DeJordy reflects on being ultimate EBUG with Black Hawks
Stepped in when Hall's ironman streak came to end, now runs farm, ferry near Montreal
Ironman goalie Glenn Hall had just pulled himself from the Black Hawks' Nov. 7, 1962 game against the Boston Bruins, unable to continue beyond 10:21 of the first period with a badly pinched nerve in his back.
In came DeJordy, summoned from the stands, to make 24 saves in a 3-3 tie. Three nights later, he started for Chicago in a 3-1 win against the Canadiens in the Montreal Forum, 33 saves made in a building he viewed as more holy than a Catholic church.
Hall's consecutive-start streak thus ended at 502 games, 552 including the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Each record is likely safe forever.
If DeJordy is best known for his role with Hall's streak, his life on and off the ice is about much more than that, having played 317 games for four NHL teams between 1962-73, another 321 in the minor pros.
Chicago Black Hawks goalie Denis DeJordy watches defenseman Elmer "Moose" Vasko carry the puck behind his Montreal Forum net, chased by Canadiens captain Jean Beliveau. Other Canadiens in this mid-1960s game are Bill Hicke (helmet) and John Ferguson, Black Hawks captain Pierre Pilote and Bobby Hull (9) in front of the net. Frank Prazak/Hockey Hall of Fame
He's proud of a career that saw him play for the Black Hawks, Los Angeles Kings, Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings -- 299 starts, 120 wins, 128 losses, 54 ties, 17,777 minutes played, 3.14 goals-against average, .902 save percentage.
For Chicago, the native of St-Hyacinthe, Quebec shared with Hall the 1966-67 Vezina Trophy. He played the lion's share of games (44) that season, going 22-12-7 with a 2.46 average, .923 save percentage and four shutouts.
DeJordy's name would be engraved on the Stanley Cup with those of the 1961 Black Hawks, that title won 19 months before he'd even appeared in his first NHL game. As the Black Hawks' never-used emergency backup, he practiced with the team and watched from the stands as Hall led Chicago to the 1961 title, their first since 1938.
Today, at age 84, DeJordy is hard at work on his farm in St-Charles-sur-Richelieu, a four-century-old village about 40 miles southeast of Montreal. He is surprised but delighted that a call would come to discuss his life in and beyond hockey.
"You might say that I'm an outdoors guy," DeJordy said with a chuckle.
Denis DeJordy signs a Montreal Canadiens jersey in the kitchen of his St-Charles-sur-Richelieu, Quebec farmhouse kitchen on Feb. 2, 2023; in a 1960s Black Hawks pose. Steve Fournier, Sport Authentix; O-Pee-Chee/Hockey Hall of Fame
Yes, you might. Forty years ago, he came to the 55-acre farm he calls home with Joan, his wife of 56 years, raising five daughters on this land. Today, the farm is renowned as one of Quebec's finest for dressage and show-jump training and its boarding of horses.
From just beyond DeJordy's window is his nine-car ferry, closed now for winter. The springtime opening will mark four decades that he has run the essential service that spans the Richelieu River, connecting Saint-Charles on the south bank to Saint-Marc on the north.
"I open the ferry in the morning and my employees will take care of it for the rest of the day," DeJordy said. "I'll run from the end of March until Dec. 1, from when the ice clears until the river is frozen again."
Born on Nov. 12, 1938 and raised in a one-parent family in St-Hyacinthe, 35 miles south of Montreal, DeJordy's passion for hockey would not be denied. His father died before he was two, his mother alone raising him with three siblings, her fifth child in the care of relatives.
Chicago goalie Denis DeJordy and Toronto's Gerry Ehman follow a flying puck at Maple Leaf Gardens during a 1963 game. Michael Sr. Burns/Hockey Hall of Fame
The family was not well off.
"I remember as a boy being sent down to the cellar to fetch some potatoes for supper," DeJordy said. "I discovered a sack of oranges and brought them upstairs, telling my mother, 'Look what I found!' and she replied, 'You've just found your Christmas present.' "
At some point during his youth, DeJordy had acquired a primitive pair of nearly paper-thin goalie pads, which he practically disintegrated playing countless hours on the local rink. By chance he found another pair of awful pads in a neighborhood garbage can and he hauled them home.
"My mother opened up my pads, took what was inside the ones I'd found and stuffed my own pads with it, sewing them back together so that I'd be better protected," he recalled.
In 1954, at age 15, DeJordy left home to play Junior B for Jonquiere, 250 miles from home, becoming property of the Black Hawks for the NHL's sponsorship of the team.
Chicago would move their young prospect in 1956 to Ontario, where he would play for Toronto's Junior B Dixie Beehives, 1957-58 major-junior St. Catharines Tee Pees and 1958-59 Peterborough Petes.
A puck sails near the goal post and wide of Denis DeJordy during a 1960s game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame
Already back home, DeJordy took the call of Petes coach Scotty Bowman when goalie Jacques Caron was injured, pressed into emergency service in the 1959 Eastern Canada Final. He went 4-0-1 with a 1.35 average, leading the Petes to the league championship and the Memorial Cup Final that they'd lose to Winnipeg.
A bonus check of $10 was mailed to him at season's end.
"I think Scotty forgot a few zeroes," he joked.
"Denis told me he hadn't played in a month when I phoned him, that he needed one practice to get sharp," Bowman said on Tuesday. "I think he came in by bus from Montreal. He stood on his head for us."
DeJordy turned pro in 1959 with the Eastern league's Sault Ste. Marie Thunderbirds, the Black Hawks grooming him for bigger things. He was assigned to Buffalo of the American League in 1960, and it was with the Bisons that he met his future wife.
In the one-goalie NHL, Glenn Hall riding his ironman streak, DeJordy would practice with the Black Hawks, cannon fodder as he ducked the unpredictable shots of Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, both experimenting with hugely curves sticks, "banana blades" as DeJordy calls them.
Chicago Black Hawks goalies Denis DeJordy (left), Glenn Hall (center) and Dave Dryden in 1965. Le Studio du hockey/Hockey Hall of Fame
Then came his historic emergency back-up arrival, and the end of Hall's streak.
"For a kid from Quebec, your intention, your dream is to play for the Canadiens," DeJordy said. "To play against them was a very big thrill. I had a very good desire to beat them because they had a tremendous hockey club."
DeJordy would play just five games that season and six in 1963-64, but he started 30, 44, 50 and 53 games the next four years. He and Hall were roommates for six seasons in Chicago, developing a friendship in a League that was drifting away from the one-goalie system.
He will take your word for it when he's told that Feb. 8 is the anniversary of his 5-0 shutout of the Canadiens at Chicago Stadium; the 1967 whitewash was his second consecutive shutout, the fifth and sixth of his career's 15, having blanked the Bruins 5-0 in Boston three nights earlier. Both came during a heavy stretch of work, Hall sidelined on Jan. 29 after having his leg slashed by a skate during a game in Toronto. No longer the unused backup, DeJordy went 5-2-2 during a run of nine straight games, with a stellar save percentage of .937.
Chicago Black Hawks owner Arthur M. Wirtz (center) flanked by 1966-67 Vezina Trophy-winning goalies Denis DeJordy (right) and Glenn Hall; DeJordy in a 1966-67 studio pose. Le Studio du hockey/Hockey Hall of Fame; Macdonald Stewart/Hockey Hall of Fame
But no matter his statistics, the 5-foot-9, 175-pound goalie never found favor with Black Hawks management. He was bounced down to the minors on a heartbeat by GM Tommy Ivan -- he sat out the start of the 1967-68 season over a contract dispute -- and in 1969 he was publicly criticized by coach Billy Reay for his style.
The end came on Feb. 20, 1970 when DeJordy was shipped to the Kings in a six-man trade. Now, for the first time in his NHL career, he was a bona fide No. 1 goalie.
DeJordy would play a career-high 60 games in 1970-71, going 18-29-11 on a Kings team that finished fifth and out of the playoffs in the West Division.
"Becoming the No. 1 goalie wasn't what I thought it would be," he said. "As No. 2, you always think it's easy to be No. 1. But once you're there, you quickly realize there's more responsibility on your shoulders. You're always playing against the best of your opponent and now you have to produce. That's what I went through, and it's what most No. 2 goalies have gone through, too.
Denis DeJordy with the Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings. O-Pee-Chee cards; NHL/Hockey Hall of Fame
"When I worried about the game, when I worried that I was going to be beaten, that's when I played better. If you don't worry, you don't play as well. I understand how Glenn (Hall) was so keyed up before a game that he felt sick to his stomach."
DeJordy was on the move again early in the 1971-72 season, part of a four-for-one trade on Nov. 4 that would send him with three teammates to his hometown Canadiens, fellow goalie Rogie Vachon headed to the Kings.
DeJordy's first win for the Canadiens came on Jan. 5, 1972, a 40-save effort in a 6-4 victory against the visiting Vancouver Canucks.
"I remember that right behind the Canadiens bench sat a season ticket-holder I knew from St-Hyacinthe," he said. "I'd give him a little wink every now and then."
After six starts that saw him go 3-2-1, DeJordy was traded on June 6, 1972 to the New York Islanders, for whom he'd never play, then routed on Oct. 4 to the Detroit Red Wings, 25 games ending his playing career.
DeJordy's final game, at home on Dec. 5, 1973, fittingly against Chicago, was memorable for the wrong reasons.
Unexpectedly called up by the Red Wings from the minors, he was ill-prepared and ventilated for four goals on eight shots in in the first period, three scored in a 90-second span, booed off Olympia Stadium ice after 20 minutes. Red Wings owner Bruce Norris called down during intermission for his removal, but DeJordy's wounds have healed.
Denis DeJordy watches Toronto's Mike Walton chased by Chicago's Pierre Pilote (left) and Bobby Hull during a 1960s game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame
"My career began with Chicago by replacing a legend like Glenn Hall and it ended against Chicago when I was pulled by the team owner," he said. "That's a little different."
DeJordy quietly retired that September and was named an assistant coach for the Red Wings to work with a goalie crop that included Jim Rutherford, Doug Grant and Terry Richardson.
A brief bit of scouting for the New York Rangers brought down his curtain, DeJordy returning to Quebec and the land he loved.
For five years during his playing days, he ran a sporting goods store in St-Hyacinthe, saying "that wasn't my wisest move" because he couldn't run a business as an absentee owner.
But he did much better with real estate, still the owner of two apartment buildings. DeJordy has invested wisely, and he has no financial worries happily living on his farm.
"A typical day for me is doing nothing," he said. "The kids and my wife, Joanie, take care of the place."
Then, laughing again: "And Joanie cleans out the stables."
Last week, DeJordy sat at his kitchen table for two hours and signed the cards, books, pucks and photos sent to him by fans through a sports collectibles company, having never seen some of the items.
He has very little of his old equipment, not that he misses it, bits and pieces of it with his daughters.
"I loaned my pads to a kid years ago and he never brought them back," DeJordy said. "But the farm is going good; I have a wonderful family and I have great memories of my career. As we speak, I'm looking at the wall of three beautiful pictures of myself in action, and they remind me of hockey every day."
Top photo: Denis DeJordy autographs a Chicago Black Hawks puck in his St-Charles-sur-Richelieu, Quebec farmhouse kitchen on Feb. 2, 2023. Steve Fournier, Sport Authentix
