Stan Mikita

This is what's going to happen. The hockey players I saw so much of in the 60s and 70s are going to start to pass away. Stan Mikita, at 78, is one of the latest. It's like when people get into their 40s and 50s and their parents start to pass away.

The headline for Mikita captures his playing spirit in one word: Feisty. Hockey players of the 60s and 70s, (and prior) were not very big. When I was a Ranger season ticket holder for 11 years in the 60s and 70s two of the biggest players in the league were Gordie Howe and Phil Esposito. They were listed at being slightly over 200 pounds. There were many players who got inflated weights attributed to them. Take Rob Gilbert, the Ranger right wing: he was listed at 185 pounds, which was very generous.

In Richard Goldstein's obit attention is directed at Mikita's use of the curved stick, perhaps even being the first player to use one. Whether he really was the first player to bend the blade may or may not be the case. But between himself and his teammate  Bobby Hull they popularized the curved stick.

Hull and Mikita, and others heated the blade and stuck the blade in the jamb of doorways and bent the sticks, sometimes to really significant curves. The slap shots became rockets, Hull especially feasted on the goals they scored with the sticks.

The blades became known as banana blades. Eventually the league adopted a standard of curvature that couldn't be exceeded. A bench penalty can be called if an illegal stick is brought to the officials' attention.

I distinctly remember one Ranger home game against the Blackhawks where Dennis Hull, Bobby's brother, came down left wing and got off a direct slap shot at Eddie Giacomin, the Ranger goalie. Eddie made the save with his mask and went down like the proverbial ton of bricks. He lay on the ice so motionless that you wondered if he was alive. He was, and shook off the effects of the shot, and continued play. No standard for possible concussion then.

I have a large photo of Eddie Giacomin in goal for the Detroit Red Wings in his first game back at the Garden. The trade to the Red Wings was highly unpopular. Every time the Rangers touched the puck they were vigorously booed. Everytime the Red Wings scored they were cheered. The Red Wings won the game to everyone's satisfaction.

The Daily News had a great photo of Giacomin wiping away tears during the playing of the National Anthem. That's the photo I was able to buy from The Daily News. His emotions were as high as the rest of the us. When you study the photo you get a sense of how little protection the goaltenders of that era wore. Their pads looked no more substantial than those worn by the Burek brother Paulie who played in goal when we gathered for Sunday roller hockey games. The contrast between then and now is as dramatic as football players in leather helmets and how the NFL players are dressed today.

Somehow Mikita got the nickname Stash from he Chicago fans. I always thought perhaps he was Polish because of that, despite his Slavic features. Mikita it turns out was from a town in what is now Slovenia, but in 1940 was in Czechoslovakia. He was raised since he was eight by an aunt and uncle in Ontario because his parents wanted him to escape what was becoming Soviet domination.

He was a slick center, a playmaker in the hockey world. There was also what for me is a most memorable game when the Black Hawks played the Rangers in a New Year's Eve game at Madison Square Garden.

A New Year's eve game you might imagine is not well-attended. And it wasn't. My friend and I caged great tickets near the ice from a scalper who had to sell below market value. Two things happened in that game.

The first was that the Rangers 4th line player Glen Sather got a penalty for having a hole in his glove. Sather as a player was a 4th line pest, sent out to be disruptive. He's now in the high up in the executive ranks of the Rangers, something I've always found incongruent with his playing.

There was one game on television when the Rangers were playing Montreal. There was one of the many melees that were part of hockey then. Sather and Mark Tardiff exchanged unpleasantries and each were sent to the penalty box. Tardiff's temper was not quelled, and Sather was able to goad Tardiff with a gesture of some kind to jump out of the penalty box and come after Sather some more. It was right out of the movie 'Slap Shot.' Needless to say, Tardiff got more penalty minutes, perhaps a game misconduct. Sather of course pleaded the victim. Sather's nickname was "Scamp."

I'm pretty sure Mikita was on the ice when Sather gets called for having a hole in his glove. There were players who created a hole in the palm of the glove so that when they grabbed an opponent's jersey or stick the official could not see that they were exerting a grip—holding—that would be visible from looking at the glove and seeing fingers bent. A hole in the glove would be just the thing a player like Sather would have to ensure he could be a pest.

I had never heard of a penalty for a hole in the glove. I think I had to rely on the next day's paper for an explanation of the penalty. I don't remember, but Mikita might have alerted the officials to the illegal glove. Whatever, Sather got a two minute penalty.

But Mikita wasn't finished tormenting the Rangers that night. The game is winding down, and it's tied. Games then ended in ties; no five minute overtimes; no shootouts till someone wins, just plain old tie games.

Someone on the Blackhawks takes a shot on goal. It misses, hits the boards behind the net, and comes out in front of Giacomin, a bad hop in baseball.

Mikita is in the slot, because he never stops playing, shoots and scores The Blackhawks snatch the tie game away from the Rangers, and leave the building adding two points to their standings.

A close examination the next day reveals the boards were not assembled right, and the bad carom was created by something out of alignment. Mikita of course was not out of position to take advantage.

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