I could of course do a compose a Tweet to that address. But my memories would have to be squeezed into 140 characters--with spaces. I prefer to be more expansive.
One is a moment I read about in Sports Illustrated, and another is a moment I actually witnessed at Madison Square Garden. Both involved Boston's Phil Esposito, one of the most competitive players to ever play the game, and certainly one with the most irritated rear end.
Phil, as any fan of a certain age will remember, liked to stand with his back toward the goaltender and face and deflect any shot a teammate was taking toward the net. Any goaltender will tell you, a deflected shot is the hardest to defend against. In addition to having Esposito's somewhat considerable frame blocking the goaltender's vision of shot coming from the point, his stick was waved like a loose rudder, trying to send a shot into the opposite direction of where the goaltender was expecting it. Phil scored many goals this way, and not all due to luck.
Growing up, he practiced this for hours on end, trying to deflect shots past his goaltender brother Tony. Tony Esposito came to be a starring goaltender for the Chicago Black Hawks and set a record for shutouts for a rookie netminder,
In the early1970s, the Bruins were playing a playoff round against the Montreal Canadians. Both teams were powerhouses of the era, with the Canadians led by their goaltender Ken Dryden, an American who played for Cornell. Dryden was one of the tallest goaltenders to play the game at that point, standing around 6' 4", without his skates. He filled out the net considerable.
Well, it turns out during one game, Dryden is keeping the Bruins off the scoreboard with one spectacular save after another. Playoff hockey. The goaltenders, like the pitchers in baseball, are leading the show.
Dryden was a thinking man's goaltender. He would tell interviewers he would try and anticipate where a player wanted to make a shot, lead that player to think that's where he should shoot the puck, then within a fraction of a second, close the opening he gave the shooter and make the save. He was very hard to score against.
One sequence of plays has Phil firmly planted in from of Dryden, and Bobby Orr, or someone else on the Bruins takes a screaming slapshot from the point. Phil is ready, thinking he's got Dryden blocked out of seeing the shot, and with a quick turn of his stick blade, redirects the shot to where he thinks Dryden can never make the save. Needless to say, Dryden, being the skating cat he is, just a s quickly recovers from leaning in the wrong direction and makes the save.
Phil, or Uncle Phil, as we Ranger fans liked to call him, even after he came to play for the Rangers, is so utterly flabbergasted that Dryden has made the save on a Phil Esposito patented deflected shot that he slams the his stick on the ice, faces Dryden, and screams at him: "You fucking giraffe."
The other Uncle Phil moment is one I personally witnessed at Madison Square Garden during the Bruin/Ranger Stanley Cup finals in 1972.
The movie 'Doctor Doolittle' starring Rex Harrison had already been out. It had a jaunty musical score, featuring the song 'Talk to the Animals.' Sammy Davis Jr. had made a hit recording of the song, and it was quite familiar to many people, even years after the movie.
A Ranger/Bruin rivalry was as intense then as a Yankee/Red Sox one. In that era of arena fan entertainment there were no light shows that spun around the building. But the atmosphere was no less noisy and kinetic. A building virtually on a square block of Manhattan could be felt to shake at times when the crowd really got into wanting something from the team, or appreciating a play.
No blaring, thumping rock music came from a massive set of speakers, but the selections from the organist could be heard quite vividly. In the case of the Garden, the long-time organist was Eddie Layton, and a spot was carved out for him at the press level, nice seating, just at the top rim of the Red Seats. Thus, Eddie was able to match music to the action, and he did it very well.
So, when the pre-game skate was under way and the Bruins filed out from the corner of the arena, trading awkward choppy steps on runner mats for smooth gliding onto the ice, Eddie Layton launched into a clear, loud, spirited organ version of 'Talk to the Animals.'
Anyone who has even been to the Garden before the start of the a game might wonder why, with barely minutes to go before the puck is dropped at center ice, there seem to be so many empty seats in the joint. But take a look around after the anthem is finished, and everyone is in front of a seat, about to sit down. (Hopefully, if they're in front of you.) New Yorkers just seem to cut it close.
So, here was have the Bruins streaming out onto the ice, not a tremendous number of people assembled yet in the place, and Eddie Layton is playing 'Talk to the Animals' as the Bruins swirl around in warm up circles.
The matching of the song and the appearance of the Bruins is not lost on many in the crowd, and it is especially not lost on Phil Esposito, who stops his pre-game skate and starts to hector Eddie Layton on his musical selection. Uncle Phil doesn't just say a few choice words and skate way. I'm in no position to hear the conversation that is taking place, but Phil is jawing and tapping his stick blade on the ice for emphasis for a good while at Eddie Layton. Earl Weaver and a home plate umpire.
I don't believe the music stops, but if it did, it picked up again. I mean, who is going to accede to Phil Esposito's complaint about the organist's selection? No one.
Phil is eventually traded to the Rangers in a still-mystifying deal that saw Jean Ratelle being traded to the Bruins. Nothing got better for either team. 1972 was at the time the last time the Bruins won the Cup for quite a while, and the Rangers wouldn't do it until 1994, 54 years after 1940, when, as Sam Rosen told us all, "the waiting is over."
After 11 years of season seat attendance, I wasn't there when The Rangers finally won the cup. My attendance was poorly distributed over their final success at winning. No problem.
I've still got a great image of Uncle Phil being pretty mad at the organist.
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