Caps Fire Hanlon, Name Boudreau (with serious digression into Spiders and Sharks history)

Japers’ Rink: Caps Fire Hanlon, Name Boudreau Interim Head Coach:

The Washington Capitals have relieved Glen Hanlon of his coaching duties and named Bruce Boudreau the team’s interim head coach, vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today.

Congrats to Boudreau! In the word of hockey trivia you didn’t know you didn’t know, Boudreau is another of the San Francisco Spiders alumni to actually have a career after working with the team. He was originally hired as an assistant coach under Jean “that’s now how we do it in the NHL” Perron. There was some kind of falling out early, and he was “re-assigned” into a role as a roving scout. What that entailed I was never sure of, other than it seemed to require that he never actually be in the same city as the team for the entire season.

Lucky him, he missed most of the fun watching the team implode…

Yes, the coach of the Spiders for its one year of existence was Jean Perron, former coach of the Montreal Canadiens, and as far as I can tell, the only coach of an NHL hockey team to win a Stanley Cup and get fired before the next season started. His favorite phrase around the Spiders offices seemed to be “that’s now how we do it in the NHL”; to which the general response was “Jean, you’re not in the freaking NHL, or hadn’t you noticed?”

Actually, it was mostly said behind his back. He was a bit…. touchy… to work around based on our discussions with everyone who were in the offices all of the time.

Seeing Boudreau pop up into the NHL again got me thinking about the Spiders and some of the people involved with the team. I found the roster here on hockeydb.com.

The roster is this fascinating mixture of ex-sharks (trying to capitalize on the fans name recognition), career IHLers looking for one last shot, a few youngsters seeing this as a way to push their careers and some projects from the Montreal Canadiens organization that Perron convinced them to let him have.

Link Gaetz (mentioned the other day) was well on his way past his ability to play hockey at a high level, he only suited up for three games. His fight with alcohol in his life is well-known, unfortunately, alcohol kept winning. When he was with the Sharks, he as almost a prototype of the kind of player you now see in the league with Brashear or Laraque — big, bruising, tough and could actually play some pretty decent hockey. When the knuckles weren’t swollen and bleeding, he had pretty decent hands, and could have had a pretty good career. Unfortunately, off-ice he was pretty much a basket case, and when he had the car accident, that pretty much defined his life and ended any serious NHL career change; it happened around 10AM when the car he was in exited the freeway at way too high a speed and lost control. Gaetz was ejected (no seatbelt) and tried to pulp his brain on the asphalt — and almost succeeded. The accident was alcohol-related (yes, that early in the morning), but the alcohol may also have helped Gaetz survive by keeping him limp during the ejection and landing. He was passenger, not driver, by the way. There were questions at the time, given the severity of the brain damage, whether he’d walk again. He did, but his skating was never the same; by the time he was with the Spiders, he simply didn’t have the mobility any more, he was basically a “stand up and swing” type of guy like Dave Brown.

I normally don’t link to fight videos but this one *is* the Linkster; a classic bout between him and Probert at the Cow Palace. Look very closely as Link exits the arena at the end of the clip, and you’ll see Laurie and myself — our seats were right next to the team tunnel.

The stories about Link in San Jose are legion — no other player was such a fan favorite in the early days, or so legendary, and while much of what you hear through the fan grapevine on most players is bullshit, with the Linkster, you could see it happening. It’s not unusual for some players to get a rep for howling at the moon a bit, but Link had the reputation for climbing trees to try to beat the moon up because it was staring at him… The only other player with the Sharks that had that kind of “did you hear what he did this time?” rep among the fan rumor mill was Brent Myhres…

Linkster only played 3 games for the Spiders — and had 38 PIM. That pretty much sums it up.

Sandis Ozolinsh also played for the Spiders; it was the year after the lockout that the Spiders came into existence, and Sandis was holding out for a new contract. He played two games for the team, and scored the first goal in franchise history — then signed a contract with the Sharks, drove south 90 minutes, and suited up in teal again, and scored the Sharks first goal of that season. That’s probably a record that won’t be matched soon…

Other ex-sharks? Dale Craigwell, who was a really promising center for the team early on, until he broke his ankle badly; his major asset was speed, it never fully recovered, and he ended up with the Spiders and played admirably, but he’s another player that injuries hurt a promising career.

Also on the team — Robin Bawa, who also played for the Ducks, and was one of my favorite early Sharks. Not the most talented guy, but was willing to do whatever it took, including fight, although he wasn’t particularly good at it. The kind of lunchbox/character guy teams need. David Maley, who played for the team primarily because he was trying to start up a hockey business in San Jose and wanted the publicity. He’s now a Shark part-time broadcaster when Jamie Baker isn’t in town, and his Rollin’ Ice is doing just fine.

Ed Courtenay was most notable for his lack of speed. One of the most infamous calls in hockey was by Dennis Hull (who did color for the Sharks early on…) when a puck kicked free and Randy Hahn called out “It’s a breakaway!” and Hull responded “No, it’s Courtenay!” — and he was right. He got caught. But Courtenay had a good minor league career, and was closing it out with the Spiders.

Mike Lalor was another guy who wandered through San Jose for a bit, then came back with the Spiders until the Dallas Stars took him on. And Jeff Madill was a Sharks cup of coffee and minor leaguer who came and played for the Spiders. He was one of the team’s clothes-hounds (along with Ian Boyce), and would have given Drew a run for “best dressed” most of the time. He was also the one player who not only was very aware of the photographers around the rink, but would smooth the wrinkles out of his jersey before a faceoff if he thought someone was going to take photos. Seriously. Martha Jenkins (SF Chronicle, SF Giants) was the official team photographer (and hockey seriously scared the crap out of her, I’m not sure she ever got comfortable being inside the glass shooting — don’t blame her, either), but Laurie and I had full press passes, and she did a lot of photography as well — so she got very familiar with Madill’s ability to get in a picture and get out the wrinkles…

Madill finally retired, and last we heard, was selling cars somewhere in the midwest. Good, solid minor league hockey player, and I’ll bet his suits still have no wrinkles….

And that’s probably enough for now, but since I mentioned Laurie’s photography, it means I probably need to write about how she ended up scouting goalies for Ian Boyce, and the night Dan Shank tried to pick her up — while the game was going on.

Ah, the joys of minor league hockey…

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