Grown Men Cried: The Story of The Last Hartford Whalers' Game
By Bill Strong
Grown men cried. That's the first thing I remember about April 13, 1997.
More than fourteen thousand people packed the Hartford Civic Center on a warm Saturday afternoon. It might have been one of the more emotional experiences in many of our lives.
I need to make a quick confession: I was not a Whalers fan. I lived and died and celebrated with the New York Islanders. Still do. But I am also a huge fan of hockey and I consider it the best sport there is. I really enjoy other sports, of course, but if I had to pick one, I am going to pick hockey every time. Every time. Nothing else is going to come close. While I didn't bleed green with the team, Whaler games were a way for me to see the NHL and all of the famous players I was always reading about. And I loved the Whalers for that.
Like many kids growing up in Connecticut in the '70s and '80s, the Whalers and the NHL were a constant in my life-every bit as much as perhaps the Huskies are now. Many of my most visited memories are of going to the Civic Center to see the games and to take in what was then a major league experience. The Whalers sort of quantified the state as a 'big league' player--New York had the Islanders and Rangers and Boston had the Bruins. Nevertheless, we had the Whale and we could hang with the big boys. Whaler Pride was not just a marketing slogan.
I am sitting here at my keyboard and I can vividly recall the first time I went to a Whaler game. I was about nine at the time and totally consumed with sports. I loved the Yankees more than I should have been allowed to and I loved the Giants, too. Hockey and the NHL was somewhat new to me, but I was showing an interest and my father, to whom I am eternally grateful, took me to the Springfield Civic Center to see the Whalers play the Islanders. I remember counting the days down until the game. I really could not wait.
The car ride along I-91 was, to a kid of nine, interminable. Dad tried to keep me interested and told me stories of players he had watched in his college days. The names of Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr meant little to me that day, but they mean so much to me now. All I could think about was seeing the ice. In fact, I think we could have left right after we peeked into the arena! But once I saw the shiny glow of the rink lights bouncing off the fresh sheet, I knew I was hooked. I saw plays unfold in front of me that I never could see on TV and the skill of all of the players totally blew me away. I remember watching everyone's skates and wondering how they could move so quickly and confidently on ice-which is slippery, by the way-all the while, another player is chasing them and trying to knock them down…or, worse.
After the holidays, the Whalers were able to move back to the Civic Center after the roof had collapsed (this could be the subject of a long essay in and of itself) and we had tickets to the return game, February 6, 1980 against the Los Angeles Kings. The astonishing upset of the Soviets by the US Olympic team was mere weeks away…and I kept an eye on the ceiling for most of the game. Adults joked about the roof possibly caving in on us, and I really didn't think it was funny. However, I do recall that the Whalers won that I had a heck of a good time sitting between my father and my grandfather. Sure, I was nervous, but the crowd was excited and the Whalers scored seven goals in their return. They beat the Kings and Marcel Dionne 7-3 that night.
*****
The last game was against the Tampa Bay Lightning, then a team to be taken, well, lightly. It really was of little significance to the standings and for sure, if the move had not already been announced, there would have been a heck of a lot less people in the rink.
Business in the Whaler Gift Shop was brisk. Anything with a Whaler logo on it was being sold, but the shop was almost empty. Unless you were there, it might be difficult to understand. Sure, there were lines all over the place and there was a serious frenzy going on, but it was all so well behaved…and quiet. Much too orderly for the amount of people who were crammed into that small of a space. It was one of those things that you recall for what wasn't there rather than what was; almost as if you ran into a high school friend that you hadn't seen for years at a wake. No buzz, no excitement, very low-key and respectful.
Inside the rink, the mood was pretty foggy, too. Smatterings of fans chanted, "Let's Go Wha-lers!" like they had for so many Adams Division games against the Bruins or Montreal Canadiens. I mostly did some people watching and wished that I was one of the little kids who had come along with their parents to the game, and didn't fully understand what was happening and that the Whalers were going for good.
They couldn't really leave, could they? I mean, we all had read the papers a couple of weeks beforehand. We all knew that the pony-tailed interloper from the Detroit area had forked over 20 million bucks to break his lease with the Civic Center. But he really wouldn't do it, would he? Was it just a scam that Karmanos was running when he said the team would stay if they sold 12,000 season tickets?
Turgeon was scoring goals in bunches (which was sort of how he played the game) and the team was improving. There was a bit of league-wide electricity about the team. They even sneaked into the playoffs after a fourth place finish and knocked the Adams Division champs, the Quebec Nordiques, out of the playoffs. That set up a seven game marathon with the Montreal Canadiens, which would end up as the highlight of the Whalers' NHL tenure. Montreal winger Claude Lemieux scored in overtime of that seventh game. Many still have not forgiven him for it.
When your team is doing well, it's surprising at how the little things that usually bother you just simply go away. As sort of the outsider looking in, I marveled at how the whole state had taken to the Whalers and embraced the team as they went to the Adams Division final in 1986. The players had every right to be proud. To go seven games in any series is remarkable. The sacrifices and determination it takes becomes a battle of grit and gut. The Montreal Canadiens did not beat the Whalers in that seventh game. No, the Canadiens simply outlasted them. Maybe it was experience of the Montreal players; maybe it was the mystique. Either way, the Whalers had battled and proven to the world that they could hang with a world-class team that would eventually capture the Stanley Cup behind the goaltending of St. Patrick himself, the legendary Patrick Roy.
The Stanley Cup playoffs are like no other in sports: injuries are forgotten or never even acknowledged. Rarely does anyone complain about playing time. Everyone is happy to play their role night in and night out in an effort to persevere until the very end, when 30-odd pounds of silver are raised overhead. The Whalers, lead by men like Ron Francis, were about to turn a corner. We all were so sure of it.
*****
It's amazing to think about some of the players who made their way through the NHL while wearing the Hartford Whaler crest: Gordie Howe, Mark Howe, Bobby Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Ron Francis, Mike Liut, and Kevin Dineen. Sadder still is to think about how most of those men found true success in the sweater of another team.
Number 19 hung from the rafters. It belonged to Johnny "Pie" McKenzie, the first fan favorite of the Whaler faithful in the WHA. Always seemed a bit odd to see that number up there, since Pie was best known as a member of the Boston Bruins. But when the WHA was starting out, they needed former NHLers to give them credibility, which of course came in The Golden Jet, Bobby Hull, when he signed the famous million-dollar contract with Winnipeg in 1972. Hull enjoyed the proverbial cup of coffee with the Whalers in 1979, the team's first in the NHL. His teammate was Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe.
Howe's number 9 was up there too. That one belonged for sure. He might have been best known as a Detroit Red Wing in the NHL, but Gordie and his sons Mark and Marty really helped legitimize the struggling WHA and made big league hockey important in the state. Many books have been written about Gordie Howe by people who know a heck of a lot more than I do about the sport. But let's be honest: Gordie Howe is either the best hockey player in history, or he is the second best. So, for what it is worth, here's my top five: Gretz, Gordie, Orr, Mario, and The Rocket. I am also proud to say I have seen four of these players play in my life and that I saw three of them play in the Hartford Civic Center.
"Brass Bonanza" always separated the Whalers and Hartford from the other teams. I've been to many rinks around the Northeast and only one has ever had a theme song for the home team. At times, I have to admit, I found the song annoying. That's probably because I was at a game where the Whalers beat Edmonton 11-0. That means we heard the song at least fourteen times that day, as they used to play it before every period. But now, whenever I find myself mindlessly whistling it, "Brass Bonanza" makes me smile. Still, how many of us remember that the Whaler braintrust retired the song for a year and played "Takin' Care of Business" instead? I had totally forgotten about that until a buddy reminded me. One of the most ill-conceived ideas in Whaler history; right up there with "Ron Francis for John Cullen" or those long green ski pants they wore in the early eighties. Whew.
The last twenty minutes of Whaler hockey seemed to take forever. The Lightning were clearly thinking about their summers and the Whalers seemed to carry the weight of the emotion as they skated with lead feet. It was not very exciting hockey for sure, but none of us wanted it to end. I still can remember telling myself not to look at the game clock. I refused to.
Whaler history ended as it should have, with captain Kevin Dineen scoring the last goal in franchise history. Dineen, who had two tenures with the Whalers, really embodied Hartford hockey. He was, in many ways, the true franchise. He was small but gritty and loved to compete. The Whalers were a small team (in relation to, let's say, the Rangers and Bruins, who had years and years of a legacy to fall back on) and they had to do that little bit extra to win over hockey fans in the northeast. It wasn't always easy and it wasn't always great, but the franchise kept plugging along and plugging along, often coming out of the corners with the puck, just like Dineen. He might not have won every one-on-one battle against the glass, but he sure as hell gave it his best.
After the final horn blew and the chants continued to fall onto the players, Dineen again did the little extra. As captain, he took a microphone and addressed the faithful. Sure, that sort of thing might have been expected, but it remains one of the classiest things I have ever seen in my life. The rink was silent as he, on behalf of the team, said goodbye. He said all of the right things about missing the state and how much he and the other guys enjoyed playing for the fans…and we believed him. Nothing in his game was ever taken for granted. Kevin Dineen was, to use a most overused sports cliché, a warrior.
The Whalers ended that 1996-97 season two points out of a playoff spot and in a strange way, that seemed almost appropriate. The little team that had to claw and scrape for everything they ever achieved seemed to come up just a bit short yet again and stayed true to their history and missed the playoffs for the last time. I guess it didn't really matter since they had already announced that they were leaving. Why tease the fans with a playoff run when there would be no momentum to build on the next season?
Maybe that is truly the Whalers legacy: always competing, sometime dangerous, but so very often falling just a bit short. As the Charlestown Chiefs, Cubs, and New York Jets have proven, the underdog occupies a certain room in all of our hearts. Many of us miss the Whalers every day. Perhaps that is why the Wolf Pack aren't quite the draw that they could be. Sure, the American League is not the NHL, but the Wolf Pack will never be the Whalers. Maybe we shouldn't fault them for that.
Everything looks better in the rearview mirror, and now, as the NHL emerges from labor Armageddon with a new world order, it's easy to sit here and wonder what might have happened if the Whalers had stayed in Connecticut. Well, the easy answer to that is that it was never an option. Peter Karmanos and Jim Rutherford thought they could do better in Carolina than they could in Connecticut.
The lasting legacy of the Hartford Whalers resides in the memories of all of the fans who rooted for players like Mike Rogers, Blaine Stoughton, Risto Siltanen, Glen Wesley, Garry Howatt, and Al Smith. It also lives in the fact that in many rinks that you go to, you'll always see a guy in an old Whaler jersey somewhere in the crowd. It has been my experience in Montreal, Long Island, New York City, and Philadelphia and its proof that the Whalers will never, ever fade away.
The Hartford Whalers (1979-1997) will always be remembered by their most loyal fans as Connecticut's last major professional sports team.
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Grown men cried. That's the first thing I remember about April 13, 1997.More than fourteen thousand people packed the Hartford Civic Center on a warm Saturday afternoon. It might have been one of the more emotional experiences in many of our lives.
I need to make a quick confession: I was not a Whalers fan. I lived and died and celebrated with the New York Islanders. Still do. But I am also a huge fan of hockey and I consider it the best sport there is. I really enjoy other sports, of course, but if I had to pick one, I am going to pick hockey every time. Every time. Nothing else is going to come close. While I didn't bleed green with the team, Whaler games were a way for me to see the NHL and all of the famous players I was always reading about. And I loved the Whalers for that.
Like many kids growing up in Connecticut in the '70s and '80s, the Whalers and the NHL were a constant in my life-every bit as much as perhaps the Huskies are now. Many of my most visited memories are of going to the Civic Center to see the games and to take in what was then a major league experience. The Whalers sort of quantified the state as a 'big league' player--New York had the Islanders and Rangers and Boston had the Bruins. Nevertheless, we had the Whale and we could hang with the big boys. Whaler Pride was not just a marketing slogan.
I am sitting here at my keyboard and I can vividly recall the first time I went to a Whaler game. I was about nine at the time and totally consumed with sports. I loved the Yankees more than I should have been allowed to and I loved the Giants, too. Hockey and the NHL was somewhat new to me, but I was showing an interest and my father, to whom I am eternally grateful, took me to the Springfield Civic Center to see the Whalers play the Islanders. I remember counting the days down until the game. I really could not wait.
The car ride along I-91 was, to a kid of nine, interminable. Dad tried to keep me interested and told me stories of players he had watched in his college days. The names of Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr meant little to me that day, but they mean so much to me now. All I could think about was seeing the ice. In fact, I think we could have left right after we peeked into the arena! But once I saw the shiny glow of the rink lights bouncing off the fresh sheet, I knew I was hooked. I saw plays unfold in front of me that I never could see on TV and the skill of all of the players totally blew me away. I remember watching everyone's skates and wondering how they could move so quickly and confidently on ice-which is slippery, by the way-all the while, another player is chasing them and trying to knock them down…or, worse.
After the holidays, the Whalers were able to move back to the Civic Center after the roof had collapsed (this could be the subject of a long essay in and of itself) and we had tickets to the return game, February 6, 1980 against the Los Angeles Kings. The astonishing upset of the Soviets by the US Olympic team was mere weeks away…and I kept an eye on the ceiling for most of the game. Adults joked about the roof possibly caving in on us, and I really didn't think it was funny. However, I do recall that the Whalers won that I had a heck of a good time sitting between my father and my grandfather. Sure, I was nervous, but the crowd was excited and the Whalers scored seven goals in their return. They beat the Kings and Marcel Dionne 7-3 that night.
*****
The last game was against the Tampa Bay Lightning, then a team to be taken, well, lightly. It really was of little significance to the standings and for sure, if the move had not already been announced, there would have been a heck of a lot less people in the rink.
Business in the Whaler Gift Shop was brisk. Anything with a Whaler logo on it was being sold, but the shop was almost empty. Unless you were there, it might be difficult to understand. Sure, there were lines all over the place and there was a serious frenzy going on, but it was all so well behaved…and quiet. Much too orderly for the amount of people who were crammed into that small of a space. It was one of those things that you recall for what wasn't there rather than what was; almost as if you ran into a high school friend that you hadn't seen for years at a wake. No buzz, no excitement, very low-key and respectful.
Inside the rink, the mood was pretty foggy, too. Smatterings of fans chanted, "Let's Go Wha-lers!" like they had for so many Adams Division games against the Bruins or Montreal Canadiens. I mostly did some people watching and wished that I was one of the little kids who had come along with their parents to the game, and didn't fully understand what was happening and that the Whalers were going for good.
They couldn't really leave, could they? I mean, we all had read the papers a couple of weeks beforehand. We all knew that the pony-tailed interloper from the Detroit area had forked over 20 million bucks to break his lease with the Civic Center. But he really wouldn't do it, would he? Was it just a scam that Karmanos was running when he said the team would stay if they sold 12,000 season tickets?
*****
"I marveled at how the whole state had taken to the Whalers and embraced the team as they went to the Adams Division final in 1986."The 1986 NHL All-Star game was in Hartford. Great game. I got to see all of the big players, including Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy, and Sylvain Turgeon. Damn roof nearly blew off the place when the Whaler phenom got an assist on a Bryan Trottier goal. Everyone in the crowd that day had to feel what I felt: that the mighty Whale were on the rise. I mean, the NHL had selected to have their All-Star game in Hartford, of all places!
Turgeon was scoring goals in bunches (which was sort of how he played the game) and the team was improving. There was a bit of league-wide electricity about the team. They even sneaked into the playoffs after a fourth place finish and knocked the Adams Division champs, the Quebec Nordiques, out of the playoffs. That set up a seven game marathon with the Montreal Canadiens, which would end up as the highlight of the Whalers' NHL tenure. Montreal winger Claude Lemieux scored in overtime of that seventh game. Many still have not forgiven him for it.
When your team is doing well, it's surprising at how the little things that usually bother you just simply go away. As sort of the outsider looking in, I marveled at how the whole state had taken to the Whalers and embraced the team as they went to the Adams Division final in 1986. The players had every right to be proud. To go seven games in any series is remarkable. The sacrifices and determination it takes becomes a battle of grit and gut. The Montreal Canadiens did not beat the Whalers in that seventh game. No, the Canadiens simply outlasted them. Maybe it was experience of the Montreal players; maybe it was the mystique. Either way, the Whalers had battled and proven to the world that they could hang with a world-class team that would eventually capture the Stanley Cup behind the goaltending of St. Patrick himself, the legendary Patrick Roy.
The Stanley Cup playoffs are like no other in sports: injuries are forgotten or never even acknowledged. Rarely does anyone complain about playing time. Everyone is happy to play their role night in and night out in an effort to persevere until the very end, when 30-odd pounds of silver are raised overhead. The Whalers, lead by men like Ron Francis, were about to turn a corner. We all were so sure of it.
*****
It's amazing to think about some of the players who made their way through the NHL while wearing the Hartford Whaler crest: Gordie Howe, Mark Howe, Bobby Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Ron Francis, Mike Liut, and Kevin Dineen. Sadder still is to think about how most of those men found true success in the sweater of another team.Number 19 hung from the rafters. It belonged to Johnny "Pie" McKenzie, the first fan favorite of the Whaler faithful in the WHA. Always seemed a bit odd to see that number up there, since Pie was best known as a member of the Boston Bruins. But when the WHA was starting out, they needed former NHLers to give them credibility, which of course came in The Golden Jet, Bobby Hull, when he signed the famous million-dollar contract with Winnipeg in 1972. Hull enjoyed the proverbial cup of coffee with the Whalers in 1979, the team's first in the NHL. His teammate was Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe.
Howe's number 9 was up there too. That one belonged for sure. He might have been best known as a Detroit Red Wing in the NHL, but Gordie and his sons Mark and Marty really helped legitimize the struggling WHA and made big league hockey important in the state. Many books have been written about Gordie Howe by people who know a heck of a lot more than I do about the sport. But let's be honest: Gordie Howe is either the best hockey player in history, or he is the second best. So, for what it is worth, here's my top five: Gretz, Gordie, Orr, Mario, and The Rocket. I am also proud to say I have seen four of these players play in my life and that I saw three of them play in the Hartford Civic Center.
*****
Two periods went by and everyone was somewhat numb. "Brass Bonanza" had been played at random times throughout the game and it was always met with appreciative applause. Still rousing choruses of "Let's go Wha-lers!' could be heard; as well as "Please don't go! Please don't go!"
"Brass Bonanza" always separated the Whalers and Hartford from the other teams. I've been to many rinks around the Northeast and only one has ever had a theme song for the home team. At times, I have to admit, I found the song annoying. That's probably because I was at a game where the Whalers beat Edmonton 11-0. That means we heard the song at least fourteen times that day, as they used to play it before every period. But now, whenever I find myself mindlessly whistling it, "Brass Bonanza" makes me smile. Still, how many of us remember that the Whaler braintrust retired the song for a year and played "Takin' Care of Business" instead? I had totally forgotten about that until a buddy reminded me. One of the most ill-conceived ideas in Whaler history; right up there with "Ron Francis for John Cullen" or those long green ski pants they wore in the early eighties. Whew.
*****
In front of me, two men in their fifties began crying as the third period began. I immediately noticed that there were other people crying in front of them. Right after the team was announced, "...Here are your HARTFORD WHALERS!" and "Brass Bonanza" began again. That's when I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach and I really wished my dad was with me at the game. I knew that watching the last Whaler game was something I should have done with my father. He's never been the biggest hockey fan but he has indulged me for my entire life. As I watched the third period warm up, I knew that I missed an opportunity to share this last Whaler memory with him and that I would be kicking myself for the rest of my life about it. That's what Whaler games were all about: fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, and generations of families and friends sharing common bonds and experiences.
The last twenty minutes of Whaler hockey seemed to take forever. The Lightning were clearly thinking about their summers and the Whalers seemed to carry the weight of the emotion as they skated with lead feet. It was not very exciting hockey for sure, but none of us wanted it to end. I still can remember telling myself not to look at the game clock. I refused to.
Whaler history ended as it should have, with captain Kevin Dineen scoring the last goal in franchise history. Dineen, who had two tenures with the Whalers, really embodied Hartford hockey. He was, in many ways, the true franchise. He was small but gritty and loved to compete. The Whalers were a small team (in relation to, let's say, the Rangers and Bruins, who had years and years of a legacy to fall back on) and they had to do that little bit extra to win over hockey fans in the northeast. It wasn't always easy and it wasn't always great, but the franchise kept plugging along and plugging along, often coming out of the corners with the puck, just like Dineen. He might not have won every one-on-one battle against the glass, but he sure as hell gave it his best.
After the final horn blew and the chants continued to fall onto the players, Dineen again did the little extra. As captain, he took a microphone and addressed the faithful. Sure, that sort of thing might have been expected, but it remains one of the classiest things I have ever seen in my life. The rink was silent as he, on behalf of the team, said goodbye. He said all of the right things about missing the state and how much he and the other guys enjoyed playing for the fans…and we believed him. Nothing in his game was ever taken for granted. Kevin Dineen was, to use a most overused sports cliché, a warrior.
The Whalers ended that 1996-97 season two points out of a playoff spot and in a strange way, that seemed almost appropriate. The little team that had to claw and scrape for everything they ever achieved seemed to come up just a bit short yet again and stayed true to their history and missed the playoffs for the last time. I guess it didn't really matter since they had already announced that they were leaving. Why tease the fans with a playoff run when there would be no momentum to build on the next season?
Maybe that is truly the Whalers legacy: always competing, sometime dangerous, but so very often falling just a bit short. As the Charlestown Chiefs, Cubs, and New York Jets have proven, the underdog occupies a certain room in all of our hearts. Many of us miss the Whalers every day. Perhaps that is why the Wolf Pack aren't quite the draw that they could be. Sure, the American League is not the NHL, but the Wolf Pack will never be the Whalers. Maybe we shouldn't fault them for that.
Everything looks better in the rearview mirror, and now, as the NHL emerges from labor Armageddon with a new world order, it's easy to sit here and wonder what might have happened if the Whalers had stayed in Connecticut. Well, the easy answer to that is that it was never an option. Peter Karmanos and Jim Rutherford thought they could do better in Carolina than they could in Connecticut.
The lasting legacy of the Hartford Whalers resides in the memories of all of the fans who rooted for players like Mike Rogers, Blaine Stoughton, Risto Siltanen, Glen Wesley, Garry Howatt, and Al Smith. It also lives in the fact that in many rinks that you go to, you'll always see a guy in an old Whaler jersey somewhere in the crowd. It has been my experience in Montreal, Long Island, New York City, and Philadelphia and its proof that the Whalers will never, ever fade away.
The Hartford Whalers (1979-1997) will always be remembered by their most loyal fans as Connecticut's last major professional sports team.
Related Links:
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