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The Golden Jet Lands in Buffalo
By George Kuhn
George: When you signed with the WHA in 1972, you gave the league a lot of credibility and player salaries escalated through the roof as the two leagues had to compete for players. By the estimation of the NHL, you cost the National Hockey league a billion dollars in salary. As a result of this the NHL has seemingly effectively banned you from the game. Is this an accurate assessment?
Bobby: I would say that costing them a billion dollars not through salaries but through loss of attendance, lawyer fees, triple indemnity, it wasn't just through salaries. But I would say that if I was running an organization and I was dumb enough to fool with somebody that could cost them that magnitude and they did and I cost them that, I'd be upset with the guy as well. So I could understand them being upset with what happened but it was their own doing. It wasn't I who cost them, it was their stupidity that cost them the amount because they allowed me to go to the WHA. I always that I was going to finish my career with Pierre Pilote's picture on my chest, the old chief Blackhawk, I wasn't ready to leave Chicago with five kids and an extravagant wife to go half way across the country to a city I'd never been to before, or for that matter to go anywhere out of Chicago. As it happened, they insisted that I tell them what I needed to go there. Just to get rid of them I told them that if they came up with a million dollars I would go, thinking that a million dollars was enough to deter them from pursuing my services. Had I known that they were going to try to raise it or raise the money and my accountant should have known there were nine teams all they had to do was come up with a hundred and eleven thousand dollars each and they had themselves a player. Had I known that were even going to think about raising the money I would have said twenty million, just some astronomical, I thought that a million was astronomical enough to get rid of them. I gave my word and when they raised the money I had to go, that's the way I am.
George: if you had the opportunity to be involved with the NHL today, what role would you choose for yourself?
Bobby: I think likely I would want to be with a franchise that had the games interest at heart and that had a group of people in place that love the game and wanted to make the game great for the fans and for everybody else concerned. And it wouldn't matter what, I wouldn't need any so-called office with a certain name on the door of whatever I was going to do. I've been through it enough to know what makes up a healthy franchise. Player Personnel would be forte because I played for Chicago for fifteen years on one of the great franchises in the original six even after they expanded and when I went to Winnipeg we formed another great hockey club that was second to none as far as entertainment was concerned. I know what it takes; I know the kind of people it takes to put together a good franchise. You need people with good heads and good hearts not only on the ice for you but in the head office.
George: After you left Chicago, the NHL excluded you from the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviets. I still watch those games today; I'm still entertained by those games thirty years later.
Bobby: I don’t' pay any attention to it, they didn't want me in 1972 and I don't want them now. But I'm very happy that it turned out the way it did because of the Canadian Soviet relationship at that time. It was a great, great series and it ended the proper way but it wasn't Team Canada it was Team NHL.
George: How disappointed were you to not be involved in that?
Bobby: The only disappointment in my twenty three year professional career was not being able to represent Canada because I knew if the Soviet Union was going to challenge the best in the NHL, the best in the world so to speak, I knew that they had a good chance of winning or tying. They wouldn't make a fool of themselves getting beat ten or twelve to nothing each game. Their scouts reported what happened. Guys like Kharlamov, Petrov, Mikhailov, Vasiliev, Gusev, Yakushev, Maltsev, Shadrin, those guys, Tretiak, those guys couldn't prove to me on a sheet of ice that they weren't good athletes. They couldn't skate poorly enough to fool me into thinking they couldn't skate. They couldn't shoot poorly enough to ruse me into thinking that they couldn't shoot or couldn't pass, or a guy like Tretiak couldn't let the pucks go by him and look bad. He'd look good letting the pucks go by him because they were all such great athletes. And you had to know that if they were going to challenge the best, that they were either going to win or die. That would have been their philosophy because that's the only positive propaganda had was through their sporting groups.
George: You toured in Europe didn't you, with Eddie Shack?
Bobby: In '59, the Spring of "59 we went to Europe, now we didn't get to the Soviet Union or the Czech Republic. We just went to London and Paris, and Antwerp, Belgium, Aisin Kreitfeld, Berlin, Vienna, Austria, the free Europe. There were two teams, the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins, and we didn't play against any European teams we just played in the cities and they were just exhibition games between the two teams. And because some of the New York Ranger players had planned other things for that Spring, like Bathgate I believe and Gadsby and a couple of others, they didn't go. Chicago was beaten out in the first round by Montreal that year and they asked Eddied Litzenberger, Eric Nesterenko, Pierre Pilote and myself to go over and bolster the New York team, which we did and had no trouble beating the Bruins in that twenty two or three game series.
George: In '72 Phil Esposito was the star of the series. Now he was your center in Chicago.
Bobby: Prior to being traded in the worst trade in the history of the game.
George: Worse than the Hasek trade?
Bobby: Or the Brett Hull trade!
George: His level of play rose. Could you foresee the qualities that he later developed?
Bobby: I knew how good he was, he was just a big overgrown kid when he was in Chicago that hadn't really grown up yet. I knew how good he was; I was scoring fifty goals a year with him as my centerman along with Chico Maki on the right side. So I knew how good he was. He hadn't had any great playoffs during those three years that we played together because he didn't realize that you had to step your game up a couple of notches in the playoffs, it was an altogether different game in the playoffs and if you didn't step your game up a couple notches you were left behind because everyone else did. And I could see it was only a matter of time before Phil Esposito was going to develop into a great player and by being traded to Boston that just lit the fire under him enough. And of course playing with Bobby Orr, I could kick fifty in playing with Orr. It was just a matter of time that he was going to become the great player that he was. I will say that Phil had during that '72 series, a great supporting cast. You take a look at the defenseman that were there, Savard, Lapointe, Bill White, Patty Stapleton, they were all great players. And a lot of guys chipped in during that period after they left Canada and went to the Soviet Union. A lot of players became of age over their and a lot of kids, you ask Marcel (Dionne), Marcel was there, he saw things first hand we just saw it from the eyes of the TV monitor. Phil was the role model because he spoke out in Vancouver and told the people in Canada that they were doing their very best. They had been duped into thinking that they were going to be able to waltz through these guys like a dose of salt and they soon found out that they were up against some great athletes. And guys like I mentioned, Kharlamov the greatest individual of them all. Then your Yakushev's and Maltsev's and then Tretiak became a favorite of the north Americans because of his play. They played as five somes, they didn't play as individuals although Kharlamov was an individual, he was fantastic, a great, great player. But he wasn't all Russian either, his mother was Spanish. So he had some extra fire in him from the Mother's side. It takes a good brood cow to have a great sire.
George: When Wayne Gretzky was in the National Hockey League, he helped to create a previously unseen level of popularity in the sport. And this was due in a large part to the style of play that his team was able to bring to the ice. A lot of people looked at ( coach & GM) Glen Sather as being a genius for being able to develop a more offensive style of play and really bring the first championship team able to win the championship (in any major sport) with offense rather than defense as their primary focus. But Glen Sather said my role model for this style of play the Winnipeg Jets of the WHA and Bobby Hull. And yet you get no credit for this, seemingly. And I'm just curious as to how much influence you had in recruiting players like Hedberg or Nilsson or Sjoberg and developing that style of play.
Bobby: You overlooked an era before that when a kid by the name of Bobby Orr played and a kid by the name of Marcel Dionne and Gilbert Perreault in the '76 Canada Cup, likely the greatest team that Canada ever put together. That team was better as far as I was concerned than the '72 team. That era when Bobby Orr entertained people and Marcel was on the West Coast hidden out there winning scoring championships
And scoring fifty goals a year, that was a great era as well. And Stan Mikita, likely pound for pound one of the great players of the game. If he'd been allowed to play without being annoyed the way we were, he could've done great things as well. Sure after Orr left the game, '76 was his last hurrah, there wasn't too much to brag about in the National Hockey League. The New York Islanders had a great team but they were a team where no one rose above anyone else hardly. They did it all as a group, there was no one to grab the biscuit like an Orr and go the length of the ice although Denis Potvin felt that he was an equal to Orr. Now along comes this kid by the name of Gretzky when the game needed to be boosted and put on a pedestal again and they saw that they had a goose that could lay the golden egg and they said let this guy play, let him play all over the ice and everything else is history. He also had a very good supporting cast with the Messier's and the Anderson's and the Kurri's and the group of defensemen they had and the goaltending that they had in Edmonton.
But you're absolutely right, Glen Sather said that if he had ever had the hands on of a team that he was going to establish a team just like our Winnipeg Jets, which he did, that was the kind of team he had, lots of offense. They could allow a team to score six on them and they'd get eight. Our team in Winnipeg was a little better defensively. We didn't have to score quite so many goals to win each night because Bobby Kromm was our coach and he developed a zone defense where if the guy on the ice wasn't quite adept at playing man on man, all he wanted him to do was look after a zone and it was easier on him to play zone than to chase his man all over the ice. We played in a lot of games where the opposition didn't get too many chances.
George: You were really the NHL's first big media star. There were a lot of great players in the league like Beliveau or Geoffrion but previously maybe they weren't recognized in the United States as they were up in Canada. But then along you came and your name began to be circulated along with the big name athletes of the day like a Joe Namath or an Arnold Palmer. You helped to create in the '60's an unprecedented level of popularity for hockey in the United States. So when I look at that along with the style of play you espoused in Winnipeg in the '70's, which the NHL seemingly adopted in the '80's, you've been either directly or indirectly responsible for the biggest success in terms of artistic quality and popularity of the game that the NHL has ever seen. Looking at that in the totality of the circumstances, what should the league do today? Who knows more where they should go today, because you seem to have demonstrated some kind of understanding of what needs to be done?
Bobby: That's very nice that you recognize that. A lot of people care to bury their head. There were a lot of great players that played during that era, the Howe era, the Richard era, the Beliveau, Geoffrion and Harvey era. Until, I think, I came along, no one grabbed that biscuit and went the length of the ice with it and bombed shots at the goaltenders. And I think it was just the way I did things on the ice, it was charismatic, I got people out of the seats, I performed not only at home but all over the league. It was great to look back and people still remember those great days that we were able play during those '60's and early '70's. It was terrific to be able to say I played during an era we thought was the best times in hockey.
I think people remember those times more than anything and I think that's why guys like Marcel, Beliveau and Howe and Lafleur up to that era are all instrumental in playing in that great era. It's a shame that some of the guys from that era are not involved in the game. The way I look at it, these people that are involved, these jocks that have become involved in the game, first of all I don't think have the game's interest at heart. They want to be known as the owner of a franchise and then they hire incompetent general managers who in turn hire incompetent coaches because they're afraid of their jobs. And these incompetent coaches don't know how to teach or how to put together a franchise that can win or be entertaining game after game. So we're looking at people that are not involved with the game and the reason they're not is because a lot of these GM's are afraid of their jobs.
For instance there's the Chicago situation where the same General Manager has been there for twenty years.
And nothings ever happened. They had a change to get Brett Hull a few years ago which would have been a natural. The people who left when I left in '72 would have flooded back into the rink again and they'd have filled those empty seats in the United Center, game in and game out. They never had empty seats when we played and Brett Hull would have filled that. Just because his dad would've been around, the people in the Hawk organization didn't want Brett there because I would've been around a little bit and they didn't want me around for one reason or another. It's a shame that we have people involved in the game that don't have the games interest at heart, and it's a bigger shame that you have people from our era that know how the game should be played and who should be there and how to treat the fans that aren't there.
George: That's an interesting point you make because I wanted to ask you what you think about this oversized goalie equipment today.
Bobby: How come we could play the game for seventy five years without a change of rules and all of a sudden now they have to change the rules for these people.
George: In 1991 they changed the maximum width of goalie pads from 10" to 12", an increase of 20%. When you look at the body armor these goalies wear, they wonder why there is not scoring in the game and why fans are losing interest. I love the game of hockey but when I go to a game I'm bored out of my mind. I went to the Leafs game a few weeks ago at $89.00 a seat and I saw about five minutes of excitement.
Bobby: Well it's your fault for going to the games. You should boycott and say we want to be more royally entertained and for less money. It cost them $2.50 to be entertained with us, $6.50 maybe for a top ticket back in the sixties.
George: Who is the best player you ever played against?
Bobby: Brett Hull. Brett Hull is the greatest player ever. Bobby Orr is the greatest player that has ever come down the pike. And pound for pound there's Mikita. And Marcel Dionne, 700 and how many goals? Played in obscurity and still scored 700 and some goals.
George: Who is the hardest goalie to score on in your day?
Bobby: Anybody who played for the Montreal Canadiens during that era when they had the great teams. It was tough to score on them because they always had the puck. It doesn't matter who the goaltender is. I'll just give you a quick scenario; Jacques Plante won the Vezina (least goals against) one year, Gump Worsley had the worst goals against record. They changed teams during the summer, Gump Worsley won the Vezina the next year and Plante had the worst goals against record. That's all you need to know. You've got to have a team in front of you. Although a goaltender can be a big part of a team like a Hasek, and a Roy, Glenn Hall, and Tony Esposito, all that group.
George: What was your first impression when you saw Gil Perreault play.
Bobby: The greatest…
George: I ask you that because we're in Buffalo and this is Gil Perreault territory.
Bobby: Well I happen to know first hand and so does Marcel Dionne. In 1976 we were put together toward the end of scrimmages (for the 1976 Team Canada) in Montreal and I want to tell you it was just three shooting them in and four fishing them out. He was…he was…If he would've played on a big rink for a more competitive team maybe, He'd have been the greatest of them all. No one could skate and handle the puck like Gilbert Perreault. But Gil, because of the kind of building he played in and because he wasn't made to think he was the guy who could get it done, played more on and off that what he could've. All you heard was "Gilbert Perreault" for a month and then all of a sudden you didn't hear of him. And then he'd come back and play like gangbusters again. Where the players (who were) out into the public more were almost forced to play great every night, every night, every night. That's what made them so great. I think consistency is the mark of a true professional, in any walk of life.
George: The year before Perreault was drafted, the NHL did away with the Quebec rule where Montreal got to pick the first two players out of Quebec. Also, Montreal in 1976 traded for Colorado's first draft pick in 1980. Colorado finished in last place and that was Wayne Gretzky's draft year and Montreal had the first overall pick but of course Wayne Gretzky never went through the draft. Would anybody have ever beaten Montreal for fifteen years in a row if Perreault had gone in 1970 to the Canadiens and then they picked up Gretzky in 1980?
Bobby: It would've been just the same with our team if they hadn't traded Esposito, Hodge, and Stanfield for Marrotte, Martin and jack Norris. It ruined our team and made Boston. We'd have had that great team all the way thorough. It would've been the same deal. But if all the ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas.
Here's another one, how could Montreal not draft Denis Savard ahead of Wickenheiser? It was a natural.
Chicago hadn't had anything up to that point and Denis Savard for ten or twelve years put Chicago back on the map.
George: The Blackhawk sweater is the most beautiful uniform…
Bobby: You've said it
George: …in the history of sports.
Bobby: You've said it.
George: how special was it to pull that sweater over your head.
Bobby: Every time I pulled that crimson jersey over my head with Pierre Pilote's picture on the front IO didn't want to do anything to embarrass it
George: why do you call it Pierre Pilote's picture?
Bobby: Well because he looks just like Pierre Pilote. The old Indian looks just like just like Pierre. Pierre's got a little Navajo in him I think.
George: I think you're right about the Blackhawks, it seems to me that they've never recovered since the day you left. They've been to the finals, but that was nothing special. They don't even put their home games on TV.
Bobby: Well Mr. Wirtz is afraid that he'll lose some sales of $6.00 bottles of beer.
George: They're like Buffalo in that they only sell 8,000 season tickets and the city is how much bigger than Buffalo?
Bobby: I guess that they don't care about the fan enough to try to get them a winner. Now there a guy, that Ilitch in Detroit who'll do anything to put together a Stanley Cup team. The guy down in Dallas did it for a while. New York, they try but they get the wrong people. They spend the money but they get the wrong people. They don't get people with good heads and good hearts that can play together.
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