Madsen Finally Gets an "A"

Madsen gets between Baltimore's Phil Bourque
 and an unidentified Adirondack player.

After enduring that one season in the Central League, Madsen’s career path took a big Northern turn, both literally and figuratively, the following summer when the AHL returned to Baltimore that summer, opening the door for Madsen's return to his home state, and finally, an AHL position, sans NHL contract.

“The way it was back then is that the NHL had guys that were on a two-way, who were referees only, or you had guys who were assigned to the minors and would float around between the AHL or the CHL. There were a ton of referees that I worked with who went on to the NHL who are still around, but a lot also a lot who aged out, said Madsen, who by my count and exhaustive research, worked with 27 referees who spent time in the NHL during their careers, with the list being a variable A-to-Z, from Blaine Angus to Scott Zelkin.  

“They started doing a thing with linesmen where they would be on a 40-40 deal. The idea when I first started the idea of officiating in terms of the NHL was to work in the minors, and then next season you get an NHL contract, or you're in the NHL,” said Madsen, who, just like most of the current AHL linesmen, are deemed contactors. Interestingly, the linesmen of Madsen’s era, while provided with some expenses and basic equipment, unless one counts skates as basic equipment, which up until the latter years of Madsen’s career were bought out of pocket.   

“Then, a new regime came in from management that they started meaning guys in because they felt that you would get your maybe five games this year in the NHL, then the next year 30, and the next be in the NHL full-time if you had progressed enough. That way it wasn't a rude introduction to the players, because like in any vocation some people try to take advantage of you and their thinking was that weaning you in it allowed for more relationship building with the players and coaches. Once they get to know you, it makes a difference.”

In the summer of 1983, not long after the culmination of his third season of work as a professional linesman, Madsen received a call out of the blue from Mark Rudolph, then the Director of Officiating for USA Hockey at the time. Rudolph was inquiring as to Madsen’s availability to come out to Colorado Springs for a week to officiate some games at the National Sports Festival, all the while being so confident that Madsen would replay in the affirmative, that he had already booked a flight and sent the ticket. 

Madsen enthusiastically accepted the offer and after arriving found out that he and 11 others from around the United States, including Mike Condon (who died tragically at a young age after manning the lines for many games in Baltimore), had been selected for what turned out to be a selection tool for the 1984 Olympics, and although he later disappointingly found out that he didn’t make the final cut, he enjoyed the competition and the opportunity and cherishes the memory.

Fans who have only started watching hockey within the last dozen or so years, will never truly know the type of game that hockey was prior to time. Sure there is YouTube, but that video will never be able to truly capture the intensity, intimidation, and oftentimes chaos, that was very much par for the course in hockey back then, particularly in the minors.

Of course, being based in Baltimore and being assigned so many games involving the Jacks, Madsen developed a solid working relationship with Baltimore’s resident tough guy during their years being affiliated with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Bennett Wolf. Despite their working relationship from working in such close quarters, particularly during Wolf’s many quarrels with opponents, don’t get the impression that he gave Wolf or any Skipjacks player preferential treatment.

"I really prided myself on being fair on the faceoffs and the fights, said Madsen, dramatically emphasizing his point after being asked was it difficult to be impartial to the club representing his home area when officiating. “I always felt as a linesman that if you were fair on both of them, you would have the ultimate respect. On the faceoffs, the centermen would always try to get an advantage on each other and you, they would time you. As far as fights, you never want to see anyone get hurt, but I also wasn't going to get hurt.”

This leads to the question, how do linesmen know when it’s the right time to interject in a fight, and when they do, is there a technique, or is it all a matter of adjusting on the fly?

“We would let guys go because we know they are not boxers. But if we saw two guys that were wingnuts, so to speak, we're going to watch ourselves a little bit more, because we don't know what they're going to do, so we would communicate Then we’d let those guys go, and it was usually only for a few seconds because hockey fights usually don't last that long. Then, we would definitely go in and there and break it up.”

“You go in there back-to-back with your fellow linesman, then you grab the player by one arm and tuck it in, then after driving your head into his chest, you start skating towards him. Then, you get the other arm tucked in and at that point most guys back down. But if a guy went down (from a punch), I would immediately go down and try to wedge in between him and the other guy, and I’d cover him up as best as I could and say to him, don't move I’m taking it in the back. If you move your arm, you're getting one in the face. The bottom line was to protect the players as best you could. Remember this is not a street fight, these guys are professional athletes, and they still want to play.”  

Who knew that on-ice relationships were such an important part of an on-ice official's role? 

“There were times when I'd make a call, and if not for the fact that I had a relationship with the coach, they would have been yelling and swearing at me. But because of the relationship, they would just say, hey Gary, what are you doing? Or, hey Gary, you need to be in better position, you made a bad call and you need to be in this spot. Instead of yelling at you, they would say something during a timeout or break in play.”

In fact, Madsen said that his relationship with Wolf, who he says was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet despite the role he played on his club, often saved him from verbal abuse for other players, primarily as a result of the respect that Madsen had gained from him, telling the chirper to “shut up”. But that’s not to say that he didn’t get an earful from time to time, as he recalled one eventful encounter with the Hershey Bears’ Kevin McCarthy. 

“Hershey meant (box office) money when they played in Baltimore, and this was one of those games when there was a big crowd, and I'll never forget this. The clock is winding down three, two, one, and Kevin McCarthy comes down the ice, and Kevin is a great guy. Anyhow, he rips a slapshot at the buzzer and it goes in, and if it's good, it counted, I'm talking right at the buzzer. Kevin was at the blue line and he's right in front of me about three feet away, and I blew the whistle (for offsides right away), because way on the other side of the ice, a Hershey player was a good two feet in the zone before the shot. It was definitely offsides, but Kevin and his teammates were still celebrating. But I knew what I saw, and it was offsides no matter what. But, of course, Hershey didn’t see it that way.”

“I'm like no (goal, due to the offsides), and he makes a beeline to me, and I'm getting ripped left and right. I said Kevin, look at the tape because every game was recorded back then, but he's still going on and on. Finally, I looked right at him and said, Kevin, if I'm wrong, and I knew I was right, I'll buy you dinner after the game (Hershey hosted the Jacks the next night in their barn). The next night we were skating around, and this is the kind of classy guy that he was. As the players came out, I'm looking around and Kevin immediately skated up to me and says Gary, Gary, Gary, you were right. From that time forward I never had a problem with Kevin because he respected how I handled it. By the way, he never did buy me that dinner, I just shrugged it off.”

When asked if he’d ever made a bad call, Madsen replied both comically and diplomatically, undoubtedly, doing the officials association proud with his reply. 

“Officials will never tell you that they made a bad call, it's just that some are better than others, he chuckled. “If I knew I was right, I was right, and I would say dead on I was there, and they would respect you for that. You're convinced (what you see) and you make the call. But if I was in the wrong position, I would listen.”

After the Bandits departed for Portland following the completion of their 1996-97, and still without an NHL deal, Madsen made the decision to keep officiating another season, manning the lines primarily in Hershey, but also making the occasional journey to other stops on the circuit, but that would turn out to be his last season as an AHL official. 

“I worked one more season primarily in Hershey, and that was really hard. The reason it was is that you need a lot of games, and there were a lot of guys already there. At that point, I knew that my path in the NHL was done. I was just there having a good time enjoying it, but I said to myself I was done. It was probably mutual, just because they knew that it wasn't going to work. And it wasn't that they didn't want me around, it's just that it wasn't working any longer.” 

Nobody ever wants to see their dreams end, but if you were a longtime AHL official who worked primarily in the Baltimore rink, where the conditions were less than ideal, and the crowds scant in the cavernous complex, going out in the Hersheypark Arena, definitely softened the blow and the reality of the end of the road. 

Madsen displays some fancy footwork
on a faceoff at Hersheypark Arena.

“There's the NHL, and that's great, but when you're in the minors, there was no greater place to do a game than the HersheyPark Arena, particularly on a Saturday night. The seats, all wooden because they were old, went vertical, not spread out horizontally like a lot of arenas,” Madsen mused, a soft smile recalling his swan song.  

“Our locker room was underneath the stands and you could see the contour of the concrete in there. Then, there was a little chute where we walked out onto the ice, and as you came out you could see the dangling feet of the fans before finally seeing the ice. There's a thing that I tell people about HersheyPark Arena that is really unique, and I called it feeling the air. You don't know if you feel the air because air says there. But when you went into Hershey, against Rochester or Baltimore with 7,200 fans and standing room only, you would go out on the ice and almost feel the air that you were skating into because there was so much intensity in the building due to so much energy being focused down to ice level because of the design. 

“(Before you knew it) You'd look up at the clock and there would be like three minutes left in the period, and you'd say where did the time go? Granted, there may have been 15 or so stoppages and faceoffs, but it was so intense that you only looked up at the clock on penalties.”

Such the consummate professional was Madsen, that when his cousin Mike would lean over the glass and wave to Gary, all he would receive in return was an inconspicuous nod of his head. 

Sadly for Baltimore boosters like Mike, who somehow managed to refrain from proudly shouting “that’s my cousin” while the smooth-skating Gary glided effortlessly around the rink, his red hair refusing to succumb to the forces of nature before he paused to meticulously check the twine for a gaping hole, their days of viewing games in person in Baltimore are gone for the foreseeable future, and maybe forever.

All that is left now are the enduring memories, all made possible by the efforts of the countless players who represented the city, and Madsen, who endured years of being bruised, punched, taunted, and verbally abused to "officially" ensure they would be lasting ones. 

Madsen Makes His Way To The "A"

By: John Sparenberg 

There were many players who came through Baltimore donning the colors of the Baltimore Skipjacks as they arrived in "Charm City" as fresh-faced youngsters striving to reach the pinnacle of professional hockey, the National Hockey League. Among those names were Phil Bourque, Mitch Lamoureaux, and Jon Casey, to name only a few.

Then, there were the talented veterans looking to regain a regular spot on an NHL roster, with Paul Gardner, Mike Gillis, and Mark Hunter, standing out on that list. But, there was another man, one who never donned a Jacks jersey, but one who logged many miles and took to the ice in many of the clubs’ clashes on his quest to reach the Big Show and was an integral part of the happenings and history of the club, and he is linesman, Gary Madsen.

Madsen, who grew up in the Loch Raven Village area, first took to the ice at the age of 10 when his dad, who grew up in Highlandtown and had been involved with skating for years in rinks like the old Carlin’s Iceland in Baltimore City, took him to the Orchard Ice Rink on a Wednesday night. Those Wednesday night outings soon became a regular occurrence, and that led to regular Saturday visits as well, and before long, Madsen, who hadn’t been involved in many other sports up to that time, had caught the skating bug but had not yet been infected with hockey fever. However, that most pleasant of ailments would soon be running through the course of his veins, thanks to one fateful night at Orchard. 

“I don't remember the guy’s name, but he was always recruiting for Baltimore Youth Hockey, and he asked me if I had ever thought about playing ice hockey. I said sure, and I ended up going the next season and just played in-house and that was my evolution from ice skating to ice hockey. It became like, just the biggest thing I want to do. I'd go up to the tennis courts, just taking it taking a stick and a ball and going and shooting at the fence of the tennis courts. And then I would come home and play in the backyard or sometimes we'd play in the street.”

"Then, when I was about 16, I started playing some travel. Back then, you had to play house (first) and then you got to play travel. So, you had that responsibility of playing house (first). With travel, I started to get a lot better, Madsen said, briefly pausing to carefully choose his words before continuing. I don't want to say I was a really good hockey player, but I got to be pretty good.”

Madsen, continued, “Then I started working at the ice rink, and I was a rink guard all of the way from grade school through high school. I went to Calvert Hall (located about a mile from the Orchard Ice Rink) and graduated in 1975, so I was at the rink pretty much every single day. When it was when in the fall and they were making ice, that's what I was doing, sometimes in the middle of the night I was at the rink spraying water to make the ice.” 

Playing at Orchard with the Mercurys of the Chesapeake League where he played against the likes of another local boy, Steve Wirth, and AHL Hall of Fame member, Jim Bartlett, Madsen continued to refine his playing skills, catching the eye of his younger cousin, Mike Madsen, who said, “I didn’t have his skating skills, or his overall hockey abilities, but watching him play at a very young age inspired me and encouraged me to keep paying. Great memories!.” 

By virtue of being at the rink so much, Madsen found a calling for his services one evening for a game on the sheet, but he wouldn’t be playing on this occasion, instead, he’d pull on the zebra stripes and be an official. 

“I had never done it before, but I gave it a try. It was just a house game, and I had no training as a referee, but I mean I knew what to do essentially just through osmosis. I just got out there and said you know it's just a kid’s game and the guys said we just need somebody out to help, and I liked it. So, I joined the local Baltimore officiating group, which back then was run by Mr. Doug Lauf (who was a longtime off-ice official at the Baltimore Civic Center/Arena). I then continued to officiate, and I started getting better at it.”

Who knows why anybody, particularly a well-educated graduate of the esteemed Calvert Hall, would want to continue to pursue a career in officiating, particularly at the professional level, where in addition to the constant critique of their work from their bosses, one must constantly be subjected to the continuous catcalls from fans, who have been known to you know, on occasion, have a biased opinion favoring the club they fervently root for on every call an on-ice official makes. In Madsen’s case, it may have been the notorious Baltimore summer weather, where the humidity has been known to alter one's thinking. 

“One summer I decided that I really liked being an official, and I started researching how to how to get better, and I found a refereeing school in Milton, Ontario that was run by Bruce Hood (then a veteran NHL referee, but now deceased), and a lot of future NHL referees went to that school.” 

“I found out the school was for a week, so I saved my money and then booked a flight to Canada, arriving on a Sunday to start the daily schooling the next day, and then flying back home on Friday, said Madsen, noting that while he supported himself financially in this venture, his parents were very supportive of his pursuit, but with this caveat.

..."As long as you continue to do it, and don't stop caring, if you stop is when I'll mimic your stop. As long as you continue, we'll support you."

Madsen continued, switching gears back to the hockey school “They had great teaching and I had a great time. All totaled there had to be over 100 people at the school that week, ranging from kids as young as eight to men in their 50's. There were classroom sessions, in addition to on-ice sessions, and of course, there were games too. In the games, you would go out for 10-minute stints, and then your crew would come off and another three-man crew would go on, with the purpose of everybody getting a chance to fit in.”

That year at the Hood school led to another, and then finally, a third, and by that time the school's instructors,  having witnessed his talents firsthand for three years, had started to work him harder, and that hard work paid off, with Madsen landing his first professional job as a linesman in the Eastern Hockey League, where he would be primarily stationed in Baltimore, an appointment that he modestly called, "just being lucky.”  

Toiling in the minors, particularly the low minors like the EHL was, is not your typical career path in professional hockey. Usually, with a few notable exceptions such as the Clippers’ Warren Young, who would eventually go on to the NHL and earn a million-dollar salary thanks to riding shotgun with the legendary Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh, the loop was the highest level they would scale on the hockey ladder.

Many of the games in the EHL were played in small cities, with Baltimore being the exception, with sparse crowds in attendance, Baltimore not being the exception, played in dimly lit arenas, with less than ideal conditions for the players and officials. Also, rarely would be the occasion when I scout was on hand to take in a game and take a close look at a prospect, but Madsen had shown enough in his work at the school to warrant the decision-makers at the institution to keep closer tabs on his development.

“You have to have talent, but it's also political and being in the right spot at the right time. There are so many factors that figure into making it. It's a fact that there aren't a lot of openings because it's a finite group of people, and generally you only get in because somebody got fired, hurt, or retired.”

“They knew who was in the league and the scouts came around a few times that season. Then the next season Bob Hodges and John D'Amico (both former veteran NHL linesmen) came up to me and said, you know, you’ve got a really good shot at getting into the AHL based on where you are right now (skill-wise and geographically), and we'll do what we can to help you.”

For whatever reason, Madsen’s body of work, along with the influence of Hodges and D’Amico was not enough to secure him a coveted spot in the AHL, which only consisted of 11 teams at that point in time. However, all hope was not lost in Madsen’s pursuit to continue his career growth at a higher level, as Hodges and D’Amico were about to put him in touch with a contact in the Central Hockey League, Bud Poile, commissioner of the CHL, and the father of former Washington Capitals GM, David Poile. The younger Poile would go on to become the GM of the Caps, including the time when they were affiliated with the Skipjacks.

Despite having already earned his accounting degree and having a good job in the Baltimore area, Madsen decided it was time to leave behind some of that stability and hit the road, taking a huge leap of faith and venturing to Music City USA to become a CHL official, as he inched ever so slowly to the ultimate of goal of earning an NHL contract. 

“I didn't even have an apartment lined up yet, but I put a U-Haul behind my car, hitched it up, and drove to Nashville, where I would be based. I still had to work because you don't make a lot of money. But I ended up getting into a partnership with the firm that I worked for, and they got me a job doing accounting in Nashville, and fortunately, I was able to find an apartment after I got down there.” 

Because of budget constraints, linesmen in the minors tend to be locally based, and Madsen estimates that around 70% of the games that he did were in Nashville, but he put plenty of miles on the odometer, making other stops around the loop, and although he didn’t go everywhere as the Johnny Cash “I’ve Been Everywhere” says if you use your imagination while reciting the following stops you might feel like he did; Wichita, Nashville, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, Dallas, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. 

“They got me out of my usual zone (Nashville) every once in a while, but mostly you stayed in your own territory. Which is good, but, it's also problematic because you get one team all of the time instead of seeing multiple teams, and that can be tough on an official. On the good side of that coin, being local guaranteed a lot of work, but it also creates a bit of an issue with you being over-exposed. Granted, I was looking at this from a lineman's perspective and not a referee, because it's a non-issue with them because they are always traveling.”

Again, showing enough development to warrant another promotion of sorts, Madsen saw his first professional post-season action in the CHL 1982 playoffs, working alongside the referee who also worked with him in his first regular-season game in the “C”, Don Koharski, who started his professional career as a linesman. 

"Before that first game, which was Wichita at Nashville, we were in the locker room and Koho looked over at me and asked me if I was nervous, and I said yeah. He said I can tell and then he proceeded to tell me not to worry about it because these guys love him. That's just what he was out on the ice, a presence, and a personality. So, we go out on the ice and we're skating around and I took a peek over. There were four or five Wichita guys chasing after him just trying to say hello. That's the relationship that he had with players. He was well-liked by the players which was a credit to him.”

Bourque's Baltimore Beginnings (Part 2)

By: John Sparenberg 

Entering the 1986-87 season, Bourque's fourth in the Pens' fold, Ubriaco had an important job that he needed to be filled on his squad, and the qualifications for the job were; a mature young man, and one who was a sincere worker and also showed leadership qualities. 

When one ponders those qualifications and thinks back to his earlier days in the organization when Bourque was still learning about himself and making some mistakes on the ice like any other young player, in addition to his off-ice issues that he admitted to, it was somewhat of a surprise to the general public and press that "Ubi" filled the position, the captaincy of the Skipjacks, with Bourque. However, while everyone else who dissected the move strictly by game performances, Ubriaco had the benefit of three full years of coaching Bourque and seeing him every day in practice, on the long bus rides that are a part of life in the AHL, and interacting with his teammates. 

Being bestowed with the honor wearing the captain's "C", which was actually a co-captaincy that Bourque shared with defenseman Chris Dahlquist, was an obvious source of inner pride for him and a telltale outward sign of how the Pens' organization now viewed him.

However, another unofficial title that Bourque needed to shed was of "tweener", a player who is good enough to play in the NHL, but for one reason or another is unable to stick when called up to the NHL for one reason or another, and he took a huge step towards doing so late in the 1986-87 season when with the Skipjacks playoff hopes just about sunk, Ubriaco changed the course of his career and tried him as a forward on an experimental basis. 

"Gene was the head coach and another coach that I had who was like a father figure to me. I came in as a defenseman and after a bunch of trips through Breezewood, Pennsylvania going back and forth to Pittsburgh; Gene called me into his office one day and said this isn't working out too well for you. You should be getting a little more traction up in the NHL and it's not happening. I want to try you at forward; you can skate like the wind. At that time Mario's brother, Alain was playing for the Skipjacks and Gene said I want to put you on the left wing with him and see what happens the last 15 games of the regular season. We had a special chemistry and just caught fire."

Bourque, who originally wore number seven with the Skipjacks, but switched to number explaining that it was because he was a numbers guy and Ray Bourque wore number seven and Bobby Orr was his favorite player (7x4), continued. "Then Gene got the job in Pittsburgh and I went to that training camp as a forward and ended up making the team. So I owe a lot to Gene, but the backstory to that is growing up and playing youth hockey in Boston, I was always going back and forth between forward and defenseman. My dad always pushed me to play both and it ended up really serving me well finding my little niche and getting through the little crack in the door to get to the NHL and stay there for a while."

The number seven, as in lucky number seven, turned out to be the one that Bourque finally jettisoned the tweener tag and became an NHL regular. In that campaign, he victimized opponents' nets with vulcanized rubber 17 times to help the parent Penguins, under the leadership of Coach Ubriaco, make the playoffs for the first time in the Mario Lemieux era. The Pens stumbled out of the gate the following season winning only 10 of their first 26-games, and that sluggish start ending up costing Ubriaco his job but through the tumultuous season the Penguins endured, Bourque continued to refine his goal-scoring touch, "tickling the twine" on 22 occasions.  

Craig Patrick, the Pens' General Manager who was an assistant coach and also the assistant general manager of the gold medal-winning 1980 U.S. Olympic Team, took over behind the Pittsburgh bench after relieving Ubriaco of his duties, but the club never fully recovered from their rough start and failed to make the post-season.

Realizing that the window of opportunity was slowly closing on the clubs' chances to capture a Stanley Cup with Lemieux, Patrick had a plan, and that was to surround his superstar with champions, and he then quickly went about that task in the off-season, starting with the early June hiring of head coach "Badger" Bob Johnson from the University of Wisconsin, where he had won three NCAA titles. Within a week of Johnson's appointment, two players with Stanley Cup's in their past were acquired when Joe Mullen was obtained via trade and Bryan Trottier, who had previously collected three titles with the New York Islanders was inked to a free-agent deal and those transactions along with a couple more in-season "Craig's capers" resulted in both the first Stanley Cup for the Penguins organization after they disposed of the Minnesota North Stars and their goalie, former Skipjacks teammate Jon Casey in the finals.

Tragically, Johnson suffered a brain aneurysm only three months after the championship and never again coached the club, succumbing to brain cancer in November of 1991. Scotty Bowman, who was already on staff and had previously won five Stanely Cup's as the head coach of the Montreal Canadiens took over the coaching reigns after Johnson's passing, and with Bourque playing a pivotal role, which included tallying the clubs' first goal in the Stanley Cup finals matchup with the Chicago Blackhawks, a netting that started a comeback win from a 3-0 deficit, the Pen's cruised to a second consecutive championship, downing the Hawks and Bourque's former Skipjack teammate Rod Buskas in the finals. 

Reaching the pinnacle of his profession was obviously the highlight of Bourque's career and a nice payoff, literally and figuratively, for all of the long bus rides and ups and downs of the franchise both in the minors and in the NHL that he endured on his way to the top.  

"Early on, I was just happy to be in the NHL and getting an NHL paycheck. To be quite honest with you I was just trying to carve out some kind of a career for a guy who wasn't drafted. You think about winning but you knew back then that we were not good enough to win. This may sound a little selfish and as I look back, I think it was, but sometimes you just have to look out for yourself because nobody else will. You just want to play in the league."

"As we start to get better and Mario started to be surrounded by better players, that's when you start thinking about winning. First, you start thinking playoffs, then, win one round. Then, once you get that taste in your mouth and you see all the pieces that have been brought in. Guys like Paul Coffey, Ron Francis, Larry Murphy, and Kevin Stevens; these are all Hall of Fame type players. At that point, expectations certainly start changing in the locker room, and thinking about getting into the playoffs and winning one round is not good enough. No, we're built to win a Stanley Cup, now, let's go out and do it."

After a short period of celebrating the history that he had helped obtain for the Pens' in capturing the back-to-back championships, it was then on summer and the reality of the business side of hockey where both the player and management are looking for their own best interests, and through this sometimes painful process, loyalties are tested and feelings are often hurt. 

The first sign that Bourque's ten-year tenure in the organization would not stretch to an 11th was when he was left exposed in the expansion draft that stocked the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Ottawa Senators, who would be entering the league in the fall. Having cleared the expansion obstacle, Bourque was now in a position that was not unique to him, an unrestricted free agent. 

In his first foray into free agency when he was a young defenseman with modest offensive numbers in junior hockey and little bargaining power, Bourque basically had to settle for whatever terms he could get. But this time around at only 30-years of age, seemingly in the prime of his career, and with back-to-back championships and consecutive 20-goal seasons as the latest entries on his resume, he was in the driver's seat and his services were sought after by at least a half dozen clubs, and in the end, he signed a lucrative multi-year deal with the New York Rangers, although he was loyal to the end with the Penguins and gave Patrick a last-minute chance to match the deal the Rangers presented. 

Big expectations came with the big money that the Rangers threw his way, but Bourque potted only six strikes in his first season in the "Big Apple", and his sophomore season saw him unable to get in the lineup on a regular basis. But yet he stayed the course and weathered the storm for the good of the team, even rejecting an idea from his agent to pursue a trade that his representative thought he could help facilitate, knowing that his client was still a wanted commodity. And what did that loyalty buy him, a trade to the Senators, who were assured of a last-place finish. Asked the reasoning for the trade, the Rangers' GM said simply that the Rangers had too many players. 

With his ego bruised by the combination of the trade and not being able to put up numbers that compared to his latter days in Pittsburgh, Bourque went into the off-season determined to regain his place as a top-tier power forward, trained with dogged determination in an effort to stop his freefall, but that same determination led to a freefall of another sort, and one that nearly cost him his life.   

"It was in August of 1994. I was in the best shape of my life and was about to go to the training camp with the Ottawa Senators," said Bourque, who like everyone else in the hockey world hoped that a lockout could be averted, but that was not to be the case and the truncated season started in January 1995 instead of October of 1994. "I had really been working out hard and was going to have one more free weekend at Lake Powell, which is on that Arizona Utah border. We were there at the house with five or six other couples and I said, hey, I'm going to go run some sandhills so I can have a guilt-free weekend and have some beers. They were like no just have a beer and sit down and I was like no, I'm going to run some sandhills."

"Running sandhills led to me doing some rock climbing, and I got up pretty high and lost my footing. I ended up falling four stories straight down, and on my way down, I hit my head on the back of a rock. That knocked me out cold, and by the time I landed, I did a face plant. I broke all my facial bones, my cheekbones, my nose, and I broke my neck in five places. When they finally came and found me, they knew they couldn’t transport me because of my condition, so they called in a helicopter, put me in a basket, and then flew me to Flagstaff, Arizona. That was the year of the lockout in the NHL, which was a blessing for me. The lockout allowed me to get into rehab, get back in the gym, and get back into some kind of shape to play again when the season started, which was in January. When the season started I was ready to go, and the doctor said the only reason I wasn’t paralyzed was that I was in the best shape of my life when the accident happened," finished Bourque, who amazingly played in 38 of the Sens' 48 contests.

Amazingly, Bourque went on to play an additional six seasons of professional hockey after the rock-climbing incident and retired in 2000, putting an end to his 18-year career. One that had enough twists and turns to make his former pet Burmese python Monty jealous. And while the compelling story of his career seems tailor-made for a Hollywood film with its trials, triumphs, and tragedy, even if his story never makes it to the big screen, "Bourquie" will always be remembered as a two-time Stanley Cup winner who "etched" his place in history. 

"The night before I was supposed to return the cup, I was sitting on the floor in the living room with a screwdriver, a bunch of beers in an Igloo cooler, and a screwdriver. I took the screwdriver, and about three hours later I had finished putting my name and enjoy it in quotation marks on the inside of the Cup. It's not there anymore because the Cup doesn't get any taller, so they take off the large bands. The top one comes off, and it gets flattened out and put into the hall of fame and a new one gets put on the bottom. But for many years, I was the only guy with my name on the inside and outside of the Cup." 

 

Bourque's Baltimore Beginnings

By: John Sparenberg

Nothing came easy for former Baltimore Skipjack Phil Bourque on his odyssey to the NHL on a route that traveled directly through Charm City, and eventually to the show, where he skated in nearly 500 regular seasons contests with various clubs and collected a couple of Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Always a free spirit and never afraid to make his own way or do things in a unique manner, both on and off the ice, the Chelmsford, Massachusetts native was fortunate to have a pair of gentlemen with deep Baltimore ties to help him transition into an NHL'er. 

The dream of hockey-playing youngsters who grow up in the Boston area take the next step in their careers by staying in the area and playing college hockey at either Boston College or Boston University and then play with the Bruins, but the adventurous Bourque opted for his own plan B and went to Canada to play for the Kingston Canadians, who were led by their bench boss, Jim Morrison. 

"He was a little bit like a father figure," said Bourque of Morrison, a former Bruin, and also a former AHL Baltimore Clipper, who both skated for and coached the team before venturing back to his native land to coach in the Canadian junior hockey ranks. "That was also the first time I had left home. After graduating high school my dad really wanted me to play college hockey but you remember back in 1980, which was the year I graduated, there weren’t many high school kids going pro and then to the NHL, and that’s where I wanted to get as quick as possible." 

"Through a mutual family friend, I got to meet (former Clipper) Jean Ratelle who was then playing for the Bruins and was good friends with Jim. Jean was the one who got me the tryout with Kingston, and I came in as a defenseman. Jim, having played defense himself, helped me learn the position and he helped me a lot off the ice as well, helping me go from a boy to a man." 

Counted amongst Bourque's friends with the Canadians was fellow backliner Mike Stothers, a give no quarter ask no quarter feisty competitor, whose face would turn noticeably red when he was incensed. But that friendship, at least on the ice, ceased when they both began to play for pay, as they became bitter foes and battled many times over the years. First, when Stothers played with the Philadelphia Flyers' then AHL affiliate, the Maine Mariners, and later when he played with the Hershey Bears, who dotted the Jacks' schedule often due to the clubs being located only 90 miles apart. 

"Stuts was a great guy and a great teammate, fun-loving and like to have fun off the ice," said Bourque, who scored his first AHL goal against Stothers and his Maine mates on January 21, 1983, at the Baltimore Civic Center at the expense of netminder Gil Hudon. "However, on the ice, he had a snarly mean streak to him. Hockey circles, they’re pretty small and pretty tight, right? Every once in a while I bump into Mike and he’s one of those guys where 20 or 30 years later when you bump into him it’s like you saw him a month ago." 

Unlike Stothers, who was a first-round pick of the Flyers in 1980 in the NHL Entry Draft, and thus had a degree of certainty in his career, the same could not be said of Bourque, who despite having representation present still found himself undrafted and a free agent after the completion of the 1982 draft held on June 11, 1982, three days after his 20th birthday. in Montreal, where the hometown Habs selected Alain Heroux, the brother of former Skipjack Yves, with their first selection. Facing an uncertain future, Bourque was at a career crossroads with few options and only two suitors interested in his services. 

"I had an agent and he was at the draft that year in Montreal. I was actually working at a gas station at that time. If you remember, back then gas stations actually had people that pumped the gas for you, and that’s what I was doing in the summer of 1982 trying to make a little extra money on the side. My agent had my number and was in contact with me during the draft, but I didn’t get drafted and I didn’t have a backup plan because once you go play junior hockey you burn your amateur eligibility, so I couldn't go back and play college hockey on a scholarship. So, I was all in on the pro hockey part. I had my fingers crossed, but only got two phone calls. One was from the head scout of my hometown Bruins and the other one was from the Penguins." 

After mulling over the offers, Bourque chose to have the Penguins acquire his services, a decision that he made based on his professional career potential, but also on a personal level, giving him space away from his verbally and physically abusive father. 

"The easy decision would have been to accept the Bruins’ training camp invite and stay at home, but I needed to get out of town and away from my dad and spread my wings. The Penguins were not very good at that time in the early ’80s and the Bruins were, so I thought my best chance was with the Penguins, so I accepted their invitation to camp, borrowed my mom's car, loaded my gear in there, and off I went to the tryout with the Pittsburgh Penguins." 

However, the path both get to the NHL, and stay up on top after getting there was filled with trials and tribulations both at the rink and away from the playing surface. 

Despite failing to make the Pittsburgh squad in his first training camp, Bourque succeeded in earning a contract with the club, and the rookie rearguard was dispatched to the Skipjacks to begin cutting his teeth as a pro. In his first year in the pro ranks under the tutelage of head coach Lou Angotti, a former Penguin during his playing days, Bourque notched that single goal against the Mariners in addition to garnering 15 helpers and accumulating 93 penalty minutes. 

He followed that up with a solid sophomore season with the Jacks under head coach Gene Ubriaco, a former Penguin and Baltimore Clipper (AHL) during his playing days, improving on his offensive numbers while still serving 90-plus PIM's. The improved play earned the man known as "Bubba" among other monikers, five games with the Pens. But while the maturation process under the bright lights of arenas was going smoothly, there was still much work to be in his private life, as Bourque revealed in exposing information that and details of incidents that were tightly kept under wraps when they occurred.

"I had a lot of maturing to do to be quite honest with you," said Bourque in response to how he grew as a person and on-ice performer in Baltimore. "A lot of people don't know this story, but the statute of limitations has expired, so I can talk about it. My first two years in Baltimore I got arrested. It wasn’t like I was going to do to 5-to-10 years for committing a major crime; it was simply the wrong place wrong time with the wrong people. The first year I got charged with assaulting a police officer, and again wrong place wrong time. I was actually the designated driver driving somebody that had too much to drink home, and he wanted to get in a fight with a guy that was an undercover cop, and we both ended up in jail. Next year I'm just about to go into a bar, haven’t even had a drink yet and outside the bar and a guy jumps on my back, we knock people over, and bam, I’m arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct." 

"So, my first two years in Baltimore were humbling, to say the least, but I loved playing there. To play in the minor leagues in a major league city with the Orioles there and at that time the Colts were playing over at Memorial Stadium. The weather was great, and I had a lot of fun there, and probably a little too much fun to be quite honest with you. We used to pack them in," said Bourque, repeating that phrase with his voice gaining momentum as he excitedly recalled the days he donned the Jacks’ jersey. "We had the ring of fire when the lights would go out, man, it was like a Las Vegas show. We had good teams back then, and it was a great way to find your way in pro hockey. The thing for me though is I was not mature enough to handle all of it and I got myself into a little bit of trouble."

Speaking of trouble, one of the most troublesome rinks to play in during Bourque's days in the AHL was the Hershey Bears' home rink at the time, the historic HERSHEYPARK Arena. Due to the Bears' boisterous boosters and the unique steeped seating in the venue, most opposition players fell into two camps. There were the ones who were often thrown off their game due to the unique characteristics and deep history of the building and then were the ones like Bourque, who thrived upon the challenge presented. 

"The atmosphere there was something, and I loved playing there. The bus pulling into the parking lot with all of the amusement park in full view as we pulled around the back and unloaded, oh man", Bourque said, his excitement coming through the phone lines very clearly in recalling the memories. 

Continuing on, Bourque's exuberance faded as he recalled an incident that he experienced at the HPA that while harrowing when it happened, turned into a great story in the end. "I had a bad experience in one of the first games I ever played there. I went to check a guy real hard into the boards in the corner, and he ducked down and I hit my temple on the corner of the boards and I got knocked out cold and when I woke up at the Hershey Medical Center. I stayed overnight at the Medical Center, but the Skipjacks went back to Baltimore after the game."

"We were playing back-to-back games with the Bears that weekend and were playing them in Baltimore the next night. Then, the Skipjacks contacted me at the hospital and said is there any chance you can jump on the Bears’ team bus and get you back to Baltimore? So, after getting knocked out cold and spending the night in Hershey, I had to jump on the bus with the hated Hershey Bears and drive back to Baltimore."

The boys from Baltimore were never able to capture the Calder Cup during the five seasons that Bourque skated in Baltimore, but they came awful close in the 1984-85 season. In the regular season, the club was hovering around the .500 mark just prior to the three-quarter mark before going on a torrid streak, giving notice to the hockey world that the "heat is on" by reeling off a then professional hockey record 16-straight victories, with Bourque pinching down from the blueline late in the third period of the final win of the run in Binghamton, New York to aid on the GWG by his fellow "Bay State" native,  Tom O'Regan. 

Then, in the post-season, the Jacks downed the Rochester Americans in five games before sweeping the Binghamton Whalers in the second round, propelling them into the finals where they would meet the Sherbrooke Canadiens. However, their quest to capture the Calder Cup ended in disappointment in the final round when they ran into the eventual champion Sherbrooke Canadiens, who were backstopped to the title by a relative unknown at the time with only two games of professional experience on resume entering the post-season, Patrick Roy, who eventually went on to a stellar, Hall of Fame career in the NHL that included four Stanley Cups. Many Baltimore fans cried foul play about Roy being allowed to compete in the playoffs that season, saying that he should not have been eligible to play, and even now, 30-plus years later, the mention of Roy's name to those same fans still gets their blood boiling. 

"That season was a blast, and the Penguins were rotten that year as well for a reason, and that reason was that there was a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow named Mario Lemieux. We were loaded down there and had a bunch of guys who probably should have been in the NHL, but that would have made Pittsburgh too good if you know what I mean, wink, wink. The 16-game win streak was a magical run and I think about it all the time. It was so much fun and we were on such a roll, and I will just never forget that. We really came together as a team. We did a lot of stuff the ice too, and you hear that being said about teams that have success. We hung out together and became like a family."

"In the playoffs. Montreal called some guys up from the junior teams, and Patrick Roy was unbelievable. I remember I had a separated shoulder, and I tried to play through it in the finals, but we just kind of ran out of gas. But, we also ran into one hell of a team in the Sherbrooke Canadiens who were loaded as well and deserved to win the title." 

Quite a character himself, Bourque, who competed as hard as anyone when the chips were down, also pointed out that he never forgot that he was also in the entertainment business. One example of Bourque's pushing the entertainment envelope was a December 1990 Penguins' game against the Detroit Red Wings in the Igloo. In that contest, on a breakaway attempt, Bourque, after gaining the offensive zone, turned his stick over, more or less mashing the puck into the ice with the toe of his blade. 

After completing that maneuver, he continued onto the Detroit net where he tried but failed to slide a backhander by the goalie, not with a shot but a push. Asked why he made the attempt, which drew the ire of a few Red Wings and probably a stern talking to from the Pens' old school coach, "Badger" Bob Johnson, he said some of his teammates told him he would never try it in a game, and challenged him to do so. 

The Skipjacks featured a sizable list of colorful personalities that Bourque went to battle with during his days with the group. There was Bennett "The Big Bad" Wolf and Marty McSorley, both of whom were large in stature and never met a fight they didn't like. There was also Gary Rissling, an undersized player who also liked to throw down and was always quick with a quip, although if you've ever heard his soft, nasally voice, you would know that it just doesn't quite fit the ultra-feisty style of play that was his trademark. 

"Gary Rissling was one of the funniest guys I ever played with," said Bourque, before correcting himself and saying Riss was THE funniest he ever played with. "He would bring you to tears in the locker room but on the ice, what a competitor. He was always very fit and into fitness, and a great teammate and a great friend. Another guy you could go 10-to-20 years without seeing and then when you see them you just give them a big hug. For a smaller guy, he was as tough as they come. He would never back down from a fight and he had some pretty good skill for a guy who was considered a bit of a brawler and a funny man. He had a lot of skill and carved out a nice career for himself." 

Greg "Truck" Tebbutt was a larger than life character, personified. Measuring 6′3″ and tipping the scales around the 250-pound range when he was in good shape, Tebbutt often played north of that weight during his often stormy stint as a Skipjack, which featured several off-ice incidents that ultimately culminated in him being released in-season. 

However, when he was in good shape and at the top of his game, he was a dominant force in the AHL, as evidenced by his capturing of the Eddie Shore Trophy as the defenseman of the year in the 1982-83 campaign with the Jacks. In that award-winning season, the burly backliner "tickled the twine" on 28 occasions and lent a helping hand on twice as many tallies by his teammates to finish with 84-points, which for a defenseman, especially one with limited mobility and below-average skating skills, was quite a feat, but those figures become even more impressive when you consider that he also accumulated 140 PIM's in tallying those numbers. 

"You hear so much about unique players playing in the minor leagues, and he was definitely one of them. Here's a guy who literally looked like Paul Bunyan, had a bomb of a shot, and used to smoke cigarettes in the hallway between periods, said Bourque of Tebbutt, who eclipsed the 20-plus goal plateau in five different minor league seasons, and parlayed his award-winning season with the Jacks into a 24-game stint with the Penguins in the subsequent one.