Speaker 1: This is Leigh Habibe and this is Our American Stories,
Speaker 1: the show where America is the star and the American people.
Speaker 1: To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
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Speaker 1: Hockey is and always has been, a sport steeped in
Speaker 1: a culture of violence. Players have learned, however, to navigate
Speaker 1: the escalating levels of physical contact by adhering to an
Speaker 1: honor system simply known as the Code. Ross Bernstein, author
Speaker 1: of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation
Speaker 1: in the NHL, spent two years for searching this story,
Speaker 1: and he's here to share it with us. Let's think
Speaker 1: a listen. I grew up in southern Minnesota, which is
Speaker 1: not hockey country. This is wrestling in basketball country, not
Speaker 1: like northern Minnesota where they pull the kids out of
Speaker 1: the wombs by their skate blades, as they say. But
Speaker 1: as a ten year old kid, I watched the Miracle
Speaker 1: on ice and this rocked my world. I begged my
Speaker 1: parents to please let me go to the Herb Brooks
Speaker 1: hockey camp. He had a hockey camp that year for kids,
Speaker 1: and I went. I had to go buy skates all
Speaker 1: the stuff. I was the worst guy there. I won
Speaker 1: the most Improved award for the guy who sucks the most.
Speaker 1: But it got me into hockey, and I wound up
Speaker 1: becoming the star of the Fairmont Cardinal slash Domino's Pizza
Speaker 1: hockey team. We were so bad our high school wouldn't
Speaker 1: even sponsor us. We had to wear Domino's Pizza jerseys.
Speaker 1: That's how bad we were. But I got into hockey
Speaker 1: in a big way. And I had a choice to
Speaker 1: make as a high school senior small college football, or
Speaker 1: I could be a Golden Gopher. I want to go
Speaker 1: to the University of Minnesota. That was my dream. My
Speaker 1: family bled more in gold I fear from Minnesota. You
Speaker 1: know this means everything if you're not. This is like
Speaker 1: Texas football, Indiana basketball, rugby in New Zealand and me.
Speaker 1: We love hockey Minnesota. I got season tickets. It was incredible.
Speaker 1: And then I took this class. It was a one
Speaker 1: credit fied course called Introduction to Ice Hockey one O one.
Speaker 1: It was the class players taught to get their scholarships, allegedly,
Speaker 1: and I wanted becoming friends with a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: in the team, and I would invite him over to
Speaker 1: my fraternity parties that we'd hang out, and eventually they said,
Speaker 1: you know, Ross, you're not that bad of a hockey player.
Speaker 1: You should try out. You should walk onto the varsity.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, you're crazy, but they wanted me
Speaker 1: to do it, and I did it, and I lasted
Speaker 1: about ten minutes. I made it through a while, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to impress the coaches one day and
Speaker 1: I wound up taking out our star player or the
Speaker 1: team captain, Todd Richards former going to be an NHL
Speaker 1: player and coach, and apparently that is not the thing
Speaker 1: you're supposed to do. So I got cut. But they
Speaker 1: told me that I could become the team mascot, Goldie
Speaker 1: the Gopher. So I became the mascot. I had a blast.
Speaker 1: I was entertaining drunk fans, a lot of trouble, so
Speaker 1: much trouble that as a senior, a publisher approached me
Speaker 1: and asked me if they could write a book about
Speaker 1: all the trouble I had gotten into. Apparently it's not
Speaker 1: appropriate to throw craft cheese singles at the Wisconsin hockey
Speaker 1: players who knew cheese heads. But this got me into
Speaker 1: hockey in a big way, and I wound up begging
Speaker 1: my mom and dad to use my graduate school money
Speaker 1: to write and publish my own book about the history
Speaker 1: of Gopher hockey from Goldie the Gopher's point of view,
Speaker 1: and it became a cult best seller, and I got
Speaker 1: to interview hundreds of hockey players who would tell me
Speaker 1: these amazing stories and flash forward. You know, I've written
Speaker 1: almost fifty books since then. But along the way, I
Speaker 1: remember I was working on a hockey book and I
Speaker 1: watched this this fight where where Marty McSorley and Todd
Speaker 1: Bertuzzi had had gotten into this incident and they kept
Speaker 1: referring to it as the Bertuzzi incident, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know why it was. And I said that Bertuzzi had
Speaker 1: broken the Code, and I fancied myself, as you know,
Speaker 1: as a big hockey guy had written a lot of
Speaker 1: books at this point, and I didn't know what that meant.
Speaker 1: So I kind of went down this rabbit hole and
Speaker 1: it launched this book called The Code about the unwritten
Speaker 1: unspoken rules and what leads to fighting and retaliation in hockey,
Speaker 1: and it was just fascinating and I learned about these
Speaker 1: unwritten rules like All Star wrestling like no one talked
Speaker 1: about these things. There is no fight club. No one
Speaker 1: talks about fight club. And I wanted the interviewing all
Speaker 1: the players. And because I think I was a hockey guy,
Speaker 1: because I was, you know, a player at some level,
Speaker 1: and I was at all the charity golf tournaments. They
Speaker 1: trusted me and they were sharing with me, and one
Speaker 1: would tell me a story in the next and interviewing
Speaker 1: hundreds of players about why fighting exists. I never understood.
Speaker 1: It's the only sport that really allows fighting to exist.
Speaker 1: And it's been that way forever, going back, you know,
Speaker 1: years and years and years. The NHL always said they
Speaker 1: just allowed it. They said it was originally called fisticuffs,
Speaker 1: and they said it whereas other sports you'll get kicked out,
Speaker 1: in hockey, they give you a five minute fighting major.
Speaker 1: It's a part of the game. It's part of the
Speaker 1: cult the game. There's an honor code the players live
Speaker 1: by where the game polices itself. This honor code says
Speaker 1: that if you play like a jerk, you'll be treated
Speaker 1: like a jerk. It's the golden rule. Do something dirty,
Speaker 1: hit a guy from behind, take liberties to the smaller player,
Speaker 1: run a guy do something stupid. The honor code says
Speaker 1: you must be held accountable. That's why players really aren't
Speaker 1: allowed to wear face masks once they become professionals, because
Speaker 1: you have to be held accountable. There's a code. You
Speaker 1: can't hit a guy when he's down. You can't turtle,
Speaker 1: you can't dip your helmet as if to invite a
Speaker 1: guy to hit your helmet and break his knuckles. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's all these rules within the rules that dictate how
Speaker 1: you and when you can fight. It has to be
Speaker 1: you know, both guys acknowledging at each other. You can't
Speaker 1: jump a guy from behind the Linesmen have great liberties.
Speaker 1: The NHL has given them liberties as to how they
Speaker 1: can mitigate and make sure that no one gets hurt,
Speaker 1: and make sure that once it's over, it's over. That
Speaker 1: if someone doesn't want to be a willing participant, that
Speaker 1: they won't be. But you'll see, guys, you'll see it's
Speaker 1: when you on YouTube and see the audio when there
Speaker 1: is a fight, you'll see that it's it's very much professional.
Speaker 1: You'll do okayprol good luck, lids, good luck, then let's go.
Speaker 1: He says, that's unbelievable. Look at him, this smile on
Speaker 1: his face. They'll even give out like a flip flip
Speaker 1: the thumb up, like we'll flip the lids meaning okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, I got a broken finger, take your
Speaker 1: helmet off. It's like a respect thing. Marty mcsolier wound
Speaker 1: up writing one of the forwards for the book along
Speaker 1: with Tony. Twist would have had Bob Probert, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't around. Said that we had lost him, but send
Speaker 1: me down another rabbit hole again of interviewing. I wrote
Speaker 1: many books. I wrote a book with Derek Bougard. When
Speaker 1: he's playing for the Minnesota Wild. He remembered taking boxing
Speaker 1: lessons from this guy named Scott LaDue. Scott was a
Speaker 1: heavyweight prize fight fought Muhammad Ali Homes so he understood
Speaker 1: hockey leverage balance, but fighting body blows, how to leverage
Speaker 1: reach and it was so these guys were very technical.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code,
Speaker 1: the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL,
Speaker 1: who knew when we come back, more of this fascinating
Speaker 1: story here on our American Stories. You're in our American Stories.
Speaker 1: We bring you inspiring stories of history. Sports, business, faith
Speaker 1: and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
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Speaker 1: That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue here
Speaker 1: on Our American Stories with Ross Bernstein and author of
Speaker 1: the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in
Speaker 1: the NHL, and where he left off in his story
Speaker 1: discussing hockey enforcer Derek Booguard. Derek would go on YouTube
Speaker 1: every day and study tendencies. The poker tells what other
Speaker 1: guys would do is that if you know, if this
Speaker 1: is your job and you're not very good at it,
Speaker 1: you know you're you're not gonna be around very long.
Speaker 1: And back in those days he might have thirty forty
Speaker 1: fights a year, not like today where it's really changed.
Speaker 1: So going back in the history I'm weaving around, I apologize,
Speaker 1: but going back in the history, you know, back in
Speaker 1: the old Madison Square Garden, the promoters they were boxing
Speaker 1: promoters and they would rented an ambulance and they would
Speaker 1: drive it around Madison Square Garden with the sirens blaring, saying,
Speaker 1: the Boston Bruins are in town. It's going to be
Speaker 1: a blood bath. There was always a story like in wrestling,
Speaker 1: like the you'd get heat and you'd you'd build up
Speaker 1: this bad guy persona and then everything would come to
Speaker 1: blows and then the loser had to leave town and
Speaker 1: he'd go to another territory. Well that's kind of how
Speaker 1: it was, but it was real. They knew the last
Speaker 1: time wasn't found. You know, Tiger Williams got in a
Speaker 1: big fight and whoever, and they would dramatize it. The
Speaker 1: newspaper reporters loved it, and you know, the fans went crazy.
Speaker 1: If there was a fight, no one got up. They
Speaker 1: wouldn't go into the bathroom. They weren't buying a hot dog.
Speaker 1: They wanted to see it. And really, what's fascinating is
Speaker 1: is it It was a way to create momentum. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard in sports to create momentum. As a speaker,
Speaker 1: I talk about momentum and how businesses can create momentum.
Speaker 1: But in hockey, if your team's down to it and nothing,
Speaker 1: and a coach taps a guy in the back, or
Speaker 1: gives him a wink, or just gives him a look.
Speaker 1: He knows to go out there and take on the
Speaker 1: other guy's heavy weight, and if he wins, you know,
Speaker 1: the guys are going to bang their sticks in the
Speaker 1: boards and that's momentum. The crowd goes wild, or you
Speaker 1: silence the other team's crowd. Either way, it creates momentium
Speaker 1: and the players feed on that energy. It literally creates
Speaker 1: a home field advantage, and it's remarkable. They'll rally, they'll
Speaker 1: come back from two to nothing, then they'll win three
Speaker 1: to two, and you can credit that that fighter, that
Speaker 1: fourth line guy, in making the league minimum. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a really interesting story that I thought was brought
Speaker 1: to light in my book by Howard Bloom that I
Speaker 1: think really explains a lot. Jack Jackson with a couple
Speaker 1: of good left hands. Why is intimidation effectively changing the
Speaker 1: whole pace of a game? Because one somebody on your
Speaker 1: team gets hurt, that becomes a real preoccupation. Either makes
Speaker 1: you feel like a victim or makes you feel like
Speaker 1: it's time for revenge. The adrenaline level goes up, it
Speaker 1: changes the very hormonal sea on which hockey has played.
Speaker 1: Hockey's not just played on ice, Hockey's played on hormones.
Speaker 1: How that game goes is going to determine whether for
Speaker 1: the next week or month they are winners or hormonally
Speaker 1: and biologically they are losers. Without him doing that role,
Speaker 1: they don't win. So it's really remarkable. So they're the
Speaker 1: most respected players on the team. When I was getting
Speaker 1: to know Derek Bougard when he was in the Minnesota Wild,
Speaker 1: you know, they sold more Boogard jerseys than anyone else's
Speaker 1: jerseys because those guys are and they're teddy bears. They've
Speaker 1: all got that Jackal and Hyde persona. They're all the
Speaker 1: nicest guys off the ice, but on the ice their animals.
Speaker 1: Their job is to inflict pain and it's never personal,
Speaker 1: you know. Tony Twist said that he had knocked out
Speaker 1: the forefront teeth of the best man in his wedding.
Speaker 1: It wasn't personal. It's just business, you know. That's what
Speaker 1: they gotta do. And it's hard because you know, those
Speaker 1: guys as they get older. Marty McSorley, we'd we'd get together,
Speaker 1: you know, he could his hands barely worked because there's
Speaker 1: so many you know, they're just they were so much
Speaker 1: inflammation and arthritic. And you know, he'd say, you know,
Speaker 1: during training camp, they dreaded it because you'd have to
Speaker 1: play with what they would call the football players. And
Speaker 1: those are the guys who were the tough kids from
Speaker 1: medicine hat moose jaw monkedin. They knew they were never
Speaker 1: gonna make the team, so they gave him like their
Speaker 1: jersey numbers were like number seventy five. They were the
Speaker 1: football players. So these guys would come in and they
Speaker 1: would you know, you want to be the man, you
Speaker 1: gotta beat the man's They would say, very cordially, you know,
Speaker 1: mister mc sorley, i'm trying to make the team or
Speaker 1: you know, the minor league team. Could I please have
Speaker 1: a fight with you, sir. It's like, all right, you
Speaker 1: know what, kids, you're you're you're you're okay. You know,
Speaker 1: well we'll do it tomorrow. You know, at the end
Speaker 1: of the game. I'm okay, but I got a sore
Speaker 1: shoulders that don't don't don't come at me from this side,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna flip the lids because I gotta you know,
Speaker 1: and it's just amazing how it was very much just business,
Speaker 1: it wasn't personal. And Tony Tony Twist described this. It
Speaker 1: was fascinating. He described going to work every day like
Speaker 1: like I thought something that every guy could relate to.
Speaker 1: He said, it was like being in eighth grade junior
Speaker 1: high and the biggest bully in the school called you
Speaker 1: out and they challenge you to a fight, and they
Speaker 1: told everyone so in that bell ring at three o'clock,
Speaker 1: man at three or five, you had to be there.
Speaker 1: And that stress of knowing that you had to fight
Speaker 1: this guy at the end of the day. And every
Speaker 1: guy's been there right then, may have been in a
Speaker 1: fight in your life. You've been there, and you know
Speaker 1: what that's like. And they had to do that every day,
Speaker 1: and they know that if you were going to Chicago,
Speaker 1: he had to fight Proby and and the last time
Speaker 1: he fought probably he cut him. So now probably's angry
Speaker 1: and he embarrassed him. So now he's coming. He knows
Speaker 1: he's coming for you, and he knows during pregame warm
Speaker 1: ups it's coming like first period maybe first shift, right,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get it out of the way. And
Speaker 1: then and then there might be a rematch. Here's Bob Probert. Yes,
Speaker 1: at a certain point in my career, you know, I
Speaker 1: had a reputation as being one of the tougher guys
Speaker 1: in the league. So he either had players that would
Speaker 1: would come after you and try to make a name
Speaker 1: for themselves or would stay away. So you had a
Speaker 1: little bit of both. You know, it was a job
Speaker 1: that that was. It wasn't easy. You know, you didn't
Speaker 1: have to you know, if you're a goalscorer, you just
Speaker 1: have to worry about going out there and keeping your
Speaker 1: stats up, going out and trying to score a goal. Right,
Speaker 1: a fighter, there's a lot more too it. You got
Speaker 1: you're thinking. You're constantly thinking, okay, well who are we
Speaker 1: playing tomorrow? Who are we playing next week? Okay, next week,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to fight this guy. Um, you're always
Speaker 1: you're thinking that. It takes a lot, a lot, It
Speaker 1: takes a saw on. Yeah, And then they got to
Speaker 1: get up, right, so they're chicken in feed of me
Speaker 1: pain killers because they gotta get up with this. But
Speaker 1: then afterwards they got to come down because they got
Speaker 1: they want to read stories to their kids to go
Speaker 1: to bed, and they got to do it all again
Speaker 1: the next day. So it's this cycle. So so many
Speaker 1: of these guys get addicted to painkillers and it's tragic,
Speaker 1: but a lot of these guys that's their ticket. And
Speaker 1: it was fascinating. A lot of guys I met, they were,
Speaker 1: you know, four year college guys. These are smart guys.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like it was hockey or else. A lot
Speaker 1: of these guys, like Bougard, they left home and they
Speaker 1: were thirteen to go live with the Billet family in Saskatchewan.
Speaker 1: And that's your job. Like, if you don't make it,
Speaker 1: there's nothing else. You're going to the back, to the
Speaker 1: farm or the salt mine or whatever it is. So
Speaker 1: go out of college. Guys said, you know what, I'll
Speaker 1: take that role. The bottom line is you got to
Speaker 1: protect your skill players. And if other teams know they
Speaker 1: can take liberties with the skill players, they're going to
Speaker 1: come after him. I remember one of my a real
Speaker 1: good friend of mine, Neil Sheehy, who played about ten
Speaker 1: years for Calgary. And this is a smart guy. This
Speaker 1: guy went to Harvard Law School. He's an agent today
Speaker 1: for some of the best players in the league. But
Speaker 1: he learned that it's chess. He said, you know what,
Speaker 1: if I can go punch Gretzky and McSorley or Samenko
Speaker 1: will come beat the crap out of me, my team
Speaker 1: will gladly exchange me for Gretzky. So he'd do that
Speaker 1: all day, every day, and they figured out that ultimately
Speaker 1: became the Instigator rule that they literally they named kind
Speaker 1: of after him because he figured out an arbitrage a
Speaker 1: gray area where you could, you know, if you can
Speaker 1: get Gretzky to fight, will gladly take him off the
Speaker 1: ice because we got a chance to beat you. So
Speaker 1: it was really interesting learning about the history, the culture,
Speaker 1: the honor of sticking up for your teammates. It's the
Speaker 1: toughest role in sports, in any sport bar none. The
Speaker 1: fact if these guys typically don't fight their own fights,
Speaker 1: they're fighting for someone else. Someone takes out your star
Speaker 1: player knowing that they're going to have to go out
Speaker 1: with two minutes in the game, when they could just
Speaker 1: go home and go to bed, but now they're going
Speaker 1: to go have to get stitched up. I remember interviewing
Speaker 1: the old team doctor for the Montreal Canadian Ends. He said,
Speaker 1: if you a lot of times the team doctor, if
Speaker 1: they were traveling. They wouldn't pay him in money, they
Speaker 1: didn't have money. They'd pay him in booze. So you
Speaker 1: hope if you got caught it was like in the
Speaker 1: first period, because by the third period you were getting
Speaker 1: those Frankenstein stitches, like you know, cut six inches might
Speaker 1: came back yet four zippers. Right. So it's a fascinating
Speaker 1: look into a really unique part of what I think
Speaker 1: is the greatest sport in the world. I love it.
Speaker 1: I know you love it, Greg, something we both played
Speaker 1: it very passionate about. And you're listening to Ross Bernstein,
Speaker 1: author of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and
Speaker 1: Retaliation in the NHL, and as a hockey fan who
Speaker 1: spent many a night at Madison Square Garden watching the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Flyers brawl with the New York Rangers bullies. Now
Speaker 1: I understand they weren't bullies. They were protectors. The history,
Speaker 1: the culture, the honor of sticking up for your teammates,
Speaker 1: your star players is fundamental to the game. That's what
Speaker 1: we just heard from Ross Bernstein. Hockey is not just
Speaker 1: played on ice. Hockey is played on hormone. When we
Speaker 1: come back, more of these insights and so much more,
Speaker 1: and by the way America's passion for sports is unrivaled
Speaker 1: and the world's passion for sports is unrivaled. But there's
Speaker 1: something about going to an NHL game where all you
Speaker 1: see a different kind of passion than almost any other sport.
Speaker 1: More with Ross Bernstein here on our American stories, and
Speaker 1: we continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein, author
Speaker 1: of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation
Speaker 1: in the NHL. Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that really changed in
Speaker 1: hockey came at the advent of the early seventies when
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Flyers under Freddie Shirow really changed the rules.
Speaker 1: They were tired of getting beat up by the big
Speaker 1: bad Bruins. They just couldn't make any headway. So they decided,
Speaker 1: Freddie Shirow and decided they were going to put a
Speaker 1: fighter on every line Schulte and Moose DuPont, and they
Speaker 1: basically created an arms race. It became legendary. Players would
Speaker 1: always say they the bus would start shaking when they
Speaker 1: would go over the Whitman Bridge because the guys were nervous,
Speaker 1: because they knew didn't matter if you were on a
Speaker 1: fourth line or not. You were gonna have to fight.
Speaker 1: They would take on anybody and everybody, and they intimidated
Speaker 1: you and guys would get what they called the Philly flu.
Speaker 1: They'd say to the coach, oh, coach, I don't feel
Speaker 1: good that I yeah, yeah, right, because you don't want
Speaker 1: to lose any teeth. But they found this system through
Speaker 1: fear and intimidation to win, and it was brilliant. It's
Speaker 1: no different than Belichick creating his system. Great coaches figure
Speaker 1: out ways to win, and he worked within the rule book.
Speaker 1: They eventually changed the rules because of him, but during
Speaker 1: the time they were able to win two Stanley Cups.
Speaker 1: Since you're saying I wrote another book, was the guy
Speaker 1: named Glenn SayMore. Blenn was a legendary coach. He coached
Speaker 1: the Minnesota north Stars, and the north Stars had never
Speaker 1: beaten the Boston Bruins. They called it the Curse of
Speaker 1: the Garden. The north Stars had entered the league in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven as an expansion team, and all those years,
Speaker 1: the thirteen fourteen seasons, they'd never beaten the Bruins. The
Speaker 1: Bruins came to Minnesota, they were crushing them and Bruin's
Speaker 1: tough guy John Wensink came out and he challenged the
Speaker 1: entire north Star bench to a fight, and that one
Speaker 1: guy answered the bell and it killed Glenn. Glenn, it
Speaker 1: killed him, and that all season he said, I don't
Speaker 1: care if we win one game all year. We're gonna
Speaker 1: face the Bruins. We're gonna beat the Bruins. We're gonna
Speaker 1: fight the Bruins. So they go to Boston the next
Speaker 1: season and Glenn tells the guys, he says, not the
Speaker 1: third time, not the second time, but the first time.
Speaker 1: These guys trying to intimidate us. We go to war.
Speaker 1: So opening faceoff, Bobby Smith star the north Stars. He
Speaker 1: just won the Lady bing A Trophy, which is emblematic
Speaker 1: of the league's most gentleman player. Like Bobby never got penalties,
Speaker 1: he never fought before. But opening faceoff, one of their
Speaker 1: guys came up and he brought his stick straight up
Speaker 1: on the opening face off and cut Bobby's chin wide open,
Speaker 1: and he's bleeding like a pig. And Bobby looks over
Speaker 1: at Glenn, and Glenn looks at him, but fits up
Speaker 1: his fists and Bobby drops the mills and it's on.
Speaker 1: And this was a blood bath. It still stands as
Speaker 1: a record most penalty minutes. Ever, it was like four
Speaker 1: hundred and five penants. They almost couldn't finish the game
Speaker 1: because everyone either got ejected. It was unbelievable, and the
Speaker 1: Bruins killed the north Stars. They beat him, but afterwards
Speaker 1: Glenn had Champagne brought in to celebrate what he took
Speaker 1: as a moral victory that we finally stood up to
Speaker 1: the Bruins. And during the game he almost got thrown
Speaker 1: in jail because he threatened to throw chief of the
Speaker 1: head coach of Boston ripped his head off and given
Speaker 1: to him in a basket. I mean, it was just
Speaker 1: unbelievable what was going on, all the fights. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: as the hockey gods aligned that postseason, Minnesota went back
Speaker 1: to Boston the first round of the playoffs and they
Speaker 1: swept him. And they in that confidence of knowing that
Speaker 1: they could fight him, that they were able to face him.
Speaker 1: It was great. I wrote Glen's book. It was called
Speaker 1: Old Time Hockey. Actually went up writing a screenplay about
Speaker 1: a team he coached called the nineteen seventy seven Birmingham
Speaker 1: Bulls the Bullies. And you know, I wrote a book
Speaker 1: with the Handsome Brothers when there will be Slapshot. Dave
Speaker 1: Hanson was on that team all and Glenn basically traded
Speaker 1: away all their top talent on this team in the
Speaker 1: old WHA to sell tickets down And if you're in Mississippi,
Speaker 1: this is an Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, So it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: They would they and they would, they would sing instead
Speaker 1: of singing the national anthem, they'd sing Dixie and all
Speaker 1: these fans would come and it was a bloodbath every night.
Speaker 1: And it was just Glenn traded away all their great
Speaker 1: tellers and brought him all these tough guys and the
Speaker 1: fans loved it. But Glenn understood the business of hockey
Speaker 1: and how to sell tickets, and they were they were
Speaker 1: in the competition to sell tickets, and everyone wanted to
Speaker 1: keep their jobs. So it's fascinating, really fascinating stuff. Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: show us what you got. So I wrote this crew
Speaker 1: book called Slapshot Original, and I got to interview Paul
Speaker 1: Newman right before he died, and he said it was
Speaker 1: the most fun he ever had making a movie. He
Speaker 1: said they drank more beer during that movie than anything,
Speaker 1: and the Handsome Brothers who are legendary. If you haven't
Speaker 1: seen the movie Slapshot, please once this recording is finished,
Speaker 1: leave immediately and go and go watch it, because if
Speaker 1: you're any kind of self respecting sports fan, you've seen
Speaker 1: it at least one hundred times, so you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of catching up to do. Everybody, Gil Gil Gil.
Speaker 1: But it's a great movie. Horribly, horribly politically incorrect. You
Speaker 1: could never make a movie like this today. It offends
Speaker 1: every culture, race, creed, religion, sex, everything. It's an iconic
Speaker 1: movie of the era of the times. Man, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: Home County is just visibly upset by this display. Come
Speaker 1: on down again, places for the home games, bring the kids.
Speaker 1: We got entertainment for the whole family. At one point
Speaker 1: it was the number three rented VHS of all time.
Speaker 1: I say vhs, not DVD because I think it was
Speaker 1: behind Animal House and Stripes. So back in that era
Speaker 1: it was. It was a classic comedy, but really it
Speaker 1: was really art imitating life. They were imitating the broad
Speaker 1: Street Bully. They said, if we don't change hockey, it's
Speaker 1: gonna become a parody. It's gonna become nothing but fights.
Speaker 1: It'll be the old Rodney dangerfield. You know, I went
Speaker 1: to a fighting hockey game broke out, and you know
Speaker 1: it was after that, you know, that was that became
Speaker 1: the end. As we got into the eighties and those
Speaker 1: epic brawls of the bench clearing brawl, the line brawl,
Speaker 1: the instigator, you know, you wouldn't see guys jumping guys.
Speaker 1: And today it's a much more sanitized version. But everyone's
Speaker 1: roots goes back to those the glory days. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're a hockey purist, so you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: advocating fighting. I certain you know, I certainly don't advocate
Speaker 1: it for kids. There's your your PSA. But you know,
Speaker 1: in hockey, it's part of the game. And when you
Speaker 1: see a captain, when you would see you know, Mark Messier,
Speaker 1: a very respected guy, we're in the seat when you
Speaker 1: see those guys stick up for teammate and they dropped
Speaker 1: the mits and it's heat of the moment, it's it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It is because they're they're sticking up for their teammates.
Speaker 1: Or if someone you know, takes a cheap shot and
Speaker 1: they drop the gloves and they all at it and
Speaker 1: they and they and even say to their heavyweight, their enforcer.
Speaker 1: Their job is to protect them. They say, no, I
Speaker 1: got this. Even today, if the guy gets a Gordie
Speaker 1: Howe hat trick, which for your listeners that they don't
Speaker 1: know what that means. You score a goal, you get
Speaker 1: an assist, and you're getting a fight that that's like
Speaker 1: they're breaking out the champagne. I think the game is
Speaker 1: really changed. And you know, the head injuries, the postconcussion syndrome,
Speaker 1: the CTE, it's really taken a toll. And you know,
Speaker 1: back in the day, the guys like Gretzky had hit bodyguards,
Speaker 1: right McSorley, Simanco, you don't even you didn't even look
Speaker 1: a cross eyed at Gretzky, someone would take you out.
Speaker 1: But now a lot of the star players, the guys
Speaker 1: like said Crosby, they have to take a lot of
Speaker 1: those hits. Maybe not fights, but they're taking a lot
Speaker 1: of body blows and the concussions. It's a big problem.
Speaker 1: And the players see this now and football it's it's
Speaker 1: it's much worse with the CTE and the brain injuries,
Speaker 1: and football and hockey have a problem. I mean even football.
Speaker 1: For a company that owns a day the week, you
Speaker 1: know they need new customers. They're like big tobacco. Kids
Speaker 1: aren't quitting football, they're not starting football. That's a problem
Speaker 1: if you're in the football business. And we're seeing the
Speaker 1: same thing in hockey. I mean mostly that people don't
Speaker 1: play hockey because it's so expensive, but it's certainly become
Speaker 1: that way now, where everything about hockey is bigger, faster, stronger.
Speaker 1: You look at a guy like Dave Schultz, who is
Speaker 1: a monster back in the seventies at six foot one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty five pounds. I mean, when I was
Speaker 1: working on a book with Derek Bogard, Derek was six
Speaker 1: to eight two hundred and fifty pounds. Look at the
Speaker 1: Dano Chara. Look at some of these guys. They're beasts.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code
Speaker 1: the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NAHL.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we don't advocate fighting here at
Speaker 1: our American stories either, that's our PSA. But my goodness,
Speaker 1: as I was telling you about watching Schulte from the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Flyers, I was at some of those games. I
Speaker 1: was twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. I'll never forget them.
Speaker 1: So exciting, so exhilarating, and you knew from the time
Speaker 1: you stepped in the garden. Well, it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of when the fight happened. That was the over underbet
Speaker 1: at Madison Square Garden. When would the first fight start?
Speaker 1: When we come back, more of the history of the NHL,
Speaker 1: the role fighting played in it, and how it had
Speaker 1: to change to comply and comport with modern times. Here
Speaker 1: on our American stories, and we continue with our American
Speaker 1: stories and Ross Bernstein, author of the Code, the Unwritten
Speaker 1: Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL. Let's pick
Speaker 1: up where we last left off. Look at some of
Speaker 1: these guys. They're they're beasts, and they understand physics and
Speaker 1: trigonometry and angles and how to leverage and how speed,
Speaker 1: and how to really cause the maximum force with a punch,
Speaker 1: using on skates and grabbing a guy and pulling on
Speaker 1: one hand and punching on the other, and how to
Speaker 1: cause the biggest damage. And then you've add YouTube and
Speaker 1: places like Hockey Fights dot com which and and cell
Speaker 1: phone video. Now it's escalated because now guys fight, it's
Speaker 1: all on YouTube. And then they're going to vote who won,
Speaker 1: who lost. Well, now you want to you don't win,
Speaker 1: so you're bring a guy down. You know you're not
Speaker 1: going to land a knockout punch because they've got fight straps.
Speaker 1: It means your jersey's attached in the back, so you can't.
Speaker 1: You know, Bob Probert used to put Vassilina on and
Speaker 1: have a rip away volcro jersey. You'd grab him and
Speaker 1: his jersey was gone. Now you couldn't grab him. He's
Speaker 1: like a greased pig and he'd just pummeling you to death. Well,
Speaker 1: now it's all about leverage. So you got a guy now,
Speaker 1: and you want to bring him down because now it's
Speaker 1: about wins and losses. Who's gonna go on YouTube, who's
Speaker 1: gonna be at Hockey Fights dot Com? And these are metrics.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're an agent, you're gonna use these
Speaker 1: metrics to say, well, I had this many fights that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I want an elevator clause in my contract.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to get paid. I mean,
Speaker 1: when Barrett Bougard left the Wild for the New York Rangers,
Speaker 1: He's signed a multimillion dollar contract. Boogard had one goal,
Speaker 1: that's it. He was only there to fight. But they
Speaker 1: realized the value. It's like having a kicker. In football,
Speaker 1: if you don't got a kicker, you're you're you're not
Speaker 1: gonna win. And if you don't have a good fighter
Speaker 1: to protect your best players, even to send a message.
Speaker 1: You know, Tony Twist was so good that at one
Speaker 1: point he said he didn't even have to tie his skates.
Speaker 1: He was never going to go on the ice. But
Speaker 1: the other teams knew with him sitting at the end
Speaker 1: of the bench, no one was going to mess with
Speaker 1: their guys because they didn't want to face Twister. He
Speaker 1: was crazy, He'd he'd come out and kill you. So
Speaker 1: so just that it's like us and the Russians and
Speaker 1: with the nuclear bombs, we have them so that we
Speaker 1: never have to use them. And that's what these guys are.
Speaker 1: They're nuclear bombs. Sitting at the end of the bench,
Speaker 1: knowing that a guy goes I'm gonna I'm gonna think
Speaker 1: twice about cheap shot and a guy or finishing a
Speaker 1: check because I don't want that guy to come out
Speaker 1: and take me out and take out our star player.
Speaker 1: So it's tip for tat. That's how the code works.
Speaker 1: You take out our guy, we're taking out your guy.
Speaker 1: Same in baseball, Tony LaRussa manager. You take out our
Speaker 1: cleanup hitter, We're taking out your cleanup hitter. You our
Speaker 1: center fielder, We're drew in your center fielder. You pimple
Speaker 1: home run, you steal signs, you disrespect us, We're taking
Speaker 1: your guys out. There's always going to be cheating, gamesmanship, spygate,
Speaker 1: the fraight gate, sign stealing, you name it. Even in
Speaker 1: the World Cup, just saw these referee will come over
Speaker 1: and he'll spray paint. They have a little can't of
Speaker 1: spray paint. With a spray paint a little circle where
Speaker 1: that guy can put the ball for a free kick.
Speaker 1: You watch all the guys run over there and they
Speaker 1: try and kick that little circle, and they want the
Speaker 1: dirt all all fluffed up so that he can't get
Speaker 1: a clean shot. You watch him, they'll distract him. Those
Speaker 1: one guy, I'll pretend he's injured just so they can
Speaker 1: come kick it up. They're constantly trying to cheat. Everyone's
Speaker 1: cheating except golf. That's hill the sport where there's no cheating.
Speaker 1: But fighting is the ultimate equalizer. You cheat, you're gonna
Speaker 1: lose some teeth, spit and chicklets, as they say, and
Speaker 1: That's what keeps the game honest, is that when you
Speaker 1: have that level of respect and accountability, you knowing that, hey,
Speaker 1: if you cheap shot us, what cheap shot you? The
Speaker 1: game gets cleaned up. Look back in the seventies, when
Speaker 1: college hockey players didn't wear face masks, there was a
Speaker 1: lot less facial injuries, believe it or not, because you
Speaker 1: didn't see a five foot four guy cheap shotting some
Speaker 1: six foot two guy. He'd get killed. It was a
Speaker 1: level of respect without a face mask. You know, keep
Speaker 1: your stick down, you know, be responsible, don't don't run
Speaker 1: a guy, don't. But then when the face mask got
Speaker 1: put on, they were invincible. Now you see guys running
Speaker 1: around right, smacking guys because what do you into? Hit
Speaker 1: me in my face mask? Big deal. So, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, by keeping the face masks off, it cleans
Speaker 1: up the game and it makes it more more fair,
Speaker 1: and the players live by that honor code. You break
Speaker 1: that code, you're you're going to get it. And that's
Speaker 1: that's that's more sacred than anything in hockey, the code.
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting. I actually got to work with
Speaker 1: the Colorado Avalanche a couple of years ago. Patrick Waugh
Speaker 1: and Joe Sakic became good friends and they brought me
Speaker 1: in to work with their team and I got to
Speaker 1: spend a weekend with him at their retreat and it
Speaker 1: was interesting. But you know Patrick Waugh, and you know
Speaker 1: he was legendary fighting and that you know, the code
Speaker 1: says that you know, heavyweights fight heavyweights, middleweights fight middleweights,
Speaker 1: lightweights fight lightweights, and goalies fight goalies. You don't break
Speaker 1: that code unless a goalie totally says we're going to
Speaker 1: do it and then the linesman agrees, right, But otherwise
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't break that code. So if there's
Speaker 1: a fight, that means the two goalies are going to
Speaker 1: meet in the middle, and that's that's how it goes.
Speaker 1: But decency is a really important and it's it seems
Speaker 1: like hockey is so barbaric, but there are real rules,
Speaker 1: there are real laws. Some of these guys, like my movie,
Speaker 1: the book The Code, got turned into a movie with
Speaker 1: an Academy War Warning director. It's called The Last Gladiators
Speaker 1: and the kind of the star of the movie is
Speaker 1: Chris Nilan And Nyland was a guy. He was he
Speaker 1: was a small guy. You know, Nyland's barely six foot
Speaker 1: maybe maybe one hundred and eighty pounds, but he'd fight anybody.
Speaker 1: You know. He had the crazies right he was, and
Speaker 1: his teammates loved him. They adored him. In Montreal, he
Speaker 1: was just beloved and the fans loved him because he
Speaker 1: was just that guy who grew up with a chip
Speaker 1: on his shoulder and he didn't care how big you are.
Speaker 1: He'd fight you. And we all know someone like that, right,
Speaker 1: and we all love those protectors, those teddy bears who
Speaker 1: are going to take care of us. And someone hits
Speaker 1: our star player, and you could always expect Nilan to
Speaker 1: come off the bench and write what was wronged, but
Speaker 1: they do it in a decent way. They weren't clowns
Speaker 1: about it, right, they would they would do it. And nowadays,
Speaker 1: if you get a guy who clowns and they're not
Speaker 1: going to last long in the league, the codes will
Speaker 1: make sure that the justice is served. It's it's a
Speaker 1: crazy thing, but it's it's really interesting. Here again, is
Speaker 1: human behavior specialist Howard Bloom. Is there a virtue that's
Speaker 1: overlooked by those who look at hockey? You bet, but
Speaker 1: you don't know it until you step into the dressing
Speaker 1: room and interview one of these guys. You think that
Speaker 1: this guy is a monster. You think he has no
Speaker 1: compunctions about breaking arms, breaking legs, smashing out teeth. You
Speaker 1: think he's merciless, that he should be exterminated, he's a
Speaker 1: cockroach in the game. And then you sit down with
Speaker 1: him and discover that he has a most magnificent set
Speaker 1: of ethics at morals you have ever seen your life,
Speaker 1: and pursuing the question of the enforcer, pursuing the question
Speaker 1: of what it is to be human? What does the
Speaker 1: enforcer call on profound loyalty. Loyalty is so deep that
Speaker 1: he's willing to risk his own structure, his own body,
Speaker 1: his own bones, his own teeth, his own brain behalf
Speaker 1: of protecting people he deeply loves. The enforcer is the
Speaker 1: most ethical and moral member of the tribe because he
Speaker 1: is willing to undergo such incredible sacrifice. That's looking at
Speaker 1: it from the inside of the group. Looking at it
Speaker 1: from the outside of the group, the enforcer is the
Speaker 1: ultimate enemy, the super bad guy, and must be eliminated.
Speaker 1: But that's because you and I are looking at it
Speaker 1: from the point of view of another group. If we
Speaker 1: were looking at it from within the group that the
Speaker 1: enforcer defends, we would love the enforcer because the enforcer
Speaker 1: loves every single one of us so much he is
Speaker 1: willing to give his life for us. One of the
Speaker 1: last lines in the book, it's hockey is a interesting
Speaker 1: mixture of grace and disgrace. And you know it's true.
Speaker 1: You've got these beautiful, poetic skaters, just creative, free flowing
Speaker 1: down the ice with their long, beautiful walks of hair,
Speaker 1: using physics and angles and space or relationships to time
Speaker 1: perfect passes off the boards and understanding the beauty of
Speaker 1: an incredible tic tech toe goal. And then you've got
Speaker 1: the craziness of the fighting and the and the checking,
Speaker 1: and the and the and the chirping, and the instigators
Speaker 1: and the agitators and the side shows and the drama,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's just it's all part of it.
Speaker 1: It's it's what makes hockey hockey. And there's different levels.
Speaker 1: You know, I still play old man hockey and and
Speaker 1: beer league, and uh, there's still a level of decency
Speaker 1: and grace there. And if you disgrace someone and do
Speaker 1: something bad, you're still going to get it. There's guys
Speaker 1: an open hockey that are going to drop the gloves
Speaker 1: and you know, you'll you'll see a game in Nebraska
Speaker 1: where everyone gets a free small pizza Billy Bobs if
Speaker 1: there's a fight. So that's the kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: I think has no place in hockey, just for for
Speaker 1: that part, because these kids that they're none of them
Speaker 1: are going to make it as a fighter at that level,
Speaker 1: you know, So it's just for show, and it's just stupid.
Speaker 1: So I'm not a fan of that kind of fighting
Speaker 1: at all. But in the heat of the moment, when
Speaker 1: Jerome a Ginla gets cheap shotted or he sees one
Speaker 1: of his teammates gets cheap shot and he goes and
Speaker 1: grabs that guy and drops the gloves and faces him
Speaker 1: head on and he pummels him and knocks him down,
Speaker 1: that's respect. That's that's the grace of hockey. And I
Speaker 1: think that's always gonna have a place in the game
Speaker 1: because the players want it. If they didn't want fighting
Speaker 1: in hockey, they could eliminate it immediately. It would be
Speaker 1: gone tomorrow. You make it a ten minute major a
Speaker 1: game suspension, and I promise you there will be no
Speaker 1: more fighting. But it exists because the players see the
Speaker 1: value and the honor and it's just a really interesting
Speaker 1: part of the game and a truly fascinating story, which
Speaker 1: is what this program is all about. And a terrific
Speaker 1: job on the production by hockey efficionado Greg Hengler, who
Speaker 1: grew up in Minnesota, and the part where while they
Speaker 1: pull him out of the wounds and skates and a
Speaker 1: special thanks to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code, the
Speaker 1: Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL. I
Speaker 1: remember when Derek Bougard was signed by the Rangers to
Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar deal, headlines across the daily news about
Speaker 1: finally the Rangers getting the enforcer they deserved, and that
Speaker 1: insight about the enforcers actually making the game safer is
Speaker 1: something I really never thought about before. It's so counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: And also the honor code and the moral and ethical
Speaker 1: code of the enforcer, again, something I've never really thought about.
Speaker 1: Fighting is the ultimate equalizer. Bernstein said, It's what keeps
Speaker 1: hockey honest by keeping the face masks off. He also
Speaker 1: pointed out cleaned up the game. Hockey is a mixture
Speaker 1: of grace and disgrace. I don't think you could put
Speaker 1: it better. The story of NHL's enforcers here on our
Speaker 1: American stories.