Recchi-ng ball rolls into sports hall
Junior experience in hometown Kamloops set him on path to 22-year NHL career
Ernie (Punch) McLean knew how good Mark Recchi was — and how good he could be.
The Kamloops native — who has a street named after him in his hometown, had his junior number retired and is part owner of the Blazers — will be honoured Wednesday at the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame banquet.
Recchi’s stellar Western Hockey League career will be saluted along with three Stanley Cup championships in a 22-year NHL career that included 577 goals and 1,533 points with Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montreal, Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Boston.
There was also a pointed jab at the Vancouver Canucks on a Boston sports radio talk show. It came months after he became the oldest player in league history — 43 years, 216 days — to score a Stanley Cup Final goal in Game 3 on June 6, 2011.
But more on that radio rant later. McLean has a better story to tell.
The former cantankerous coach of the New Westminster Bruins also knew how much the Blazers coveted their native son and would do anything to acquire him. So, when McLean was up north looking after his mining interests, the Blazers swooped in for a lopsided WHL swap in the summer of 1986.
“I was way up in the mine site and they (Bruins) made a trade and my buddy Kenny (Hitchcock) gave us three guys off his team (Recchi is convinced it was actually four) that weren’t even going to play for him,” McLean recalled. “I told Ken you would never get that trade with me if I had been here. Mark was too good a player to give up.”
Recchi scored 21 goals in his 198586 rookie season. In his second with the Blazers, he piled up a whopping 61 goals and 93 assists. He was selected 67th overall in the 1988 draft by the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was a steal. Recchi had a 30-goal rookie season, followed it up with 40 goals, and hit a career-high 52 goals with the Flyers in the 1992-93 season with Hitchcock serving as an assistant coach.
Yet, even in junior, McLean sensed there was something special in Recchi.
“It was the speed,” McLean said. “The way he played and worked was just great. I think he really wanted to go home (to Kamloops) to play, but I think we could have done a better deal.”
Three seasons under the microscope in Kamloops prepared Recchi for pro. The city was dubbed “Little Montreal” because fans had an intense passion and scrutiny of the franchise.
“Going home was easy for me,” Recchi recalled Tuesday.
“I had supportive parents who didn’t put any pressure on me and only asked that whatever I do, that I put in 100 per cent. It prepared me perfectly for the NHL and the culture was wonderful and it became a confidence thing for me. When you’re in that culture you live it and breathe it and continue on.
“I was very fortunate to have Ken Hitchcock, Don Hay and Don Moores as my coaches in Kamloops and obviously Hitch was the hammer guy. But when you have coaches like that it sets you up to succeed.”
Recchi was a big deal in the NHL because he played big. He was a solid 5-10, 185-pound bowling ball winger. He had to fight through the clutching and grabbing that was more pronounced during his career.
“I think I was pretty relentless,” said Recchi, who resides in Pittsburgh and works in player development for the Penguins. “I had a work ethic that I didn’t want to be stopped and I would do whatever it took. I felt I could have played in any era because of that.”
Now, about that 2011 radio appearance.
Recchi called the Canucks arrogant and divers. But that’s the competitor in Recchi, a force off the right wing who could go around you or through you and even chirp you. Recchi admitted he could have chosen his words better, but the bitterness of that final series was tough to dismiss. Even months later.
“I probably shouldn’t have said anything and I wish I wouldn’t have, but that’s what happened and that’s how the series was,” Recchi said.
“People know I love B.C. and Vancouver and it was an unbelievable series, but there was a lot of dislike on both sides. And it wouldn’t have been a Stanley Cup Final if there wasn’t that much dislike — we really didn’t like each other. There was a lot of passion and fire.”
OF NOTE: The B.C. Sports Hall of Fame will also welcome Roland Green (cycling), Geroy Simon (football), Michelle Stilwell (wheelchair), Mark Wyatt (rugby), builders Tim Frick (wheelchair basketball), Frank Smith (football), George and Diane Tidball (equestrian), the 1969-70 UBC women’s basketball team, pioneer Chang Keun Choi (Tae-kwonDo) and W.A.C. Bennett Award winner David Sidoo.