Remembering Rod Gilbert as Rangers Restaurateur

LONG ISLAND has long had hockey players identifying as denizens of the most populous U.S. island.

But long before the birth of the more overtly-named New York Islanders in 1972, the island -- specifically the suburban-sprawling Nassau County -- was New York Rangers territory.

The Come On

They lived among us. Their kids were our classmates. They summered where we summered, trained at an arena where we could skate and ate where we ate.

So it came with much joy and no sense of incursion when Rod Gilbert, one of the greatest Rangers players ever, opened a barbecued ribs joint in Hewlett, N.Y., not far from where I grew up, back in 1981.

Hot Rod BarBQ took out a full-page add in the local Pennysaver, for what I presume was the grand opening of his "Canadian-style" restaurant on Jan. 5. On hand, he said, would be star Rangers goalie John Davidson, former blue shirt stalwart Pete Stemkowski and onetime NYR farmhand Jim Troy. 

There'd be a free drawing for Rangers tickets, an autographed stick and pucks. And, for the culinarily curious, food. 

Gilbert had starred for the powerhouse teams of the late 1960s and early '70s and was part of the goal-a-game or GAG line with Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield. Piling up 406 goals and 615 assists over 18 seasons, earning the nickname "Mr. Ranger," he's still the franchise's all-time leading scorer.

My dad's Rangers fandom dated back to the days of Alex Shibicky, Neil Colville and Muzz Patrick. For him, "1940" wasn't just a chant. It was a conscious memory. Persuading him to go took little effort and so we went.

From Topps NHL hockey cards

We didn't win any sticks or pucks, and I'm pretty sure Troy was either incognito or a no-show. That didn't matter amid the first-magnitude star power that turned out for Gilbert's opening night as restaurateur. Davidson was there, all 6'3" of him, eyes characteristically ablaze. So too was his understudy, Wayne Thomas.

And they brought reinforcements. Oft-injured forward Ulf Nilsson was there, the man whose fateful collision with the Islanders' Denis Potvin -- in which Nilssson sustained a broken ankle -- inspired the deathless Madison Square Garden chant "Potvin sucks!" 

Clockwise from lower left: Thomas,
Gilbert, Tkaczuk upside down, Nilsson,
Stemkowski and Davidson

So too was veteran forward Walt Tkaczuk (no relation to Keith Tkachuk and sons Matthew and Brady), Stemkowski and Gilbert himself. All of them graciously signed the back of a Rangers team picture I'd gotten in a pack of hockey cards. 

Another popular Long Island hockey star appeared that night, Islander Bob Nystrom (whose career earned him the nickname Mr. Islander), less than two years removed from scoring a Stanley Cup winning goal for the Rangers' arch rivals. I kept his signature separate. It seemed the right thing to do.

It was an awesome night. They were there. In person. Answering any witless question I had. Somewhere along the line, my dad and I had dinner, though the food -- 40 years later -- wasn't particularly memorable.

Nystrom, signing solo

Maybe that was the flaw in Hot Rod's business plan. I don't recall his establishment staying open all that long. But I'd like to  think it was nights like that, in close quarters with real live hockey heroes, that helped make Long Island the hotbed it is today. 

The Rangers' Norris Trophy-winning defenseman, Adam Fox, hails from Long Island. So too does the Boston Bruins' star d-man, Charlie McAvoy Jr. The Islanders' Kyle Palmieri is L.I.-born as is Sonny Milano of the Anaheim Ducks and Keith Kinkaid, most recently a goalie for the Rangers, though he grew up rooting for the Islanders.

The Rangers still maintain a connection with the Long Beach arena which features boys' and girls' Junior Rangers hockey programs.

Gilbert, a Hockey Hall of Famer and the first Ranger to have had his uniform number, 7, retired, died on Aug. 22. He was 80 years old.

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive

Rangers, Isles, Devils and the Birth of a Hockeyopolis

WARROAD, MINNESOTA, has long identified as Hockeytown USA, a title claimed by octopi-hurling Detroit Red Wings fans and ursine black and gold Bostonians too. Even Minnesota's capital, St. Paul, has been so nominated.

But none of them hosted eight Stanley Cup champions in just 24 years.

For that we turn to... hockey city. Hockey region? Hockey metropolitan area? We turn to nothing that readily trips off the tongue, the metropolis known as greater New York City, home of the 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1994, 1995, 2000 and 2003 Stanley Cup champions.

Hockeyopolis USA.

Established with the 1982-83 National Hockey League season, the 38-mile wide bi-state swath of land and water encompassed more than 13 million people and three NHL teams, even as the rest of the North America had just 18 more.

Anchoring the west end were the ragtag New Jersey Devils, who'd just moved from Denver to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford. At the east end in Uniondale, Long Island, sat the precocious three-time defending Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders. In between was the axis around which the region's hockey enmity turned: the New York Rangers of Manhattan, one of the league's fabled original six franchises.

Together, they were half of the NHL's Patrick Division, joining the Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals in a forerunner of today's Metropolitan Division.

It was a major league concentration unseen since 1957, when baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants and Yankees had called Gotham home. And, over the next quarter century, Ranger, Devil and Islander fortunes would dramatically rise and fall, often at the hands of one another.

But who were these first season pioneers of Hockeyopolis?

The Rangers

Herb Brooks, the hero coach

• Coached a collection of virtually unknown college hockey players to an Olympic gold medal in 1980, beating a vastly superior Soviet Union squad along the way
• Rangers bench boss for 3 1/2 seasons, peaking in 83-84 with a 42-29-3 record before being dismissed midway through the next campaign after a 15-22-8 start
• Also had brief stints behind-the-bench for the Minnesota North Stars, Devils and Pittsburgh Penguins
• Inducted into the the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minnesota, in 1990 and -- posthumously -- into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto in 2006



Beck

• Killed in a single-car accident in 2003 at age 66

Barry Beck, the captain

• Rock-solid 6'-3" 205-pound defenseman
• Acquired from the Colorado Rockies in 1979 for five other players including former first-round draft pick Lucien DeBlois and defenseman Mike McEwen
• Two-time All-Star Game selection
• Six seasons as Rangers' captain, target of announcer Bill Chadwick's exhortation, "Shoot the puck, Barry! Shoot the puck!"

Mark Pavelich, the Olympian

Pavelich

• Had 37 goals and 38 assists for 82-83 squad
• One of four members of Brooks' gold medal team to play for the Rangers, joining Rob McClanahan, Dave Silk and Bill Baker.
• Native of Eveleth, MN, home of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame
• His diminutive size, 5'8", 170-lbs and that of others led to some blue-jerseyed Rangers to be dubbed the Smurfs.

Reijo Ruotsalainen, the fleet Finn

• Speedy, elusive defenseman followed his 56-point rookie campaign with even better numbers in 82-83, 16 goals and 53 assists for 69 points in what was only his second-best season of a six-year Rangers career
• Led the Rangers in scoring two years later with 73 points, 28 goals and 45 assists
• Later played for the Edmonton Oilers and Devils

Ruotsalainen in action

Other Rangers notables that year, goalie Eddie Mio, defenseman Dave Maloney and his brother forward Don Maloney, plus Mike Rogers, Ron Duguay, Eddie Johnstone and Anders Hedberg.

Swede Ulf Nilsson played just 10 games that year before calling it an NHL career after an array of injuries. None were more notorious than an ankle fracture sustained on a check from the Islanders' Denis Potvin in February 1979, giving rise to the eternal Madison Square Garden chant, "Potvin sucks!"

Rangers finished their season in fourth place, 35-35-10 and lost to the Islanders in the Patrick Division finals, 4 games to 2. It was the third straight year of four that Long Island eliminated Manhattan. In 1990, the Rangers would finally return the favor and four years later, they captured the cup.

The Islanders

Al Arbour, the coach

• Behind the bench for 1500 Islanders games, including Stanley Cup victories in 1980, 81, 82 and 83. During that skein, the team won 19 straight post-season series
• His 782 coaching victories are the fourth most in NHL history
• Stay at home defenseman during a 14-year career with the Detroit Red Wings,  Chicago Blackhawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, winning the cup with each team. Also captained the St. Louis Blues to the finals three years straight.
• Member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Islanders Hall of Fame and the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame
• Died in 2015. He was 82

Potvin

Denis Potvin, the captain

• Overall first pick in the 1973 amateur draft, won the Calder Trophy as the league's top rookie for the 1973-74 season
• Three-time Norris Trophy winner as the league's best defenseman, including 78-79 when he had 31 goals and 101 points
• Nine-time all-star
• Captained the Islanders for eight seasons
• Retired in 1988 with 1,052 points, an NHL record for defensemen at the time
• Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991

Mike Bossy, the scorer

• Arguably the best player of his generation not named Wayne Gretzky

Bossy

• Scored 50 or more goals nine consecutive years, topping 60 five times and leading the league in goals scored twice
• 1977-78 Calder Trophy winner, 1981-82 Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff most valuable player and three time recipient of the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly play, including 82-83
• In 82-83, led the Islanders with 60 goals -- fourth best in the league -- and 58 assists
• Scored 147 points a year earlier, a record for right wingers at the time, but good for just second in the league behind Gretzky, as the Edmonton Oilers' center notched a then-record 212 points
• First all time in goals per game, .76, and third all time in points per game, 1.50, behind Gretzky and the Pittsburgh Penguins' Mario Lemieux
• Made the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991

Bob Bourne, the unsung hero

Bourne

• Led the Islanders in post-season scoring with eight goals and 20 assists as they won their fourth consecutive cup in 1983, though the Conn Smythe Trophy went to goaltender Billy Smith
• Three-time 30-goal scorer, played 12 seasons on Long Island including all four championships
• Epic career-highlight rink-length dash against the Rangers in the 1983 Patrick Division finals
• Won the Bill Masterton Trophy for sportsmanship and perseverance, and was one of eight chosen as Sports Illustrated's 1987 Sportsmen of the Year for dedication to helping others.
• Inducted into the Islanders' Hall of Fame in 2006
• Drafted by the Kansas City Scouts -- who became the Rockies, then the Devils -- in 1974

Other Islanders notables that year, center Bryan Trottier, winger John Tonelli, brothers Brent and Duane Sutter, Swedish defensemen Stefan Persson and Tomas Jonsson. The goaltending tandem of Smith and Roland Melanson won the William M. Jennings Trophy for fewest goals allowed.

Melanson finished second in Vezina Trophy balloting for best goalie, behind Pete Peeters of the Boston Bruins. The Islanders went 42-26-12 on the season before powering through the playoffs, beating the Capitals, Rangers and Bruins. They swept Gretzky and Edmonton in the finals, 4-0, for their fourth, and thus far last, Stanley Cup

The Devils

Billy MacMillan, the coach

• Ex-Islanders player and assistant coach, also served as New Jersey's general manager
• Led the then-Colorado Rockies to a franchise-best 22-45-13 record in 1980-81 before taking a season off to focus on GM duties
• Notched just 19 more victories over next 100 games before being axed
• Had 22 goals, 41 points as a Toronto Maple Leafs rookie in 1970-71
• Older brother of Devils winger Bob MacMillan

Lever

Don Lever, the captain

• Acquired with Bob MacMillan from the Calgary Flames for 66-goal scorer Lanny McDonald in November 1981
• Devil's first ever captain, had 23 goals and 30 assists for the Devils in their inaugural season
• Born in South Porcupine, Ontario
• Also played for the Vancouver Canucks, Flames in Atlanta and Calgary, and Buffalo Sabres

Glenn Resch, goalie-in-exile

• Acquired from the Islanders with center Steve Tambellini late in 1980-81 season in exchange for Mike McEwen and minor league goalie Jari Kaarela
• Won 81-82 Masterton Trophy for dedication and perseverance
• Famously kissed the goalposts as a rookie netminder for the Islanders following a playoff series victory in 1975
• Became expendable after an injury during the 1980-81 campaign opened the door for emergence of rookie Melanson
• Later played for the Philadelphia Flyers

Resch receiving the Masterton Trophy from the widow of its namesake, Minnesota North Star Bill Masterton

Aaron Broten, Kid Line pivot

• Younger brother of Brooks' Olympic team star Neal Broten and older sibling of future Ranger Paul Broten

Broten

• Led the Devils with 59 points -- 16 goals, 39 assists -- in their first season in New Jersey, his first full year in the NHL
• Centered for rookie Jeff Larmer and winger Paul Gagne, both 20, on what came to be called "the Kid Line." Oldest of the trio, Broten, was 24
• Had a career best 26/57/83 as franchise made the playoffs for the first time in Spring 1988
• Played 10 years for Devils, then one each for the Minnesota North Stars, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets

Carol Vadnais, blue line veteran

• Claimed by New Jersey in waiver draft just before the start of the 82-83 campaign, ending a seven year career with the Rangers

Vadnais

• Won the Stanley Cup as a member of the Montreal Canadiens -- with whom he broke in in 1966-67 -- and Boston Bruins. Also captained the California Golden Seals
• Dealt to Rangers by Bruins together with Phil Esposito for Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi in November 1975
• Retired after first Devils season, died in 2014 at age 68

Other Devils first season notables, Finnish defenseman Tapio Levo, winger Hector Marini, who went to the NHL All-Star Game and rookie Pat Verbeek, who later became the team's first 40-goal scorer. Defenseman Joel Quenneville later directed the Chicago Blackhawks to three Stanley Cups as a coach and is second winningest NHL coach in history behind Scotty Bowman.

Team finished inaugural year at the Meadowlands at 17-49-14, finishing fifth ahead of the moribund Pittsburgh Penguins. Better days were ahead as the team, built largely through the draft by uncompromising general manager Lou Lamoriello, finally made the post-season in 1987-88 and later won a trio of championships

The Rivalry

Each metro area team played the others seven times during that inaugural season of Hockeyopolis. The Islanders took four of seven from the Rangers. The Rangers went 3-3-1 against the Devils who, in turn, were swept by the Islanders.

Eventually, the tables would turn. The Islanders returned to the finals once more in 1984, where they lost to the Oilers, 4 games to 1, ending their championship era as a 12-year-old franchise and already a former dynasty. Constant management upheavals and arena issues would render them an also-ran for the ensuing 35 years.

Meanwhile the Rangers broke their 54-year-old drought by winning the Stanley Cup in 1994, but only after disposing of the Devils after a seven-game series that saw three of the contests -- including the finale -- decided in double-overtime, neutralizing Islander fans' favorite chant, "1940!"

A year later, the Devils ended a strike-shortened 94-95 season by winning their first title. Five year later, they'd win the cup again, then lose it in a seven-game final against their Denver replacements -- the Colorado Avalanche -- and win it again in 2003.

New Jersey played for Lord Stanley's hardware again in 2012 as did the Rangers in 2014. The Islanders, for all their early success, haven't advanced that far in 33 years.

Time, the great equalizer.

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive

Credits: all photos and images drawn from the New York Rangers, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils media guides.

Perdition on Ice: The Rocky Start of Jersey's Devils

MY MACHINE SHE'S A DUD, out stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.

Bruce Springsteen penned those lyrics in 1973, part of the 7:04 love song-turned-concert jam fest Rosalita (Come Out Tonight). Nine years later, with a little bit of metaphorical foresight, those words could have applied to the Garden State's first National Hockey League team, the New Jersey Devils, who debuted 35 years ago.

Strangers in a swamp land.

Far from a random appellation, the Devils got their name from the legendary Leeds devil, rejected spawn of Mrs. Deborah (Smith) Leeds of Galloway Township, a mother of 12 who wanted nothing to do with a 13th. "Let this one be a devil," she reportedly said.* And so it was that said child, once born, fled into the Pine Barrens from which it periodically emerges to terrorize the locals.

Its namesake hockey team too was rejected, twice. Born in 1974 as the Kansas City Scouts, the franchise lasted just two years in western Missouri before relocating to Denver as the Colorado Rockies. There they languished for six more seasons before being shipped east by John McMullen, owner of Major League Baseball's Houston Astros.

Ensconced in the brand new Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, the Devils were comprised almost entirely of players other teams didn't want, a kind of icy purgatory if not exactly hell.

Their primary benefactor was the reigning Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders, whose castoffs New Jersey general manager and coach Billy MacMillan readily acquired, despite having been voted off the Island himself as a player six years earlier.

Among the luminaries stocking the original Devils roster:

• ex-Islanders goalie Glenn Resch, former NYI forwards Dave Cameron, Hector Marini, Steve Tambellini and Yvan Vautour, plus ex-Isles defenseman Bob Lorimer**;
• ex-New York Rangers defenseman Carol Vadnais;
• future three-time Stanley Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville
• World Hockey Association survivor Mike Antonovich;
• struggling former first-round pick Paul Gagne;
• reluctant Finnish defenseman Tapio Levo; 
• team captain Don Lever;
• U.S. Olympic hockey star Neal Broten's brother, Aaron
• and MacMillan's brother, Bob.

They were a talent-poor squad crashing a metropolitan area that featured an Original Six franchise and, arguably, the best team in the world. The Rangers lost the Stanley Cup finals in 1979. The Islanders won the chalice in 1980, 81 and 82. The Rockies had been to the playoffs. Once. In 1978.

Homesick Finn Tapio Levo, the team's best defenseman and
forward Hector Marini, whose solid first half made him the Devils first all star

If there was any chance of alchemy by proximity to their Long Island progenitors, that likely vanished just days into the season when MacMillan dealt center Merlin Malinowski to the Hartford Whalers for still another ex-Islander, enforcer Garry Howatt, and speedy forward Rick Meagher.

Clad in red, white and green sweaters emblazoned with a stylized red NJ crest, those first edition Devils finished Hades in the NHL's Patrick Division with a record of 17-49-14.***

For a time, their breakout star appeared to be Marini, an energetic forward unable to break into the Islanders talented lineup. He started the season strong and was New Jersey's lone delegate to the All Star Game at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum. Marini even assisted on one of three goals scored by the Prince of Wales Conference in a 9-3 Campbell Conference blowout. Wayne Gretzky scored four times for the winners. It was downhill from there.

The inaugural season ticket pitch. It wasn't entirely hyperbole.

Though Marini soon faded, MacMillan assembled the Kid Line, featuring Broten, 22, flanked by 20-year-olds Gagne and Jeff Larmer, an early-season call-up who potted 21 goals and 45 points in 65 games.

Broten lead the Devils in scoring with 16 goals, 39 assists and 55 points.

Their top-scoring defenseman, Tapio Levo, posted seven goals and a team-best 40 assists, but he didn't want to be there. Coaxed to rejoin the team in October, at season's end he left for home, never to return.

It was not all for naught. Their lousy finish enabled them to take forward John MacLean sixth overall in the 1983 NHL draft. He lasted 14 years, scoring 701 points, second in franchise history. Already in the pipeline, defenseman Ken Daneyko, their all-time games leader, whose sweater number 3 is retired, and high scoring forward Pat Verbeek.

Those three men would team with Broten and the yet-to-be-drafted Kirk Muller to lead the team to the playoffs in 1987-88. Though the road was long, the Devils finally won Lord Stanley's cup in 1995 and again in 2000 and 2003.

*Though accounts of her fateful utterance sometimes differ.
** With the Devils' first first-round pick, in the 1982 draft MacMillan took Rocky Trottier, whose older brother Bryan already starred for the Islanders.
*** That's ties, not overtime losses, which weren't introduced until 2005-06.

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Girls! Girls! Girls! -- A special S.I. Swimsuit edition

Cover girl Carol Alt from the Feb. 8, 1982 issue

IN A WORLD WITHOUT the Internet, a dark time known as the '80s, there were only a couple of ways a clean-cut teenage boy could see pictures of beautiful, yet scantily-clad women.

You could find a sympathetic news stand cashier, willing to let you buy skin mags before you were old enough to shave. You could sneak a peak at your dad's stash of porn, or your big brother's or your degenerate friends, or your friends' dads and brothers, or you could wait patiently for that annual edition of Sports Illustrated issue that they too wanted to see: the Swimsuit Issue.

This was, back then, kind of a big deal... and a big departure from the magazine's steady winter diet of basketball and hockey, football and whatnot.. and for a teenage boy freed from not having to skulk around with contraband copies of Playboy, Penthouse and their smuttier kin, almost as good.

And so it was, in February 1982, that my treasured copy of S.I. arrived in the mail, with a cover photo devoted to lovely, one-piece-wearing Carol Alt, a supermodel who was, coincidentally, then married to star New York Rangers defenseman Ron Greschner. Joining Alt inside the covers was another future hockey wife, Kim Alexis, along with models Charissa Craig and Kathryn Redding, all cavorting in Kenya. 

The photos were inspiring, and even educational as I learned the French word for bathing suit is maillot (something my high school French teacher should have illustrated this way for mnemonic purposes). I also learned there are people who's job it was to design those barely-there outfits, among them Leah Gottlieb of Gottex fame and someone named Norma Kamali.

Charissa Craig in a Cole of California

Red-head Kathryn Redding in a
Marcia Friedman-designed
Le Bag maillot.

I also learned, as did S.I. editors, that not everybody appreciated the magazine's departure from its more standard fare, for sure as pitchers and catchers would soon arrive at Arizona and Florida spring training sites, Sports Illustrated's letters page would soon be populated with angry missives from folks expecting more wholesome, less immodest content.

Kim Alexis wearing Norma Kamali

But life moves on for teenagers and for supermodels, none of us being the static moments of our best selves for very long. Plus the web, being what it is, has effectively blunted whatever shock/moral outrage value accompanied a high bare skin-to-swim suit ratio of some S.I. photos.

Alexis, according to Wikipedia, was for a time married to Greschner's one-time Rangers teammate, Ron Duguay. Now she is a blogger at www.kimalexis.com. Alt too is writing at www.carolalt.com/blog.

Charissa Craig is a real estate agent in northern New Jersey. Kathryn Redding was briefly an actress, featured in the 1981 Albert Finney/Susan Dey modeling-meets-sci-fi movie ``Looker.'' Beyond that, the readily-available public trail goes cold.

Duguay and Greschner, had their own modeling gigs of a sort.

Both men appeared in TV commercials for Sassoon jeans with Rangers teammates Phil Esposito, Anders Hedberg and Don Maloney. Duguay suited up for a 1979 spot, while the Alt spouse displaced him a year later.

But you didn't come here to read this or to see them. You came to look at the pictures.

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive