Back in my Windsor days I went to an exhibition gm between CHI-DET. Saw this big kid on DET liked how tough he played and appeared to have skill. Looked at my program scanned down the list and found out he was from Windsor !!!!! So I went to talk to him after the game ..of course it was a young Bobby Probert. Very decent and soft spoken guy. Sadly he was sent down to AHL. But when the Wings were decimated with injuries and a horrible record he was called up . Talked to him after the gm and became quite close. I went over to his Mom's house , got along great with his brother Norm( a near mirror image of Bob-but with freckles and lighter hair)same tall , lanky frame. I made his first fight tapes for him a couple of 2 hr tapes. My best stuff.
Also knew
Joey Kocur, used to go to his apartment in Windsor and watch fights...he was funny , very excited..more so than any of my non-player friends. IMO he turned into a d!ck when he got really popular , unlike Probert. I heard from others he 's back to be a good guy now, that's good.
At this time I was at the gms all the time but the Hawks being MY team (except when Probie was on the ice LOL). I got to be pretty good friends with
Curt Fraser(traded some tapes),
Al Secord( except when I harrassed him about getting pounded all around the ice to Nilan..unforgivable in my eyes, talked to Jerome Dupont(he was cool), B.Wilson was extremely bright but very aloof( also he had no interest in fight tapes at all), I made fun of Steve Ludzig when I was talking to Fraser one night (Ludzig asked if I had any of his fights on tape I said " No no wresting just good fights" to which Fraser doubled over laughing his a$$ off.
I was wonder the JLA during a WASH -DET gm and ran into
Dwight Schofield ..we talked most of the gm..he was great, funny guy and was sooo prooud of his one win vs Brown. Scars all over this guys face..even his ears.
Also on separate occasions I met Larry Playfair..quite and didn't like to talk about fights too much.
Glen Cochrane ..turned out to be a great guy!! To my surprise he was genuinely nice and we even corresponded and he sent a photo of his baby (h ws a proud papa). He like Schofield was proud of a big win (vs Nystrom). But he felt B.Wilson was the best fighter he ever saw.
Cochrane introduced me to
Craig Coxe. This was about a week AFTER the Schofield fight..OUCH !! He had so many fresh cuts on his face.
Met D.Brown ( like Probie tall and lanky) dumb as a wall. Sorry Dave.
Got a fight tape from
Joe Paterson( I remember thinking 'why does this guy like fight tapes -he's a wrestler !!) . He sure proved me wrong , in his later days he got in some great fights.
Met Don Cherry walking through the tunnel to the JLA ...he was awesome..he loved Battleship Kelly and was not surprised Kelly was my favorite all time player. He said Kelly was the best fighter he ever coached. Although I heard he said that about Jonathan and Wensink. But he also said Kelly could play like all his tough guys....
My overall impression of the HW is they rarely get recognized and are surprised anyone knows who they are..especially on the road. Very approachable .