Ed Westfall, The Colorful Islanders Captain

Ed Westfall originally found out he was a New York Islander thanks to a customs agent at Logan Airport in Boston.

Left unprotected by the Boston Bruins in the 1972 Expansion Draft, he was snatched up by the Islanders, and was informed upon returning from a trip to the UK. Such was life pre internet.

In some ways it was fitting, given how key airports - and airplanes - are to Westfall's time with the Islanders.

With four older children uninterested in leaving their friends in Boston behind, Westfall needed to get creative in order to stay close to his family during the year. His solution? Learning to fly a plane.

"Two of my neighbors flew planes. One was an American Airlines senior captain, and he had his own small plane and I used to fly with him occasionally," Westfall said. "The other guy was a contractor and he had a plane. I used to fly with him as well, and so I said, you know what, maybe this can work. I went and found an airplane that I liked, and I bought it, and then learned how to fly it.

"I used to commute for almost 15 years. I commuted from New Hampshire down to Long Island, and I really enjoyed it, because it gave me the ability to keep my family going the way they wanted it to. Al Arbour always said to me, 'first time you're really late for practice, you're not flying that airplane back and forth,' and all those years I was never late."

(There was the one time he and first-overall pick Billy Harris landed a plane after dark in Peterborough, ON, but that's a different story.)

Ed Westfall is a colorful character, but one who never colored outside the lines when it came to putting his team first.

As the first captain in Islanders history, Westfall was tasked with leading and bringing together a group of promising young rookies and castoffs from other teams to build the culture and forge an identity of a brand-new franchise.

"You're trying to do everything you can to make this brand-new franchise meaningful," Westfall said. "You do all of the things you're asked, and then you try to do some other things if you can. The fellas that came through the Islanders, they may not have been there long, but I hated to see them go and stay in a hotel. That was part of the old captain thing, you don't send a kid who'd probably like to be home to sit in a hotel by himself."

Westfall rented houses with extra rooms so that players could come stay with him. During his time with the team, he hosted numerous Islander players, including Clark Gillies and Billy Harris, in addition to other friends, like a Bauer salesperson Westfall knew from Boston.

In an interview with Talkin' Isles in Oct. 2021, Gillies said he initially planned on staying in a hotel during his first weeks with the team, before he found an apartment, but when Westfall learned about that plan, he insisted Gillies stay with him. Stuck without a car, Gillies said he'd drive to practice with Westfall.

"After practice, I'd get back in the car and I'd have no idea where we were going, usually someplace for lunch and then we'd end up in a bar for the better part of the day," Gillies said. "After about three weeks, I said 'Eddie, I need to get a car. I can't keep doing this.' He goes, 'I got a buddy of mine in Boston who's a Volkswagen dealer. I'll get you a Volkswagen.' I said 'I don't care what it is.' Next thing you know, a Volkswagen station wagon showed up in the back on a flatbed and that was my car."

After getting his own car, Gillies would drive himself home after practice. Gillies said Westfall would come home and ask why he was always watching The Beverly Hillbillies. Westfall remarked that Gillies looked like Jethro, one of the characters, and from that day onward, Gillies said Westfall never used his real name again.

Another house Westfall rented may have been haunted.

"I had a home right on the Amityville River, at the mouth, where The Amityville Horror house thing came out of," Westfall said. "People were so enamored with this house; they were all thinking it was going to levitate or whatever. They had to give us a police escort [to get through the crowd], so here we got three or four Islander players in a police cruiser, so we could get onto the Southern State [Parkway] and get to the Coliseum."

One of Westfall's most well-known moments came in game seven of the 1975 semifinals against the Philadelphia Flyers. Westfall hand delivered anthem singer Kate Smith a bouquet of chrysanthemums that had been delivered to the locker room for Gerry Hart after the singer - who was viewed as the Flyers good luck charm - sang God Bless America. Westfall instructed his team to line up and shake her hand pregame, hoping to counteract the supposed charm. It didn't work in the game, but it certainly left an impression on Smith.

Later that year, Westfall said he found himself at the hospital after suffering an ankle injury, and found out that Smith was there being treated for a severe illness. While he said he wasn't allowed to visit her in person, Westfall wrote her a letter to show his gratitude for her contributions to the sport.

"He takes everything very seriously when it's time to be very serious," Bryan Trottier said. "He has fun when it's time to have fun, and that's why all of us love him so much."

Westfall followed up his NHL career with a pivot into broadcasting - and a whole lot of other jobs.
Fellow Islanders broadcaster Jiggs McDonald, who called games with Westfall from 1980-95, but never flew Westfall Airlines, said that Westfall always had something else going on, from working in a brewery in his first NHL season to his later work as a travel agent and at a Long Island bank.

That mindset of expanding his skillset beyond hockey is something McDonald said Westfall instilled in all the players he played and worked with.

"He always said, 'hockey isn't going to last forever. You better have something else to do when your career ends," McDonald said. "He would always say, 'Far better to tell them when you're playing your last game than to have them tell you that you played your last game.'"

Westfall knew McDonald before they ever started broadcasting together. McDonald got his start calling minor and junior league games, some of which Westfall's brothers played in. He started his NHL broadcasting career with the Los Angeles Kings and moved to work with the Atlanta Flames.
But when the Flames moved up to Calgary, McDonald looked for a new job, and ended up submitting his tapes to the Islanders.

"I was the vice president of Nassau Sports Productions, I looked at his tapes," Westfall said. "I said, 'wait a minute, Jiggs? He's leaving?' I said to the people, 'you gotta hire him.' I said, 'I've known him since he was a little kid and so was I, and I know him from LA, and I know him from Atlanta, and he's as good a professional as you'll find. You don't even need to do the others.' So we hired him, and then we worked together for 15 years."

"Eddie always said the two of us were together longer than most marriages," McDonald joked.
As a broadcaster, McDonald said he and Westfall often met up with Westfall's old teammates and friends from when he was in the league. Westfall had nicknames for almost everyone he met - none of which made it to air.

Even in retirement, McDonald said Westfall still has his relentless positive attitude. Both Westfall and McDonald live down in southwest Florida, and McDonald said they see each other a few times a season. No matter the size of the group, McDonald said no one can beat Westfall to pay a check.

"He's so jovial and fun to be around," McDonald said. "More fun to be around than anybody I've ever encountered in the game."