 56 years since he was traded at age 23.
I will introduce him to you as he introduced himself to me when I answered his return call on Tuesday: “Clear the track, here comes Shack.”
Yes, more than five decades after being run out of town, Eddie “The Entertainer” Shack will renew his ties to the Rangers, where he is expected to join Graves, Mike Gartner, Danny Lewicki, Wayne Dillon and Walter Tkaczuk in the season’s sixth such event.
“We all have a common bond,” Graves said. “We all wore the Red, White and Blue and we’re all proud of it.”
Shack, so unconventional, such a character, such a large personality, would have been a YouTube channel all his own if such a thing existed back in the day. He laughed uproariously when asked about his ties to the Rangers since his trade to the Maple Leafs during the 1960-61 season.
“It’s been a long, long, long time. I mean, I didn’t respect them at all the way they treated me and got rid of me, but that was [coach] Phil Watson and [general manager] Muzz Patrick,” he said in an animated voice belying his 80 years. “Now let me tell you what happened.
“We weren’t very good and we were having a team meeting and those guys said no matter what you say it won’t be held against you. So I got up and spoke my piece and I’m telling you, I walked out of the locker room and there was the trainer, Frank Paice, waiting with my train ticket to Springfield [AHL].
“They said nothing would be held against you and they sent me down and they weren’t even man enough to tell me themselves! They had the trainer do it,” Shack said, remembering the slight as if it were yesterday. “I liked it in New York except they wouldn’t give me ice time and they wanted to change me as a player.
“I was a 50-goal scorer in junior [actually 47] and they wanted to make me into a checker. Everything they said went in one ear and out the other. I told them, ‘Stick it up your crease!’ ”
After a deal to Detroit fell through, Shack early in 1960-61 was sent to the Maple Leafs, where he would spend the next seven seasons and play for the 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967 Stanley Cup champions.
The Rangers held previous alumni events in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Boston, Toronto, Detroit and Montreal that attracted luminaries including Ed Giacomin, Jim Neilson, Ted Irvine, Bill Fairbairn, Phil Goyette and Dave Silk.
“Coming into our 90th anniversary, we made a commitment to enhance our alumni program,” said Graves, a special advisor to the club’s hockey and business operations. “At some point we hope to be able to bring a large group into New York. The bottom line is, we’re all Rangers.”
Shack skated like a runaway train. He was kind of a clown prince, the term used endearingly rather than as a pejorative. He could play, too, recording 239 goals and 465 points in 1,047 games across a 17-year career that also included stops in Boston, L.A., Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
And he has enjoyed a full and prosperous post-NHL career, running hockey schools, owning a golf course and reaping the rewards of astute investing. He credits it all to his wife of 54 years, Norma.
“I have a great family and a great wife. She took care of the money,” Shack said. “I didn’t have much schooling. I didn’t know anything.”
Shack did attend the 2009 number retirement ceremony at the Garden for his pals, Andy Bathgate and Harry Howell. His ties to the Rangers were re-bound by Glen Sather, with whom Shack played in Boston in 1967-68 and 1968-69.
“A good guy,” Shack said of the Blueshirts’ president. “But the guys I knew from New York, we’re all over the hill.”
Now, “The Entertainer” will celebrate his Ranger heritage here in the city where he became a folk hero in the ‘60s. A group called The Secrets recorded a song in his honor called “Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack” that reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts.
“Can you believe that?” Shack asked rhetorically. “And you know who finally knocked me off No. 1? Nancy Sinatra. Nancy Sinatra!”