Maven's Memories: Bossy vs The Bullies

Mike Bossy not only won the Calder Trophy as rookie-of-the-year in 1977-78 but dazzled in virtually all aspects of the game.
Mike also provided sufficient evidence that he would be the most adept natural goal-scorer since Maurice (Rocket) Richard of the Montreal Canadiens became the first NHL player to score 50 goals in 50 games.
However, there was one distinct difference between Bossy and all of the above; the skinny kid from Montreal was a pacifist.
He was a hockey player who refused to fight. Period.
And he made no bones about it.

"I'm not going to fight," was Bossy's Declaration of Independence. "I'm not going to let this game turn me into a person I'm not."
Mike wanted to play hockey and score goals; that's all. As far as he was concerned, fighting was for Friday night boxing matches at the Montreal Forum.
Unfortunately, the once-fragile-looking right wing grew up playing junior hockey while the Philadelphia Flyers -- a.k.a. the Broad Street Bullies -- were punching their way to two consecutive Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975. Philly set a negative example for Bossy.
"I learned how to stay out of trouble," he asserted.

This was an era when bench-clearing brawls were as common as cigarette-smoking stickhandlers. It was a time when a gifted, non-belligerent, like Bossy, playing in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, would have trouble surviving if he didn't put up his dukes.
The teenaged amateur ranks were so cruel when Mike had his sights on a National Hockey League career that he devoted an entire chapter - aptly named "Survival" - to it in his autobiography, "Boss -- The Mike Bossy Story," written with Barry Meisel.
"I scored 309 career goals, made the All-Star Team three times, led the league in goals once and had my jersey retired, but that's not what I remember," Bossy said. "I remember the premeditated violence that sickened and frightened me."
Critics have said that such a deplorable state of ice affairs could be traced -- at least in part -- to the Flyers' brawling behavior and the fact that it orbited them to the Stanley Cup Final a third time in 1976 while Bossy still was skating for the Laval Nationals.
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"Goons constantly threatened to gouge my eyes out or break my neck after I scored," Mike explained. "It was because -- as one newspaper headline put it -- STOP BOSSY AND YOU STOP LAVAL."
Bossy knew then and there that there was an escape hatch and it read: THIS WAY OUT! Exit from the pro ranks, if you can't handle the heat.
"I fought the desire to quit hard," he went on. "But deep down I knew I would never quit."
Based on the endless number of assaults he survived in the Junior ranks, it's astonishing that he lived to play again. I'll mention just one episode since it took place just before Mike became an Islander and it was symptomatic of the Junior game then.

A goon named Daniel Horne, playing for Trois Rivieres, sucker-punched Bossy in the proboscis so hard his nose splattered from ear to ear. And if Mike's nose appears a bit crooked today, the aberration could be traced to that one-fisted whack.
Some observers have argued that Mike's pacifist attitude as a Junior was a turn-off for some NHL managers and that explains why Bossy was not chosen until the 15th spot in the 1977 Entry Draft.
What's more his early success as a big-league freshman immediately made him a goon-target just as it had in the amateur ranks; only now the rivals were bigger and even more menacing.
Early in the 1977-78 season, Mike's linemate Clark Gillies laid it on the line for Bossy: "You're going to have to handle the rough stuff and keep going too."
But how would he handle it? That was both the question and the challenge raised by fans, media and management alike.
For starters, Bossy -- as noted above -- promised himself that he would never drop the gloves and "Go," as the traditional fighters' saying went.
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Which was fair enough but that did not deter NHL toughies such as Dan Maloney -- then with the Detroit Red Wings -- from beating up on Boss.
Author Barry Wilner (The New York Islanders, Countdown To A Dynasty) vividly remembered the Red Wings game plan: "The Detroit skaters seemed more intent on injuring one of the Islanders stars than bothering with the puck."
Not surprisingly, in the eyes of the Red Wings, Bossy had a bulls-eye on his back. Finally, Maloney jumped him and simultaneously slapped Mike. It was a tell-tale moment for the rookie.
"Frankly," Bossy later allowed, "I was stunned. I wasn't ready for it. Maloney screwed up my game and ruined my concentration. It was the first time an NHL team tried to intimidate me and it worked.
"Sure, I expected tough tactics against me. After all, I had four years of it with Laval. But I eventually adjusted and continued to play my (clean) game."
Now it was a question of how many other teams with players such as the menacing Maloney would go after Mike?

Surely, coach Al Arbour was aware of NHL intimidation. Radar had been a teammate of such bully types as Theodore (Terrible Ted) Lindsay on Detroit and Reg Fleming of the Blackhawks.as well as Bob Baun of the Maple Leafs.
Plus, Bossy now had the hulking Gillies on his left wing not to mention such rugged individuals as Garry Howatt, Bob Nystrom and Gerry Hart. "I had a lot of watch-dogs around me those first few months," Mike admitted.
But the worst for Bossy was yet to come and if a single game could prove to be a portent of one of the nastiest playoffs ever seen, it was an Islanders-Maple Leafs regular season game that preceded it.
Coach Roger Neilson's team had the brutes all right. Dave (Tiger) Williams, Jerry Butler, Jack Valiquette and, yes, that -- since traded -- bad guy from the previous movie, Dan Maloney, just to name a few sluggos.
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It was a game filled with fights and the brawls would be multiplied in the upcoming playoffs.
As luck -- in this case bad luck -- would have it, the Maple Leafs faced the Islanders in the 1978 NHL quarter-final playoff round.
In his autobiography, Mike unabashedly referred to it as "Mike Bossy meet Tiger Williams."
"It was ugly from the start," Bossy unhesitatingly admitted, "and then got brutal."
The unremitting viciousness of the tourney would -- in my estimation -- make or break Bossy's career. If, somehow, Mike's spirit was splintered by Tiger Williams, the NHL's Public Enemy No. 1, it conceivably could have left a permanent scar on the young Islander.
For sure, Mike bent, but he never broke.
As for the series itself, it was a lulu -- if you like blood-and-guts hockey. The Islanders won the first two games at home but Toronto forced overtime in Game Two. Not only that, the Maple Leafs upped their I.Q. (Intimidation Quotient). Bossy was only one of several targets.
Toronto coach Roger Neilson's game plan was to have his Leafs hit every Islander in sight. As Bob Bourne noted, "I'd hit someone and turn around and three of their guys would be after me."

Or, as Tiger Williams re-defined Toronto's tactics, "The Islanders know that if we hit them, we'll beat them."
Often the hitting was illegal and meant to injure; no doubt about that.
"Williams wouldn't have cared if he broke my neck," Bossy later revealed in his book.
Toronto's Jerry Butler almost did break Bossy's neck.
With the Islanders leading the series three games to two, Game Six reached the nadir of naughtiness with Bossy as Public Victim Number One.
In the second period, the hefty Butler caught Mike trying to fish a loose puck free along the boards. Bossy's head was down and his radar not up high enough to detect the marauding Maple Leaf.
Writing in his autobiography, Mike detailed the damage: "I never heard or saw Butler coming. He charged into me, rammed my neck with his stick and knocked me headfirst into the boards.
"I dropped to the ice, felt a crack in the back of my neck and a lot of pain. I didn't lose consciousness, but I was frightened."
(So, were we in the press gallery; especially when Mike was removed on a stretcher.)

X-Rays revealed a sprained neck and nothing more but by the time Bossy returned to Maple Leaf Gardens, the bullies had won the game, setting up a Game Seven at the Coliseum.
This one went into overtime before Lanny McDonald beat Chico Resch to oust the Isles.
"The hoodlums had won," Bossy sorrowfully concluded.
True enough but Mike had learned a lesson; sooner or later he would have to stand up to a bully and, at least once, show he'd fight.
He did just that the following season; first with Behn Wilson, a huge Flyers defenseman, and later with Philly's tough center Mel Bridgman.
Granted, Bossy never was going to win the NHL's Lightweight Championship but he proved once and for all that he possessed the necessary gumption that assured he never would be run out of the NHL!
By the way, Mike may have lost his tussle with Wilson but he gained respect en route to superstardom.
P.S. Oh, yeah, there was a down side to the bout. Bossy was assessed a five-minute fighting major and a ten minute misconduct. That 15 minute total cost him the Lady Byng Trophy!