King Richard’s reign almost didn’t happen
In the late 1970s the Vancouver Canucks weren’t very good.
One of the team’s bright spots was goalie Glen Hanlon, but when an injury cropped up, it looked like the Canucks were cooked.
So the team’s general manager, Jake Milford, shopped a fifth-round pick to the New York Islanders for journeyman goalie Richard Brodeur.
Considering Brodeur was the most important player two years later when the Canucks reached the Stanley Cup final for the first time, it was a steal.
Here’s a profile on Brodeur from Province legend Tony Gallagher, that ran under the headline, ‘Canucks Find Spot for Fat Man’:
Richard Brodeur planned to go on a tear in the employ of the New York Islanders. People, circumstances change. Now he plans to tear up the Islanders Tuesday as the No. 1 goalie of the Vancouver Canucks.
Dispatched to Indianapolis as No. 4 with NYI, the impish little man from Quebec City was going to rip up the two-way contract he carried in his pocket and stuff pro hockey. Such abuse he didn’t need. He was going home to do public relations for a cigarette company — work his body is suited for — when Canucks general manager Jake Milford traded for depth.
“When I first saw Milford I asked him why he got me,” said Brodeur, an Inspector Clouseau look-alike. “Milford told me they would give me a game. Well, that’s all I felt I needed. I was ready.”
He handed Milford the signed termination contract, which will free him totally next year, and waited. Somehow, with the luck this franchise has had over the years, he knew it wouldn’t be long.
“I hate to see myself getting a break because of injuries. Glen is a good young goalie. But here I am playing my fourth NHL game against Montreal in the Forum and it’s really something for me. When I saw Glen get hit, I said to myself: ‘Glen, get up. Get up.’ Then Harry Neale told me to go for a skate and I was fine. I’m not the nervous type.”
An English-Canadian scarcely grasps the meaning of skating at the church of hockey — the Forum. It’s a deification process to the Quebecois, and to touch the hem of the garment of one so honoured is worthy of at least a special trip on the subway.
“Two friends were in Longueuil watching the game on TV when they saw me go in,” said Brodeur. “They jumped on the metro and got to the game. They got there in the second period. My whole family was there and I was just supposed to be the backup. I was thinking more about what we were going do afterwards than the game.”
He’s popular with his new mates, an achievement for the only Frenchman on any team. He has a lumpy body to thank for it, a figure for which he should be gendarmed — charged with impersonating a pro athlete.
“I’m fat. I’ve got a little pot and Dave Dunn told me I have the worst body he’d ever seen in pro hockey.
Everybody always kids me about it. But one guy called me a little package of dynamite and I said ‘Yes, TNT always looks silly before it goes off.’ Besides, my wife like me the way I am.”
The Islanders did not. At Indy, he was to backup rookie Rollie Melanson.
“Jimmy Devellano, the general manager there, told me they were going to use the kid a lot. At least he was honest. I wondered how you could be the best in the Central League one year and be No. 2 the next. I was going to quit. People are always telling me I’m too small, not physically strong enough to play in the NHL. Maybe it’s just as well. It keeps me going. I need something to drive me.”
The way the amateur draft is conducted these days, Brodeur would likely never be drafted.
“My father is about 5-foot-3 and 120 pounds. They might look at that and say forget him. But size is not so important. In one season in Quebec I played 69 games with nine shutouts, and at the time that was the best minor league there was.”
He has only one regret to date — the goal by Guy Lafleur on a slap shot in Saturday night’s 4-1 loss to the Habs.
“I wish I’d seen the shot, I’m sure from that far out I could have stopped it.”
Ah, to have stopped Lafleur ...