Tough Guy Encounters

[bustoff]

Kimble was the nicest. Twist was a dik. Chase kind of stand offish. Todd Ewen another truly nice guy.Didn't get to talk to Vial as he was on his way out chugging a 2x4 but said hi. Kaminski was pretty decent.

[mikebflorida]

Got to meet Poescheck, Brantt Myhers, Tie Domi, and Nick Kypreos after a Leafs-Lightning game and asked Nick how he did against Paul Laus the night before and he smiled and said "pretty good". All 4 were very polite though I don't think Myhers said 2 words, hello and goodbye maybe. I told them how much I respected what they did and even though they get to play hockey for a living and get paid a lot of money for it, it is still a tough, tough job, especially for enforcers.

Later on I met Dingman, Roy, and a bunch of other Lightning players before and after games during the cup winning year and had Andre Roy dump a beer over my head after game 7 with the Stanley Cup not 10 feet away, easily my greatest sports highlight. being IN the locker room after my favorite team wins the cup? It doesn't get any better than that thanks to Pavel Kubina.

Great memories, hockey players are easily the nicest athletes I've encountered, football players are retards by comparison.

[GOON 21]

Originally Posted by 2,5,10GameMatch

Bobby Babcock, Scarborough boy.

Yea thanks 2,5,10 he was a big round kinda guy if that makes sense lol


Im 90% positive that they also had Matt Johnson in a pre-draft camp of some type, maybe brought him in for a day or 2 before his draft (1994) I remember a checking the names on peple who checked into the hotel and to be honest im not 100% sure, but i really thought it was Matt Johnson who they brought in for a day or 2 interview type thing


Shyt i also have a quick story about talking to coach Keenen a lil bit about hockey and some tough guys and about a magazine i had and he asked me to see it so and showing him the 'agressive hockey report' (I slid it under his door) and he comes down the lobby the next day or so and sits in the hotel lobby couch and gives me back the magazine and saying "the grim reaper, the grim reaper' just loud enough that its just the 2 of us who hear it and smirking at me


Theres a bunch more, maybe ill start a seprate thread on a few more 1 day

[tyler1]

double post...

[tyler1]

Over the years, I have conversed with several of the Bluejackets brawlers: Shelley, Boll , Dorsett & others.

Mostly at golf courses or chance meetings at a bar / restaurant.
All 3 of the above guys listed are great guys and very accomodating to spend a few minutes to say hello , take a photo and on occassion , have a beer.

It goes without saying, if you present yourself with class and dont act like an a$$hole , those guys will be happy to say hello. If you act as a douche or a loud drunken idiot , dont expect much.

A couple of years ago , I met The Stache at a Hyde Park restaurant located downtown. We had a brief , but amusing conversation about Ivy League schools versus Big Ten schools. (hell of a nice guy)

[I like Boobs]

Probert, Langdon, Don Cherry, Keith Primeau, Lindros, Darren McCarty, Grant Marshall, Forbes Kennedy, Gerard Gallant, Phaneuf, Hartnell, Simmonds, Georges Laraque, Darcy Simon, Jimmy Bonneau, Cody Doucette, Stan Smyl, Paul Laus, Al MacAdam.

All pretty good guys for the most part.

[furiousBall]

My son and I have gone to the Flyers' Wives Carnival the past couple of years and the tough guys are ALWAYS the most friendly.

Jody Shelley (pic) thanked my son and I over and over again for getting our picture with him at the carnival a couple of years ago. He had 60 stitches in his forehead from a fight (this scrap with Yonkman) a few days before.

Dave Schultz was maybe a little stand-offish, but it's hard to really judge a guy when he's shaking hands with thousands of people in such a whirlwind. Bob "The Hound" Kelly was awesome, my son plays at the rink in Voorhees, and The Hound will most likely approach you before you realize who he is. Such a nice dude.

Zac Rinaldo was very cool and he liked my idea of posing with him grabbing my jersey, with both my son and Zac throwing a punch at me for the photo (pic). Zac offered to sign my son's jersey without him even having to ask (kind of a no-no during the carnival).

Riley Cote (pic) has been incredibly kind every time I've seen him. We went to an autograph signing out in Willow Grove, PA and he talked to us forever. He also shared a video (link) on both his Facebook page and his Twitter account I made for my running the Philly Marathon on behalf of the Epilepsy Therapy Project (and for my fiancee, an epileptic).

But the best was when we met Todd Fedoruk... Fridge was supposed to be part of alumni row at the carnival this past year and it turned out he had to leave early to coach the Trenton Titans. I sent Fridge a tweet asking if he does any signings in the area. He responded immediately and saw that I live nearby and offered to come surprise my son's ice hockey team by showing up in the locker room at their next game. The Titans' schedule got in the way again, but he asked if we could meet up at a Starbuck's nearby. Fridge showed up and holy cow, this guy was so generous with his time. He sat with us for nearly an hour. He talked about all of his big fights, showed my son the scars on his face from the broken bones. Here was this professional athlete that has a family of his own, just taking a chunk out of his Saturday just to talk to a fan. Seriously blown away. I posted a blog (link) about meeting Fridge, and Todd even retweeted the link to Lappy and Tocchet too!

Sorry this was long, but I am seriously impressed with how hockey players take time out to connect with their fans.

[battleship25]

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 .

[mikebflorida]

That's great stuff from all of you guys.

I totally forgot that i met Don Cherry and Ron McLean before game 7 of the cup final with the Lightning and Flames. They parked right next to us in a special lot for VIP's and we got out of the car at the same time and I look over and there he is and I said without missing a beat- "Hi Grapes"

He was very friendly, shook my hand, and was polite. I don't remember anything else we talked about on the way into the arena, just chit chat but it's just cool to meet a guy like that who is genuinely nice versus someone like Warren Sapp who thinks his shyt doesn't stink and that fans are just a pain in the butt rather than the people who actually give him a reason to exist. Cherry was just a regular guy despite being very famous and outspoken.

Besides tough guys, I've met plenty of other Lightning players and I'd say 98% of them were very cool with a few exceptions, Dave Andreychuk wasn't very friendly when he played, his wife was way worse, lol, St Louis was super nice, Vinny Lecavelier was very friendly, easy to talk to, and I shocked his father when I actually knew why Vinny wore number 4, it was Jean Beliveau's number and his dad was a huge fan, I don't think he could believe an American in Florida would know squat about hockey. After that, he wouldn't stop talking ! LOL Very nice people.

[lilburtis9363]

Originally Posted by mikebflorida

That's great stuff from all of you guys.

I totally forgot that i met Don Cherry and Ron McLean before game 7 of the cup final with the Lightning and Flames. They parked right next to us in a special lot for VIP's and we got out of the car at the same time and I look over and there he is and I said without missing a beat- "Hi Grapes"

He was very friendly, shook my hand, and was polite. I don't remember anything else we talked about on the way into the arena, just chit chat but it's just cool to meet a guy like that who is genuinely nice versus someone like Warren Sapp who thinks his shyt doesn't stink and that fans are just a pain in the butt rather than the people who actually give him a reason to exist. Cherry was just a regular guy despite being very famous and outspoken.

Lucky bastard, I have always wanted to meet Don Cherry

[mikebflorida]

Originally Posted by lilburtis9363

Lucky bastard, I have always wanted to meet Don Cherry

It was my destiny to meet him apparently. We'd been driving around trying to figure out which lot to park in for about 15 minutes so for us to get there at the exact same time and park right next to each other? Pure luck.

I'm not an autograph hound or a picture taker so I have almost no evidence of my encounters with famous athletes. That's ok though.

[Blues 34]

Originally Posted by Joser Jose

Years ago there used to be a magazine exclusive to NHL heavyweights. It came out in the preseason and they ranked the top 25 heavyweights in the league with a profile of each ranked fighter. My buddy worked at the arena with me and he made it a goal to get each of fighters autograph on their profile page. He got everyone but Twist and Baumgartner by the way. The funniest autograph story o
in his mission was how he got Mark Janssens. He asked Sanderson if he could get Janssens for him and Sanderson thought that was hilarious. He told all the boys around him that Janssens had an autograph request and they were all shocked. I guess Janssens didn't get too many of those. He was pretty cool and thought it was awesome he made the top 25 but even more awesome that someone made Sanderson fetch him for an autograph!

I think I remember those magazines they were called hockey chronicles and they put out a tough guys edition every year. The last year I can recall seeing it they had Scott Parker ranked at 25 and he was still playing at Kelowna in the WHL

[Joser Jose]

They had Odgers ranked 25th one year. Us San Jose folk were as proud as ever that old Odgie got that recognition!

[Blues 34]

Originally Posted by Joser Jose

They had Odgers ranked 25th one year. Us San Jose folk were as proud as ever that old Odgie got that recognition!

I like Odgers, but I am partial to the guys who fight balls to the wall and just grab on and throw. Sure they take more losses but they are a lot more fun to watch

[frankie515]

Godard when he was in Bridgeport. Heck of a nice guy and had the fortune to meet him twice once in a restaurant in Milford then in a bar in South Norwalk.