Excerpt: Peterborough’s Perfect Season
From Ed Arnold’s new book about ’74 junior-A Lakers
This is an excerpt from the new book by Peterborough journalist Ed Arnold, “Peterborough’s Perfect Season with Benny and His Jets,” a true story of the only undefeated Canadian lacrosse championship team in the country’s history. Used with permission. All rights property of Ed Arnold.
John Mouradain (who played for St. Catharines) says J.J. was a master, “The class clown, but so talented with so many fakes.”
J.J. was playing like he was still in the playground of King Edward Park where he had learned and honed his skills, enjoying himself, having the freedom to create and trying things without a coach hindering his development. He remembers during a hockey game, his older brother Tom, a goalie, held his hands up to a player coming in on a breakaway shouting “Time out, time out.” The forward stopped, Tom swiped the puck away. No goal. Click, another vivid picture to put in his memory vault. He used it that night against St. Catharines. “Time out, time out,” he yelled. Two of their oncoming players fell for it, stopped and J.J. scooted around them.
Class clown? Maybe through some eyes, but cunning as a fox and nobody’s fool, coming from a large family does that, you protect yourself, look after your own.
Class clown? Maybe, but watch those clowns, they have plenty of masks to disguise themselves including a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Mouradain says, “The whole team was cordial, classy, character guys with huge talents. You were enamoured at how talented and skilful they were. They were doing picks we had never seen before, their lacrosse literacy was so beyond ours. Our team had a core of talented guys, their whole team was talented, every shift, every player.”
Some of the St. Kitts fans also remembered, but with disdain and anger, the cockiness and thrashings. They kept it in their memory vaults for later.
Intensity
Wass, J.J., Evy were the three players other teams tried to key on but they knew that stopping them wasn’t stopping this team. Stop J.J. and face Plunk or Randy. Stop Boob, face Ken, Spin or Guy. Stop Evy and Bobby, face Greener. It was like having the superpowers on one team, all captained by one man who also couldn’t be stopped … Bobby Wasson.
Maybe T.B.’s words about Wass say it best, “If you needed a definition of captain, Bobby would be it. He was smart, fair and Benny didn’t make a lot of changes without going through Bob first, he ran his ideas through him. He was a great captain on and off the floor.”
Bobby says J.J. was the guy who ran the dressing room, but others say it was Bobby’s role for the taking any time he wished. He loved the games, practice, the warmup, and participated with the joy of a child in his sandbox.
In the next three July games, Wass scored 24 points. Of the terrific three, Evy, J.J. and Wass, he was the one who seldom took penalties while J.J. and Evy had high penalty minutes.
“Bobby was a guy like Bobby Orr, just follow me, play the way I play,” says Doc who remembers Wass wasn’t usually one of the first to get to practice or games but he was “always relieved to see him arrive.”
Evy says today, “Bobby was dedicated and so smart. It was a toss up between him and J.J. who you’d start a team with. J.J. kept everyone relaxed and fun in the dressing room while Bobby was more serious, wore the captaincy and you couldn’t give it to a better person.”
Wass was Mr. Intensity, like his opponents say, it didn’t matter what the score was he was still in there giving it 200 per cent. That competitive drive never let up. Later, while in his 50s, he was playing in a hockey tournament, giving it, when a younger man asked his father, “What’s with that guy?” and the father just laughed replying, “That’s just the way he is.”
“I can’t even play relaxed, I can only play competitive,” he says. “I started playing competitive and always had that in later years. I don’t enjoy playing unless it’s competitive and have to give 100 per cent whether it’s volleyball or whatever. Evy and I had the same mentality. That’s why we respected each other.”
He was a calming influence. If there was an issue, he dealt with it one on one not in front of other players. He was five-foot-10, 160 pounds, probably 150 after a game and 50 pounds of that was intestinal fortitude.
Evy’s strength was not having fear, J.J.’s was trickery, all three of them had the same 200 per cent attitude, anything to win, no fun in losing, whatever it takes to get it done. Get it done and do it.
They led, the team followed.
Stop J.J. and face Plunk or Randy. Stop Boob, face Ken, Spin or Guy. Stop Evy and Bobby, face Greener. It was like having the superpowers on one team, all captained by one man who also couldn’t be stopped … Bobby Wasson