Fonteyne 'can't explain' NHL record of 188 straight games without penalty

Val Fonteyne
was banished to the Olympia Stadium penalty box on Feb. 28, 1965. Two minutes for hooking 7:29 into the third period, in the view of referee Frank Udvari, Fonteyne's Detroit Red Wings leading the visiting Montreal Canadiens 4-0.

Claude Provost scored on the ensuing power play, Fonteyne having just 10 seconds left to serve, and so perished the shutout bid of Red Wings goalie Roger Crozier in Detroit's 5-1 victory, a franchise-record 10th straight home-ice win.
Twelve years later, "Slap Shot" goalie Denis Lemieux would make legendary the concept of a penalized player going to the box for two minutes (or less) to feel shame before "you get free."
That 1965 night in Detroit, Fonteyne evidently felt so much shame that he chose not to revisit an NHL penalty box for a good long time.
Indeed, it would be 188 games before he was nicked again, assessed a first-period tripping minor by referee John Ashley during his Pittsburgh Penguins' 4-4 tie at the Oakland Seals on Dec. 1, 1968.

Val Fonteyne at home in Wetaskiwin, Alberta on Nov. 30, 2022 with a 1959-60 season Montreal Forum program saved from his first NHL game, veteran Canadiens star Maurice Richard on the cover; and with his NHL and Western Hockey League first-goal pucks, respectively scored for Detroit and Seattle. Courtesy Anna Fonteyne
Fonteyne's NHL record of 188 consecutive penalty-free games is 29 better than the 159 of second-ranked Kyle Wellwood, between March 13, 2006 and Feb. 15, 2009. Far behind is the best active streak of 56 games of Minnesota Wild forward Frederick Gaudreau. NHL history shows 13 penalty-free streaks of 100 or more games, Fonteyne holding three of them.
"I just never took penalties, going right back to my youth," Fonteyne said on Wednesday from his home in Wetaskiwin, Alberta, 40 miles south of Edmonton, delighted to discuss his place in the NHL record book.
The veteran of 823 regular-season games between 1959-72 for the Red Wings, New York Rangers and Penguins picked up 26 NHL penalty minutes. He skated another 59 games for the Red Wings and Penguins in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, penalized four times for eight minutes.
Fonteyne, who turns 89 on Friday, would wrap up his professional career in the World Hockey Association with the then-Alberta Oilers, the first player drafted in franchise history. He played 149 games for the team from 1972-74, penalized twice.
The 5-foot-10, 160-pound checking forward's crime blotter could be a Post-It note. Through his 13-season NHL career, he was assessed four holding and four hooking penalties, three minors for high-sticking and two more for tripping.
He had 229 points over his NHL career (75 goals, 154 assists), taking 933 shots on goal. Nine of his goals were game-winners; six came on the penalty-kill, which he did with distinction.

Detroit's Val Fonteyne in close on Toronto goalie Johnny Bower during Game 5 of the 1961 Stanley Cup Semifinals. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
"I really can't explain it, it's just the way I played," Fonteyne said with a laugh, listening to his very few penalty statistics read back to him. "I wasn't a big, physical guy who could crank some guy into the boards, I couldn't do that and be a help to my team that way. My teams wanted me to try to stop the opponent's top guys, and you can't be checking them if you're in the penalty box."
In 274 games with Seattle of the Western Hockey League from 1955-59, on his way to the Red Wings, Fonteyne was assessed only 19 penalty minutes.
From minor hockey in his hometown of Wetaskiwin, he graduated to three seasons of Alberta junior from 1951-54 in Medicine Hat, then played in 1954-55 with two British Columbia teams before settling in Seattle for four WHL seasons.
The call from Detroit came for the 1959-60 season, Fonteyne and fellow Western League prospects Gerry Melnyk and Billy MacNeill, all unsigned, riding a train with the Red Wings from Detroit to Montreal for the Oct. 10 season-opener. There they would face the Canadiens, winners of four consecutive Stanley Cup championships, bound for their fifth.
"(General manager) Jack Adams brought me in to see him (on the train) and said, 'Here's your contract,' giving me the facts," Fonteyne recalled. "I just said, 'Where do I sign?' I was probably paid the minimum. Jack threw dollars around like manhole covers but it didn't matter to me at the time. I was with the Red Wings, and I was going to play in the NHL. He signed Gerry and Billy the same way."

Val Fonteyne and captain Gordie Howe with Detroit goalie Terry Sawchuk on March 26, 1961 following the Red Wings' 2-0 Game 2 Stanley Cup Semifinal win, Howe and Fonteyne having scored third-period goals; a 1960s Red Wings portrait of Fonteyne. Turfosky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Fonteyne has vivid memories of his first game, the ink barely dry on his contract.
"You know the history of the Montreal Forum," he said. "Before I stepped on the ice, I looked around and said to myself, 'What am I doing here?' To top it all off, it was Maurice Richard's final season, and there were Jean Beliveau, Dickie Moore, Bernie Geoffrion ... you're kind of intimidated, that's for sure. I'm playing against Maurice Richard, and I'm playing with Gordie Howe."
Howe and the Canadiens' Marcel Bonin would trade goals in a 1-1 tie, the Red Wings riding the rails overnight back home for a game the following night against the Rangers. Fonteyne registered his first NHL point at the Olympia, he and Howe assisting on Melnyk's goal in a 4-2 win.
That set the stage for his own milestone goal, scored Oct. 14 at Chicago Stadium against Black Hawks legend Glenn Hall in a 2-0 win.
"That was what, my third game?" he said. "I had no idea what the NHL was going to be like. I knew there would be a big difference from the minors. My first goal, I remember going into Chicago's end, the puck going into their corner, Gerry (Melnyk) getting it and passing it back out. I just slapped it. I don't know how the heck I got it past Glenn, but I did."

New York Rangers' Val Fonteyne challenges Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Johnny Bower, defensemen Carl Brewer (left) and Bob Baun nearby in Jan. 5, 1964 action at Madison Square Garden. Frank Prazak/Hockey Hall of Fame
Fonteyne has kept the puck for more than six decades, having detailed the goal on adhesive tape wrapped around its edge, the souvenir not mounted on a plaque.
It would take him much longer to pick up his first NHL penalty, 50 games into his rookie season. He and Chicago defenseman Pierre Pilote were assessed coincidental minors on Feb. 7, 1960, Fonteyne for high-sticking, Pilote for holding at 5:21 of the third period during Detroit's 5-0 Olympia win.
Fonteyne's rule-breaking hit a peak in 1964-65, all of six minutes. He was given one minor with the Rangers and two more with Detroit, returning to the Motor City by way of a Feb. 8, 1965 waiver claim.
But rarely were his penalties costly. Fonteyne's teams had a record of 8-3-2 in games in which he was sent off, five infractions coming against Chicago, three against the Canadiens, two against the Boston Bruins and one each against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Seals and Minnesota North Stars.
"I'm credited with 823 games, but many nights I might have stepped on the ice just once," he admitted. "I was there for my defense. I wasn't going to have a chance to get on the offense very much."

Detroit's Val Fonteyne and Toronto's Johnny Bower greet on Maple Leaf Gardens ice in 1961; Fonteyne, with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Toronto's Norm Ullman in 1971 action. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame; Graphic Artists/Hockey Hall of Fame
Fonteyne was deployed to shadow some of the greatest goal-scorers in NHL history -- Richard, Beliveau and Chicago's Bobby Hull, and even Howe when Mr. Hockey was an opponent -- but he won't offer the name of a single man as the toughest he was assigned to cover.
"They all were," he said, laughing.
He played his first four NHL seasons with Howe before being left unprotected by the Red Wings, claimed by the Rangers in the June 1963 intra-league draft.
"The first game I played against Detroit with Gordie in the lineup (Oct. 31, 1963), guess who I had to try to contain? Gordie, of course," said Fonteyne, who in no time dined on Mr. Hockey's legendary elbow while holding Howe to a single assist in a 4-1 Red Wings win at the Olympia.
"He was very friendly but as soon as the puck dropped, that was the end of that stuff. I can remember going into the corner. I knew he was coming so I got out of there at the last minute. If I hadn't, I might still be lying there.
"Gordie didn't pick his spots. It was anyone. That's why it was so hard to check him. He didn't care who was against him."
After 96 games with the Rangers, Fonteyne returned to Detroit, plucked off the waiver wire on Feb. 8, 1965, and played with the Red Wings through the end of the 1966-67 season. The Penguins chose him in the 13th round (No. 76 overall) of the 1967 expansion draft, Fonteyne playing 349 games for Pittsburgh over his final five NHL seasons, picking up his final four penalty minutes.

Val Fonteyne, on the blue carpet wearing an Oilers jersey, takes part in a ceremonial face-off between Edmonton's Taylor Hall and Vancouver Canucks' Henrik Sedin at Edmonton's Rexall Place on April 6, 2016, the final NHL game in the arena. Andy Devlin, NHLI via Getty Images
He was offered a scouting position with the WHA's Oilers after 1973-74, his second of two seasons, but decided at age 40 that his days on the road were done. For the next two decades, he was happy to drive a delivery truck for Canada Post, at home in Wetaskiwin with his wife, Anna, and their two sons and two daughters. The couple, now married 60 years, have nine grandchildren.
"I'd had enough traveling," he said. "I'd eaten enough hot dogs. This was fine, I was home with my family."
Fonteyne was recently in Edmonton "on a couple of bad knees" for a 50th anniversary celebration of the WHA's Oilers, renewing friendships with members of the 1972 team. They might even have spoken about his 1972-73 penalty ... singular.
"I guess I was a pretty good skater," he suggested of his durable, solid career spent almost entirely on the right side of the law.
"In those days, there was a lot of hooking and whatever if a guy had the puck ahead of you. But when I was out there, I never thought, 'I can't do this, I might get a penalty.' It just never entered my mind."
Top photo: Rookie Val Fonteyne, playing his 19th NHL game, peels away from in front of Detroit goalie Terry Sawchuk in Nov. 18, 1959 action at Maple Leaf Gardens, Red Wings defenseman Red Kelly and Toronto forward George Armstrong nearby. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame