Hartford remains second home for Whalers captain
HARTFORD — The passage of 38 years, playing, broadcasting, retirement, children and grandchildren may bring the inevitable perspective, but send Mike Rogers back for a moment to Binghamton, back to Whalers training camp and October 1981, and the sting returns.
“I got called into the office,” Rogers remembers. “It was unbeknownst to me; normally you hear rumors. I was captain of the team in Hartford, bought a house, coming off a couple of great years, and they traded me. As I stepped out of the room, I was devastated. I was hurt. I was mad. I was upset. And Gordie was waiting for me when I came out, and he said, ‘I’m going to rent a car, and you and I are going to drive back to Hartford.’”
Rogers didn’t take up his idol and teammate, Gordie Howe, on the offer. His new team was sending a plane to get him. Devastated? Hurt? Rogers wasn’t released, you understand, wasn’t sent to the minors or benched.
He was traded. … To the New York Rangers.
But for Rogers, Hartford had it. Still does.
“I just didn’t want to leave here,” Rogers says. “My wife and I had always said, ‘We’re Calgary kids, and we’re going back,’ but we built a house in Farmington, and I think if I’d have finished my career in Hartford, we would have been part of this community. It would have been our home.”
This is the part they just don’t get, those from elsewhere who wonder, why all the tears over a star-crossed NHL franchise that left town 22 years ago? The joy that flows from events like the Whalers reunion weekend at Dunkin’ Donuts Park, the angst over Whalers Night in Carolina — this is what it’s about. And Rogers, 64, six years after retiring as the Calgary Flames’ radio analyst, provides that periodic reminder: If you are among those who