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TABLE TALK: Behn Wilson Discusses His Book And Philadelphia Flyers Career · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

0:29
Speaker 1: Welcome to Table Talk here at the Philadelphia Sports Table
0:31
Speaker 1: podcast show, the longest running weekly Philly sports podcast show
0:35
Speaker 1: in the.
0:35
Speaker 2: World thirteen years strung.
0:37
Speaker 1: We got a great discussion, a very special discussion come
0:40
Speaker 1: your way on Table Talk this week we have with us.
0:44
Speaker 1: He was the sixth overall pick in the nineteen seventy
0:47
Speaker 1: eight NHL Draft. Again number six overall pick by the
0:50
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Flyers, Ben Wilson coming on to talk about not
0:55
Speaker 1: only his book, but his experience growing up in the
0:58
Speaker 1: world of hockey becoming a Philadelphia Flyer. Ben, Buddy, thanks
1:03
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time. It's great to see you.
1:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Jeff, I'm excited to be here and thanks
1:07
Speaker 3: for having me.
1:08
Speaker 2: It's great to have you on.
1:10
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you, Ben, I like having former
1:13
Speaker 1: professional sports players on the PST podcast show when we
1:17
Speaker 1: do have the opportunity, because you all are able to
1:20
Speaker 1: kind of sit back and be a little honest about
1:23
Speaker 1: your career, about stories things like that, not that well,
1:27
Speaker 1: you know, current players, there's a lot of canned responses
1:31
Speaker 1: every now and again, and it's just it's just more fun.
1:33
Speaker 1: It's more fun to talk to individuals who have played
1:37
Speaker 1: professional sports and their particular with their particular team, and
1:41
Speaker 1: just what their experiences were. And and you know when
1:44
Speaker 1: I when I like to interview former professional sports players,
1:48
Speaker 1: I always like to ask right off the bat as
1:52
Speaker 1: they got into playing their particular sport from a very
1:56
Speaker 1: young age, and I like to ask them if there
1:58
Speaker 1: was a particular moment in time that they remember the
2:01
Speaker 1: sport just being so important to them.
2:04
Speaker 2: And in your.
2:05
Speaker 1: Book, you talked a lot about your own personal ice rink,
2:09
Speaker 1: like right off the bat in the book, I thought
2:11
Speaker 1: it was fascinating, which is you know which which really
2:15
Speaker 1: had so many various experiences for you. So I'm wondering
2:18
Speaker 1: what was that particular light switch moment for you as
2:21
Speaker 1: a kid when you said to yourself, you know what,
2:23
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do with my life,
2:26
Speaker 1: and this is what I want to do to work
2:28
Speaker 1: towards it. What was that light switch moment for you?
2:31
Speaker 3: Well, mine, I think was a little bit different than
2:33
Speaker 3: a lot of guys. When I was younger, my parents
2:37
Speaker 3: had us in every sport you can imagine, and it
2:41
Speaker 3: didn't matter what it was. You know, it's a sport,
2:43
Speaker 3: you go play it, and you know you time to
2:46
Speaker 3: go to bed and you stop. And we played sports
2:49
Speaker 3: and differency growing up in Canada. Obviously hockey was the
2:54
Speaker 3: biggest one, but you know, I loved I loved any sport.
3:00
Speaker 3: One day, my dad came to my brother and I said,
3:03
Speaker 3: you know, they have a professional lacrosse indoor box lacrosse league.
3:07
Speaker 3: You know, you play there and they'll pay your way
3:09
Speaker 3: through college. And so now we're putting a little emphasis
3:13
Speaker 3: in lacrosse. And it couldn't have been and you know,
3:18
Speaker 3: who knows all these years ago, but it could have
3:21
Speaker 3: been like a month later. Two months later, the league
3:24
Speaker 3: folded and my father said, you don't you don't have
3:26
Speaker 3: to worry about lacrosse. You know what, I think we
3:28
Speaker 3: should focus on hockey. And to me, it didn't matter
3:33
Speaker 3: any sport. You know, it's like a dog chasing a stick.
3:37
Speaker 3: If there is a ball, a puck, anything, I'll do
3:43
Speaker 3: it forever. So we started playing hockey seriously and started
3:47
Speaker 3: skating a lot, and then it got like anything else.
3:52
Speaker 3: The game was great, and then it became harder and
3:56
Speaker 3: harder and more and more competitive and more and more serious.
3:59
Speaker 3: And that was that was that was just part of
4:02
Speaker 3: what you had to do. And you know, if you
4:05
Speaker 3: if you don't want to take it seriously, you don't
4:06
Speaker 3: want to practice more than you know, and that's perfectly fine,
4:11
Speaker 3: but it doesn't get ye professionally.
4:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, And folks, the book that we are referencing, Ben's
4:18
Speaker 1: book Gloves Off, mostly true stories from my life in hockey.
4:24
Speaker 1: We're going to have a link in the show notes
4:26
Speaker 1: where if you want to purchase this book you most
4:28
Speaker 1: certainly can. It is a great, great read. And you know, Ben,
4:32
Speaker 1: I think most of us have moments when we're young
4:36
Speaker 1: where we kind of question what we're doing, where life
4:39
Speaker 1: is actually taking us. And I'm wondering, was there a
4:42
Speaker 1: moment of uncertainty in your young life, you know, before
4:46
Speaker 1: the NHL, before the Philadelphia Flyers, before the Blackhawks, when
4:50
Speaker 1: you questioned yourself maybe about staying with hockey, where you
4:54
Speaker 1: kind of took a step back and said, is this
4:57
Speaker 1: really what I want to do? I mean, was there
4:59
Speaker 1: a moment maybe you could share that might have happened.
5:03
Speaker 3: You actually brought up two points, and if I don't
5:06
Speaker 3: forget the one you just said, part of writing the
5:10
Speaker 3: book was exactly what you said. The current players are
5:13
Speaker 3: really in a tough spot. You ask them a question
5:17
Speaker 3: and if they say the wrong answer, they're going to
5:19
Speaker 3: get getting suited. It may be the truth, but they're
5:21
Speaker 3: going to get and it's not worth it to them.
5:23
Speaker 3: And you know, you learn, you know, hopefully quickly, but
5:29
Speaker 3: you know, you learn to watch yourself. And part of
5:32
Speaker 3: the reason my writing the book is now you get
5:34
Speaker 3: to say all the things and and and they're not
5:38
Speaker 3: all bad, right, all bad. In fact, I think my
5:41
Speaker 3: book's very positive.
5:42
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:44
Speaker 3: Uh. And the other thing is that I have doubts.
5:50
Speaker 3: I was fortunate. I was good at pretty much every
5:53
Speaker 3: sport and hockey because everyone in Canada plays hockey. I
5:59
Speaker 3: was good, but I wasn't in the top tier. So
6:03
Speaker 3: are there doubts? And you say, that guy's just faster
6:07
Speaker 3: than me, that guy is more mobile than me, that
6:09
Speaker 3: guy does this and that, and so I went into
6:14
Speaker 3: this with a series just how do you catch up
6:18
Speaker 3: and game? Basically, the guys didn't do other things, but
6:21
Speaker 3: you skate two hours a day, nine months a year,
6:24
Speaker 3: and my two brothers and I we skated six hours
6:27
Speaker 3: a day twelve months a year. Wow. So you know,
6:32
Speaker 3: and you say, wow, that's a huge advantage. That was
6:36
Speaker 3: a huge advantage to try to catch up yeah, And
6:40
Speaker 3: if you can imagine, you know, you're skating all that,
6:43
Speaker 3: you're getting better, you're getting faster, you're better at the
6:45
Speaker 3: bucket of this, and then you go on the ice
6:48
Speaker 3: and you see some guy in junior hockey he's just
6:51
Speaker 3: so much better than you'd say, you know, I mean,
6:54
Speaker 3: is there any hope? Is there any hope? And it
6:58
Speaker 3: was it was I got to get the next step.
7:04
Speaker 3: I got to get the next step. I got to
7:06
Speaker 3: get the next step. And you're doing in the meantime,
7:09
Speaker 3: you're doing anything including fighting to the team so that
7:14
Speaker 3: they put you on the ice. And if I could
7:17
Speaker 3: digress a little bit, you know, when I was drafted
7:19
Speaker 3: in the second junior, my first year at the bench,
7:24
Speaker 3: you know, at the end of the game, they sent
7:27
Speaker 3: me out to go fight someone, and you either do
7:30
Speaker 3: that or you're not even on the team, right and that,
7:34
Speaker 3: and then while I'm doing that, you just doing all
7:36
Speaker 3: the sexer skating, just trying to catch up. And I
7:40
Speaker 3: would tell everyone that I think hard work is the
7:43
Speaker 3: key to everything. But I'll also say there's some guys
7:47
Speaker 3: that are so amazingly talented it's just scary freish and
7:54
Speaker 3: you have to say, hats off, hats off to them,
7:57
Speaker 3: congratulations because they got it and you've got to figure
8:01
Speaker 3: out some way to try to compete with them. But
8:04
Speaker 3: you gotta know they're just gifted.
8:07
Speaker 1: It's a very interesting topic, Ben, because I've mentioned a
8:10
Speaker 1: few times here on the PST podcast show. My daughter
8:14
Speaker 1: is an excellent gymnast and she is now at the
8:16
Speaker 1: junior Olympic level and the competition is much more fierce.
8:19
Speaker 1: The competition is at a very very high level that
8:23
Speaker 1: she had not necessarily seen before this past season. She
8:26
Speaker 1: still is doing a fantastic job. She's still excelling, but
8:32
Speaker 1: there are other gymnasts who are better than her, and
8:35
Speaker 1: she's not used to that quite frankly. But I think
8:38
Speaker 1: it's such a great, great point that you make. You know,
8:42
Speaker 1: you sometimes you have to work hard just to be
8:45
Speaker 1: able to compete at that high level. So just moving
8:50
Speaker 1: along with the conversation here as we get into you
8:53
Speaker 1: being drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers number six overall in
8:57
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, I mean time for the Flyers organization
9:01
Speaker 1: and for the NHL as the overall brand, I think
9:05
Speaker 1: at that point was really growing throughout the United States
9:09
Speaker 1: and throughout Canada as well, you were really growing as
9:13
Speaker 1: well as a hockey player from you know what your
9:15
Speaker 1: book was was talking about in terms of just your
9:20
Speaker 1: inner growth and what you were doing on the ice.
9:23
Speaker 1: What was the jump like going from juniors to the
9:26
Speaker 1: NHL level back in the late seventies, Ben.
9:31
Speaker 3: Well, every jump. First of all, anybody who's good at anything,
9:40
Speaker 3: they make it look easy. They make it look Watch
9:43
Speaker 3: golf on TV and you see them hitting the shot,
9:47
Speaker 3: and of course it's on the green, and then you
9:49
Speaker 3: know that's twelve feet from the hole. What allows you shot?
9:52
Speaker 3: And you know, if I can get near the green,
9:55
Speaker 3: I'm thrilled. So everyone makes it look easy. But when
9:58
Speaker 3: I went into junior, I was shocked at the speed
10:01
Speaker 3: of the game. I'm sixteen years old and it's kind
10:06
Speaker 3: of like college sports, although you're younger. It's very elite
10:11
Speaker 3: and you didn't have time to do any and you
10:14
Speaker 3: get there and you say, holy moly, it's just you're
10:18
Speaker 3: just panicked and rushed, and slowly, as you get better,
10:20
Speaker 3: the game slows down and slows down. But you know
10:25
Speaker 3: it's it's when you climb over a hill. You got
10:28
Speaker 3: to get to the top to see what the next
10:29
Speaker 3: hill looks. Like right, and you don't know if it's
10:32
Speaker 3: if it's a you know, if it's water. You don't
10:34
Speaker 3: know if it's flat plane or an even bigger hill
10:37
Speaker 3: and get over one hill. And so when I first
10:40
Speaker 3: turned pro, of course you're terrified of what the game
10:43
Speaker 3: was going to be. Like you know, you're going now,
10:46
Speaker 3: you're going from instead of the very very top kids.
10:52
Speaker 3: And the very first thing you just can't believe and
10:56
Speaker 3: you're right back to the beginning of junior hockey. The
11:00
Speaker 3: game was so fast. You know, if the puck comes
11:03
Speaker 3: to you, the best thing you can do is bat
11:05
Speaker 3: it away. And uh, and it was you know, it
11:13
Speaker 3: was a shock. You know, you're you're you're ready for anything,
11:17
Speaker 3: but you're not ready. You just it's just happening. And
11:20
Speaker 3: thank God for ten exhibition games that year, and you
11:22
Speaker 3: get a little practice and you you know, and the
11:25
Speaker 3: other thing is there's things that work at one level
11:28
Speaker 3: and don't work at the next level, and you find
11:30
Speaker 3: out the hard way. You know. I was honored and
11:35
Speaker 3: fortunate enough I was voted to one mid season All
11:39
Speaker 3: Star Game and then now I didn't have to worry
11:42
Speaker 3: about someone trying to take my head off, and that
11:46
Speaker 3: crazy stuff, but the game was that much faster, and
11:50
Speaker 3: you know, so I think it's and you've got to
11:56
Speaker 3: be ready for that fight. And with I think the
11:59
Speaker 3: other thing is no guarantees that you're going to be
12:03
Speaker 3: successful at that next level. And it's you know, it's
12:06
Speaker 3: not necessarily because hard enough or work hard, but maybe
12:12
Speaker 3: maybe it's a combination of everything. And but it was,
12:16
Speaker 3: it was. It was a shock to move up each
12:19
Speaker 3: level and and then after a while you get used
12:24
Speaker 3: to it.
12:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:26
Speaker 3: Right. And one of the things I always watch is
12:30
Speaker 3: that in every sport you do a give and go.
12:33
Speaker 3: And so when you give the give and go, do
12:38
Speaker 3: do you give the puck? Pass the puck at the
12:40
Speaker 3: right time a little early, is a little late? Do
12:43
Speaker 3: you raise it over the guy's stick? Does a land
12:46
Speaker 3: flat or does it bounce? Is it a little in
12:49
Speaker 3: front of the guy, is a little behind where he is?
12:51
Speaker 3: You go and do you get the puck back? Do
12:54
Speaker 3: you get the puck back at the right time? Is
12:56
Speaker 3: a little early that he bounce? It is in your
12:58
Speaker 3: skates because you know you do a give and go,
13:01
Speaker 3: you're going for the net and the pucks at your skates,
13:04
Speaker 3: or you put the puck in someone else's skates, and
13:08
Speaker 3: what you have is a nice try, which actually don't count.
13:12
Speaker 3: And it probably I wrote a little bit about this
13:16
Speaker 3: in my book, but it reminds me. I go in
13:19
Speaker 3: the power play. We used to get a lot of
13:21
Speaker 3: four and threes back then, and I have Clark, Billy
13:25
Speaker 3: Barbera and Reggie Leech now all all stars, all Hall
13:29
Speaker 3: of famers, and all fabulous players. So all of a sudden,
13:34
Speaker 3: you get out there and you figure out the new rules. Billy,
13:37
Speaker 3: barber and Reggie can carry the puck, but they don't
13:41
Speaker 3: want to because if they're carrying the puck, they can't
13:43
Speaker 3: get open to shoot. So if you pass them the pucket,
13:45
Speaker 3: they can't shoot. They pass the right back to you
13:47
Speaker 3: and you sit there and then you realize Clark suck.
13:52
Speaker 3: But if they get open, they want the puck. They
13:56
Speaker 3: want the puck, not too early, not too late. They
14:00
Speaker 3: want it flat on their stick in this shoe. And
14:05
Speaker 3: they're not jerks about it. But that's what they want.
14:09
Speaker 3: And that's the that's not Oh that's a really good pass.
14:12
Speaker 3: Oh that was really close. They expected there. They don't
14:15
Speaker 3: care if the guy puts a stick in your eye.
14:17
Speaker 3: They don't care. What's happened you? They want that puck
14:20
Speaker 3: and so the expectations are different. You better get them
14:25
Speaker 3: that puck if they're open, it doesn't matter if they're
14:27
Speaker 3: right behind me, guys cross checking me and stick in
14:30
Speaker 3: the eye. Get it there. And then all of a
14:32
Speaker 3: sudden you realize you're doing the same thing. Hey, I
14:34
Speaker 3: get you that puck. I need you to score. I
14:38
Speaker 3: don't need a nice shot. I don't need oh man,
14:41
Speaker 3: that goaltender is lucky. I don't need you in a
14:43
Speaker 3: goal post unless it's both goal posting in and the
14:47
Speaker 3: expectations rise and you either do it or you know
14:53
Speaker 3: you're on the bench right and that I'm nineteen playing
14:59
Speaker 3: the the four and three power play with these three
15:02
Speaker 3: guys and you want to pinch yourself, and you want
15:05
Speaker 3: to pinch yourself, and you're doing anything you can do.
15:08
Speaker 3: And they had it down cold. They knew what they
15:12
Speaker 3: were doing, and you know, a certain extent just trying
15:17
Speaker 3: to keep up. Not I was just trying to keep up,
15:21
Speaker 3: but that's expected. Boom.
15:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, great stories, great stories here, folks. With Ben Wilson,
15:28
Speaker 1: writer of Gloves Off, mostly true stories from my life
15:33
Speaker 1: in hockey, we are going to take a quick break,
15:36
Speaker 1: and when we get back, we're going to be talking
15:38
Speaker 1: to Ben more about his time in the NHL and
15:42
Speaker 1: talking about his book as well. Stick around, we'll be
15:45
Speaker 1: back in just a bit.
15:49
Speaker 2: All right.
15:49
Speaker 1: We are back with former Philadelphia Flyer and NHL superstar
15:54
Speaker 1: from the seventies and eighties Ben Wilson as we discuss
15:58
Speaker 1: his book and his life in the world of hockey.
16:01
Speaker 1: His book Gloves Off Mostly True Stories from Sorry, mostly
16:06
Speaker 1: True Stories from My Life in Hockey again a great,
16:09
Speaker 1: great book. Check out the show notes where you can
16:12
Speaker 1: pick up that book on Amazon. And you know, through
16:16
Speaker 1: a lot of trials and tribulations, then that nineteen eighty
16:21
Speaker 1: Flyers team that ended up going to the Stanley Cup finals.
16:25
Speaker 1: I mean, it's got to be what every kid, of
16:28
Speaker 1: course playing hockey dreams about. I'm sure you did as
16:31
Speaker 1: well during your teen years just growing up as a kid,
16:35
Speaker 1: and your performance was pretty exceptional, if you don't mind
16:38
Speaker 1: me saying so. Thirteen points in nineteen games during that
16:42
Speaker 1: postseason run.
16:44
Speaker 3: What did that.
16:45
Speaker 1: Experience actually teach you playing at the highest level at
16:49
Speaker 1: such a young age. Before we went to break, you
16:52
Speaker 1: were talking about how you were just trying to keep
16:54
Speaker 1: up and then you know, just a couple of years later, again,
16:58
Speaker 1: thirteen points in nineteen games during that postseason run. What
17:02
Speaker 1: what did what did what to playing at that high
17:04
Speaker 1: level during the Stanley Cup Finals? Like, what did what
17:07
Speaker 1: did that teach you from a young age?
17:10
Speaker 3: Well, apart from the incredible, relentless stress that you placed
17:15
Speaker 3: yourself under to be to be ready and wanted to
17:19
Speaker 3: do well, we had a magnificent team. We didn't have
17:23
Speaker 3: one player in the top ten scoring in the league,
17:26
Speaker 3: but we had a lot of scores from Barbara Clark, Leech,
17:30
Speaker 3: Kenny Linsman, Brian prop Paul Holmgren. We had, you know,
17:39
Speaker 3: a solid team and you're not going to win without
17:44
Speaker 3: super players. I got that one. But also one of
17:48
Speaker 3: the things that you have to do is is how
17:52
Speaker 3: do you fit in and how do you contribute? Not
17:55
Speaker 3: everyone is going to sit there and be a goal scorer,
17:58
Speaker 3: and if the other guys better at it than shooting,
18:02
Speaker 3: than you don't sit there and be the goal scorer.
18:04
Speaker 3: You've got to have a figure out, so how do
18:06
Speaker 3: you fit in to maximize your value to the team.
18:10
Speaker 3: And you never get it exactly right or whatever, but
18:14
Speaker 3: how does everyone contribute? And the magical thing about that
18:18
Speaker 3: year was not only how did we win, but we
18:23
Speaker 3: were winning games in advance. So my first year it
18:28
Speaker 3: seemed like we're always down a goal with two minutes's
18:31
Speaker 3: left and they're killing Clark me. I'm going the last
18:36
Speaker 3: few minutes. You're pressing as hard as you can. I'm
18:39
Speaker 3: behind their goal line. We're pressing, We're pressing, we're pressing.
18:42
Speaker 3: Maybe we diye it up and maybe we don't. But
18:45
Speaker 3: every game was exhausting. And the next year, all of
18:48
Speaker 3: a sudden, we're up to goals in the last ten minutes,
18:52
Speaker 3: and then you make sure you get the puck out
18:56
Speaker 3: of your end. You don't have there's zero reason to
18:59
Speaker 3: be the their net working like crazy when you're already
19:03
Speaker 3: up two goals. So the games are actually easier and
19:08
Speaker 3: you have to play accordingly. And you know, just an
19:12
Speaker 3: off comment. You just watching the game last night with
19:15
Speaker 3: or two nights ago with Carolina and in Vegas, and
19:20
Speaker 3: there are four goals in the third period.
19:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
19:26
Speaker 3: I don't know how that you know, you know, And
19:31
Speaker 3: I'm not making a derogatory comment. I didn't watch the
19:35
Speaker 3: game after I retired. I don't understand the game right now.
19:39
Speaker 3: But when I played you're up a goal in playoffs
19:43
Speaker 3: or Stanley Cups, this is what. The puck's in your
19:46
Speaker 3: corner and someone's going to run you through the glass.
19:48
Speaker 3: You have half a second and you fire the puck
19:51
Speaker 3: around the boards. Now, it doesn't matter how hard you're
19:55
Speaker 3: firing the puck around the boards. The wingers who are
19:58
Speaker 3: going to get run by there to f and try
20:01
Speaker 3: to keep the puck in, they all say, you got
20:04
Speaker 3: to shoot it higher, you got to shoot it harder.
20:07
Speaker 3: So you're taking your hardest lapshot you can around the boards.
20:11
Speaker 3: They're going to get run over. I'm going to get
20:13
Speaker 3: run over. But you get the puck out of your
20:15
Speaker 3: blue line at all costs. And you always get yelled
20:20
Speaker 3: at you gotta fire it harder, and you say, that's all.
20:23
Speaker 3: That's as hard as and as high I can as
20:25
Speaker 3: I can fire it. And but that's how you contribute
20:31
Speaker 3: to the team, right because now you're up. Now you
20:34
Speaker 3: play it safe. And and then and the wingers they
20:38
Speaker 3: took it. Guy, as much as I was going to
20:40
Speaker 3: shoot the puck and get run over, the defenseman that
20:43
Speaker 3: they're if they're down, they're going to pinch and they're
20:45
Speaker 3: going to get run over, and they took the ship
20:48
Speaker 3: just to make sure that the puck got out of
20:51
Speaker 3: our blue line. So amazing. And when you got guys
20:56
Speaker 3: that all can contribute different roles and and tailor their
21:01
Speaker 3: rules to how it fits into the team, and that's
21:04
Speaker 3: why we did so great.
21:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:06
Speaker 1: Look, when I was reading over your book, Ben, I
21:09
Speaker 1: like how you took pauses throughout talking about your life story,
21:16
Speaker 1: talking about your time in the NHL. I like how
21:19
Speaker 1: you took pauses throughout and wrote something called deep thoughts
21:23
Speaker 1: where you were just giving perspective on a particular subject matter.
21:29
Speaker 1: It was I remember some of those perspectives being what
21:31
Speaker 1: makes a great coach the toughest job in sports, which
21:34
Speaker 1: you write as being a referee fighting versus boxing, and
21:39
Speaker 1: the difference between both. The deep thoughts within the book
21:42
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed. Quite frankly, I thought it was such
21:45
Speaker 1: an added bonus to what your life was in your
21:49
Speaker 1: experience in the NHL. How did you decide on writing
21:53
Speaker 1: about those deep thoughts and that particular angle within your
21:57
Speaker 1: book and what that meant for the reader.
22:00
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when I left hockey, I left hockey.
22:04
Speaker 3: I didn't do an interview. Excuse me for thirty five
22:09
Speaker 3: almost forty. I had three girls. We never talked about hockey.
22:15
Speaker 3: And then I started thinking, kind of posterity. My kids
22:19
Speaker 3: hadn't heard any of these stories. And you know, someone's
22:23
Speaker 3: going to write a book about all the goals they scored,
22:27
Speaker 3: just spitball and a lot. He thought, I'm going to say,
22:31
Speaker 3: Wayne Gretzky is probably the guy to write that book.
22:36
Speaker 3: Maybe Mary o lemue Vechkin, those guys. And you know
22:42
Speaker 3: that's not what I wanted to do, is not chronicle.
22:46
Speaker 3: Oh I did this and as a young child, my
22:48
Speaker 3: mother loved me. I wanted to do a little bit
22:51
Speaker 3: more behind the scenes, and I painted a picture of
22:57
Speaker 3: things don't go the way you think right, best laid
23:01
Speaker 3: plan and Mike Tyson. I was going to start off
23:04
Speaker 3: the book with Mike Tyson's quote, everyone has a game
23:07
Speaker 3: plan until they get punched in the mouth. Yeah, go wrong.
23:12
Speaker 3: You do the right thing and it goes wrong, you
23:15
Speaker 3: do the wrong thing, it goes right. Everyone's got a
23:18
Speaker 3: little different opinion. You make a great play, goes wrong
23:21
Speaker 3: with the coach hills at you and you know that's
23:24
Speaker 3: what you're dealing with. And the two things that I
23:27
Speaker 3: wanted to do is more behind the scenes, you're a
23:32
Speaker 3: fly on the wall and just talking about some of
23:36
Speaker 3: my thoughts that that you allude to the beginning when
23:39
Speaker 3: you're playing you can't say. And the other one is
23:42
Speaker 3: I have I call them deep thoughts, which is I
23:45
Speaker 3: don't know if I capable of a deep thoughts as
23:48
Speaker 3: close as I can get at deep thought. But the
23:51
Speaker 3: other one is I did shout outs to some of
23:54
Speaker 3: the guys that they're you know, everyone remembers Gretzky and
23:59
Speaker 3: some of the other stuff get lost to time. And
24:01
Speaker 3: there were some incredibly talented players and and and they
24:07
Speaker 3: always I had tremendous respect for them and admiration, and
24:13
Speaker 3: I wanted to say that so But but getting to
24:20
Speaker 3: the deep thoughts, there's there's things that when you're when
24:29
Speaker 3: you're in the middle of it and it's one game
24:31
Speaker 3: after the next, and you know, like, for example, you
24:34
Speaker 3: know you're hurt, and no one wants to say, oh
24:40
Speaker 3: and too hurd and hurts too much that I can't play,
24:44
Speaker 3: and they say, hey, man, we could really use you tonight.
24:47
Speaker 3: So you know, you can't turn one way skating backwards,
24:51
Speaker 3: you're about half speed. Anyone who knows how hurt you were,
24:54
Speaker 3: is just going to go right around you and score,
24:56
Speaker 3: and and you're in a lot of pain. You play
24:58
Speaker 3: the whole game, and at the after the game, coach
25:01
Speaker 3: comes up and says, if you're hurt and you can't play,
25:05
Speaker 3: just tell us, and you say, oh my god. And then,
25:10
Speaker 3: because I'm the smartest man in the universe, the next
25:15
Speaker 3: and you can't turn one way in your alf speed,
25:17
Speaker 3: and they say, we really need you tonight. If I
25:21
Speaker 3: had any brains, I'd say, I'm too hurt. But no,
25:25
Speaker 3: I never caught onto that. I'd never caught onto that.
25:28
Speaker 3: So what I would do, I'd go play, and then
25:30
Speaker 3: the coach would come in and yell at you if
25:32
Speaker 3: you're hurt, just tell us. If you can't play, just
25:34
Speaker 3: tell us, And you say, how can this be happening? Right?
25:39
Speaker 3: And then one of the you know, behind the scenes
25:46
Speaker 3: things that importantly to one is Kevin McCarthy was drafted
25:51
Speaker 3: in the first round before me, yere before me, and
25:54
Speaker 3: he's a fabulous player. He can skate. Oh, he wants
26:00
Speaker 3: to play. And I said to that, just the beginning
26:06
Speaker 3: of the season, I'm playing like twenty eight minutes a game,
26:10
Speaker 3: almost half the game. I'm dying. I'm dying. It's I'm nineteen,
26:14
Speaker 3: I'm in good shape. I'm dying. And he's sitting on
26:17
Speaker 3: the bench. And I said to my dad, I said,
26:21
Speaker 3: I don't even get it. I can play. This guy
26:25
Speaker 3: can play. He can play lights out. I just don't
26:28
Speaker 3: understand it. And dad, and my dad said, you know,
26:31
Speaker 3: you know pretty much. I don't know what he said,
26:33
Speaker 3: but pretty much, some days you're the bug, some days
26:37
Speaker 3: you're the windshield. And you know, my tame, my turn came,
26:40
Speaker 3: my term came. A time came in my fifth year.
26:43
Speaker 3: Bob McCammon decided I can't play. I'd already even vote
26:46
Speaker 3: to the all start game. And you know, a guy
26:53
Speaker 3: gets a defense, we gets hurt Friday night, Saturday night,
26:57
Speaker 3: and I show up at early on Sunday because they
26:59
Speaker 3: have to play me because they need six defensemen. Oh,
27:03
Speaker 3: they call up someone from the miners. They call up
27:05
Speaker 3: someone from the miners, and they say, so the guy
27:08
Speaker 3: they're calling up, I'm thirty pounds heavier. Then I'm way
27:11
Speaker 3: faster than a wait, wronger than and I'll set the
27:15
Speaker 3: bench some more. And he sit there and say, you know,
27:19
Speaker 3: you know, how does that happen. But the other one
27:23
Speaker 3: I think is just across my Mark Mark out for me,
27:28
Speaker 3: was the best defenser in the league. I used to
27:31
Speaker 3: skate with them, and until I skated with him in practice,
27:35
Speaker 3: I did not believe that sort of speed or endurance
27:40
Speaker 3: even existed. And to say he skated me into the
27:44
Speaker 3: ground every day is a colossal understatement art in practice
27:51
Speaker 3: always going flat out, I mean absolutely flat out, trying
27:56
Speaker 3: to stay with them, and as the drills went on,
27:58
Speaker 3: I'm falling behind that this is every day every day.
28:05
Speaker 3: But the greatest part about Mark he was And it's
28:09
Speaker 3: almost like I feel like I got pump to a trick.
28:12
Speaker 3: You start any conversation with Mark and it ends up
28:16
Speaker 3: with you being the superstar. Okay, so you go home
28:19
Speaker 3: and say that's too much for me to take. I'm
28:23
Speaker 3: never gonna let Mark pull this on me again. Next
28:27
Speaker 3: time it ends up on the superstar and he say, okay,
28:32
Speaker 3: that'll never have I'm pretty sure who the superstar is.
28:35
Speaker 3: He played over twenty five years. He was the best
28:38
Speaker 3: defense in the league. He was amazing Hall of Famer,
28:41
Speaker 3: And every time he ends up and then if that
28:46
Speaker 3: wasn't enough, because this goes on like every day where
28:50
Speaker 3: we see each other every day. And he said to me, oh,
28:55
Speaker 3: I'm going to Marien. Harfrey says, I'm going to my
28:58
Speaker 3: dad's restaurant. Do want come and have dinner with this?
29:01
Speaker 3: We have dinner all the time, so hell ya. So
29:06
Speaker 3: the three of us, they're having dinner. And I'm ready
29:09
Speaker 3: for this. Right after, you know, two hundred days of
29:12
Speaker 3: me being the superstar in front of Mark, I'm ready
29:15
Speaker 3: for this. I have dinner, and now it's two against
29:18
Speaker 3: one by the time I'm dinner and finished dinner with
29:21
Speaker 3: Mark how Hall of Famer, Gordy Howe, Hall of Famer,
29:26
Speaker 3: they both finished with ours the Superstar. And you say
29:30
Speaker 3: that happened? How can they just the nicest, most humblest guys.
29:36
Speaker 3: And it's almost like I had to pull out a
29:38
Speaker 3: piece of paper with crayons and say, guys, let's just
29:41
Speaker 3: go through this slowan you know, you know, I'm trying
29:45
Speaker 3: my best out, hey, but you actually understand what you
29:49
Speaker 3: guys do and how great you are. And so I
29:54
Speaker 3: think that's I think that's a great story for people
29:57
Speaker 3: to really understand. And as my as I skated the
30:01
Speaker 3: six hours a day and I was I thought it
30:03
Speaker 3: was fast. I was fast, and then you Mark. And
30:08
Speaker 3: Mark told me he in Detroit, he'd skate with his
30:13
Speaker 3: dad in the Detroit Red Wings and off days when
30:15
Speaker 3: he was fourteen. He says, yeah, I can skate with
30:19
Speaker 3: him then, And he wasn't bragging he could skate with
30:21
Speaker 3: him at fourteen.
30:22
Speaker 2: Wow, me, moly, Holy moly, wow.
30:27
Speaker 3: If you can't be in awe of something like that.
30:31
Speaker 3: And you know the other part. Mark knew the game
30:33
Speaker 3: inside out. He knew the games inside out. He could
30:36
Speaker 3: have got a lot more points. But unlike the four
30:40
Speaker 3: nothing deal when you were up, Mark didn't try to score.
30:45
Speaker 3: He didn't try to make it. It says, he made
30:47
Speaker 3: sure we won. And that's why he's so fabulous. And
30:51
Speaker 3: I thought I had a lot of great stories like that.
30:53
Speaker 1: A lot of great stories, folks. Again in the book
30:56
Speaker 1: Gloves Off, mostly true stories from my life in Hoey
31:01
Speaker 1: written by Ben Wilson, a great, great book. Look, we're
31:04
Speaker 1: gonna take one more quick break, but when we get back,
31:06
Speaker 1: we're gonna conclude our discussion. Such a great discussion here,
31:10
Speaker 1: so much fun. We're gonna take a break. We'll be
31:12
Speaker 1: back in just a bit.
31:16
Speaker 2: All right.
31:16
Speaker 1: We are back with Ben Wilson. And to close us
31:20
Speaker 1: out here, Ben, I just you know, reading the book
31:23
Speaker 1: and just again your experiences growing up and within the NHL.
31:28
Speaker 1: You just told a fantastic story before going to break.
31:32
Speaker 1: I would imagine that so many memories come back. Maybe
31:35
Speaker 1: some memories, you know, get triggered here and there, not
31:37
Speaker 1: from a negative standpoint, but just you know, excuse me,
31:40
Speaker 1: remembering that special time in your life where you were
31:43
Speaker 1: able to be a professional sports player in one of
31:47
Speaker 1: the most dynamic sports in the world. So I'm wondering
31:51
Speaker 1: what was the best part about writing this book and
31:54
Speaker 1: what do you hope readers will take away from it
31:57
Speaker 1: after they're done digesting it.
32:01
Speaker 3: Well, I just hope they buy the book.
32:03
Speaker 1: No, I'm just just buy the damn book.
32:07
Speaker 2: Folks.
32:08
Speaker 3: You don't even have to read it. I don't cat
32:10
Speaker 3: you read it by the booker at all. The you know,
32:17
Speaker 3: I was out of hockey, didn't watch it for thirty years.
32:21
Speaker 2: No interviews, really quick, Ben, Why was that?
32:26
Speaker 1: Because like I can understand, I can understand that, But
32:28
Speaker 1: for folks listening, you're in a sport for as long
32:31
Speaker 1: as you were, you retire, you're done. You don't watch
32:34
Speaker 1: it for thirty years.
32:35
Speaker 3: Why was that, Well, it's pretty simple. I had three girls.
32:40
Speaker 3: I coached all their teams from basketball and soccer and
32:45
Speaker 3: baseball or whatever, and help them with tennis. And I
32:49
Speaker 3: got them in this habit of eating three meals a
32:51
Speaker 3: day every day, and I as much as I try
32:55
Speaker 3: to break them from that habit, and they hug with it.
32:57
Speaker 3: So you had to go make a living, you know.
33:02
Speaker 3: I it's looking back, maybe not a great dad, but
33:09
Speaker 3: I couldn't have tried any harder. Just not smart enough.
33:13
Speaker 3: And but my kids are smart and I'm fortunate for that.
33:19
Speaker 3: But when I started writing thinking about it, one of
33:23
Speaker 3: my daughters, Christy, pushed me to do an interview, and
33:27
Speaker 3: finally she and I said no, no, no, like you're dad.
33:30
Speaker 3: The guy says it's a five minute interview. You can
33:34
Speaker 3: suck it up that and do a five minute interview,
33:36
Speaker 3: and I did it. So it's goop Melmanowski. And what
33:39
Speaker 3: happened was after the interview was over his five minutes,
33:44
Speaker 3: he started telling me what some of the guys are
33:46
Speaker 3: doing and all this thing that was in a different world.
33:49
Speaker 3: I live in Florida. Now a different world start coming
33:51
Speaker 3: flooding back. And do you think of stuff, and I
33:54
Speaker 3: realized my kids don't know any of this, and I
33:59
Speaker 3: asked one of my and who's a fabulous writer. All
34:05
Speaker 3: three of them are fabulous writers. I said, you want
34:07
Speaker 3: to co write the book with me? Like not just write,
34:11
Speaker 3: co write, and you can actually write a chapter and
34:13
Speaker 3: tell the world what incredible dad I was, you know.
34:18
Speaker 3: And she said no, but she says, if you're going
34:23
Speaker 3: to do this, you maybe want to write the book,
34:25
Speaker 3: but just writes down stuff if you don't write it down,
34:28
Speaker 3: and she said, you don't have to fill in all
34:30
Speaker 3: the stories, just write it down. And so, without trying
34:35
Speaker 3: to build a book, I just started writing down things
34:40
Speaker 3: that were meaningful to me and no order, just and
34:48
Speaker 3: she calls it mad writing. Just write it down and
34:51
Speaker 3: write it down. And the more I wrote, the more
34:54
Speaker 3: memories came flooding back to me, and I started thinking
34:59
Speaker 3: about it. And then I said, you know, I'm actually
35:02
Speaker 3: going to see if I can like make sentences and
35:05
Speaker 3: do big boy stuff like that. Right, And now, all
35:10
Speaker 3: three to my daughter's attorneys, they read and write very well,
35:13
Speaker 3: and you know, I'm much better with the crayon plan.
35:16
Speaker 3: So anyway, I wrote, I wrote a story down, and
35:21
Speaker 3: you know, you know, you think anything you do, you
35:23
Speaker 3: think you crushed it. And they said, well, maybe this
35:25
Speaker 3: is just really bad. How do I know? How would
35:27
Speaker 3: I know the difference between good and bad in writing?
35:30
Speaker 3: That's not what I do. So anyway, I gave it
35:34
Speaker 3: to one of my daughters and she said, oh, Dad,
35:39
Speaker 3: that's really good, which again doesn't mean much because you
35:42
Speaker 3: kind of got to say it. Even if it's I'm
35:44
Speaker 3: getting the simpote and up a little bit, that'd be awesome.
35:51
Speaker 3: And she didn't change much, but it made the whole
35:56
Speaker 3: thing incredible and funny. And they said there and say,
36:01
Speaker 3: you know, you know this story about earning to shoot
36:05
Speaker 3: the slap shot and I didn't do it right with
36:07
Speaker 3: shooting with Doug Wilson. Then it ruined my hip for life.
36:10
Speaker 3: And she wrote it and at the end of the
36:13
Speaker 3: end of the things he says, you think that maybe
36:15
Speaker 3: I could have learned how to shoot right properly and
36:18
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have ruined my hip, and then finished off
36:23
Speaker 3: and says, nope, I blame Doug and I'm dying and laughter.
36:26
Speaker 3: I said, well, this is pretty good, and so you
36:29
Speaker 3: got And then my daughters are reading a little more
36:36
Speaker 3: and they said, we didn't know this. How come you
36:38
Speaker 3: didn't tell us, Well, because you didn't listen, you know,
36:42
Speaker 3: that type of thing. And then they started laughing, and
36:46
Speaker 3: another one of my daughters helped me out. So they
36:49
Speaker 3: helped me out with I think there's eighty five different
36:52
Speaker 3: little mini chapters, and they probably helped me out with
36:55
Speaker 3: about three or four of them. But for me, those
36:59
Speaker 3: were the most meaningful because they jumped in and and
37:05
Speaker 3: I just want people to remember a lot of the
37:08
Speaker 3: behind the you know, you know the scenes stuff. There's
37:13
Speaker 3: hopefully I'm not taking too much time. One of my
37:16
Speaker 3: daughters help me rewrote the thing. I'm playing in Philadelphia's
37:21
Speaker 3: Boston and catching me. I didn't see him coming, just
37:26
Speaker 3: levels me. I go flying up in the air, my ass.
37:29
Speaker 3: So I get up and I'm in a brutal, long
37:32
Speaker 3: fight with Terry, and it's long and you're exhausted, and
37:37
Speaker 3: you know, when you go to the penalty box for
37:39
Speaker 3: five minutes, the team thinks, oh, as soon as you
37:42
Speaker 3: get out, get go play again. You know, I could
37:44
Speaker 3: go take a nap. I don't have to play the
37:46
Speaker 3: rest of the game. I'm exhausted, damn. Sometime later in
37:51
Speaker 3: the game, he casts me the head down. He just
37:54
Speaker 3: levels me. He just I go up of the air,
37:57
Speaker 3: just like the other one in another long, brutal, brutal,
38:02
Speaker 3: brutal fight. And we uh, of course, you go to
38:09
Speaker 3: the penalty box in five minutes and then team puts
38:12
Speaker 3: your right back out on the ice. Now, if you
38:16
Speaker 3: talk about an inability to play, I can't play. I'm
38:20
Speaker 3: too tired or I'm absolutely exhausted. And I go out
38:24
Speaker 3: on the ice and I see the face off. I'm
38:27
Speaker 3: about to face off next to Terry. O'Reilly, And you
38:32
Speaker 3: sit there and say you can't act like you're tired,
38:35
Speaker 3: can't back down. But I don't even know if I'm
38:38
Speaker 3: lifting my arms to fight. I mean just I think
38:40
Speaker 3: it's just easier to have him pound on my head
38:43
Speaker 3: and sign man in Philadelphia, he gets out of sign
38:50
Speaker 3: and a sign he writes some says round three. And
38:56
Speaker 3: I look at this and I say, you got it
39:00
Speaker 3: kidding me? You gotta be kidding me. Terry looks up
39:05
Speaker 3: at me. He's got a smile, he's got some blood
39:07
Speaker 3: in his mouth, which is good, and he's just got
39:10
Speaker 3: this grin on his face. And I'm praying, you know,
39:14
Speaker 3: if ever you you know, you want to believe your
39:18
Speaker 3: eyes are playing tricks, and I want to believe he
39:20
Speaker 3: thinks it's ridiculous too, But I'm not sure. He's already
39:23
Speaker 3: smoking advice, so he just at the time it is
39:27
Speaker 3: so nice, I say, I just love to go pound
39:31
Speaker 3: on sign man. If I was telling my daughter, I'm
39:36
Speaker 3: so tired, but I want to use the last of
39:38
Speaker 3: my energy to climb the glass and pound on sign man.
39:42
Speaker 3: That's why I don't want to defend myself. Terry can
39:44
Speaker 3: beat the shit out of me. I don't care anymore.
39:46
Speaker 3: I just want to use my energy to just go
39:50
Speaker 3: pound on him and maybe even ruin his marker and
39:53
Speaker 3: his you know, forty nine cent cardboard sign. And and
39:59
Speaker 3: then I said to my daughter and I said, Terry,
40:05
Speaker 3: I said, I said, I just I just blurred out.
40:08
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe he wanted to go beat upside man too, right, yeah, start, yeah,
40:17
Speaker 3: both we're not mad. I'm not mad at him anymore.
40:19
Speaker 3: I can't afford. I don't have the energy to be
40:21
Speaker 3: mad at him, but I like to go pell so
40:24
Speaker 3: And then and then she all of a sudden she
40:25
Speaker 3: wrote something sitting there, and she said, maybe we could
40:30
Speaker 3: both go over together and pound on sign man, I said,
40:36
Speaker 3: write a chapter. What a great way to write a
40:38
Speaker 3: chapter about something crazy you just can't imagine. Right, So anyway,
40:43
Speaker 3: I had a I had a blast writing the book.
40:47
Speaker 3: I love my shoutouts. I'm very proud of my show
40:50
Speaker 3: up eight players and guys I loved, and the teammates.
40:54
Speaker 3: I love the teammates. I love playing. Didn't like getting
40:57
Speaker 3: yelled at all the time, but I loved teammates. I
41:00
Speaker 3: love playing, and you form very very strong relationships. And
41:06
Speaker 3: just like I saying with the give and go, I
41:09
Speaker 3: took a lot of pride when you make that pass
41:11
Speaker 3: and it's flat on someone's stick and give them a chance.
41:14
Speaker 3: I took a lot of pride and they would know
41:16
Speaker 3: it and vice versa. Right, And so those were great memories.
41:23
Speaker 3: And I just wanted to write down some of the
41:26
Speaker 3: silly stuff, uh you know that happened. And I knew
41:32
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to write negative stuff in the book.
41:36
Speaker 3: Everybody has you know, you know the time when you
41:39
Speaker 3: get yelled after no read. And I kept it down
41:42
Speaker 3: to very few things and I justified it and also
41:48
Speaker 3: gave them compliments. And if we have time, do you
41:54
Speaker 3: have time for the story?
41:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's let's do it.
41:56
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, my last year. I know I'm going to retire.
42:05
Speaker 3: I didn't tell anyone, but I know I'm going to retire.
42:07
Speaker 3: And you know, I get paid the same amount of
42:12
Speaker 3: money if I short shifted, get paid some money if
42:16
Speaker 3: I if my niece too sore to play. But you know,
42:19
Speaker 3: that's not what you do. You never say you're heard
42:21
Speaker 3: and all that. So there's two stories were after a
42:29
Speaker 3: practice coach makes us get down on one knee and
42:33
Speaker 3: he's up there and we've got to look up and
42:35
Speaker 3: look at him, which is annoying his hect because half
42:38
Speaker 3: the guy's knees are sore. They don't need to be
42:40
Speaker 3: down one ay, but that's what you do. And he said,
42:44
Speaker 3: we've got three guys on the team to make a
42:48
Speaker 3: commitment to making us a better team. And he named
42:54
Speaker 3: the three guys Dennis of ard Rick five and Steve Lormer.
42:58
Speaker 3: They've all agreed to quit smoking.
43:03
Speaker 1: And I love how they were smoking, by the way,
43:05
Speaker 1: doing what they were doing.
43:07
Speaker 3: I don't listen in between periods. I'm I can't find
43:11
Speaker 3: enough here. These guys are smoking anyway, All of a
43:15
Speaker 3: sudden it blurted, I would I know I'm retiring, and
43:18
Speaker 3: you know, you say you can't do the interviews and
43:19
Speaker 3: say the wrong thing. I didn't know where I came
43:22
Speaker 3: out and I said there are three top scores, and
43:26
Speaker 3: they were I said, maybe we should all start smoking.
43:28
Speaker 3: There you go. Yeah, everyone died in the laughter out
43:31
Speaker 3: of the coach hated, be beyond hated me. Right. So
43:36
Speaker 3: taking this a little bit further, so there's like two
43:39
Speaker 3: months left in the game in my season, my career,
43:42
Speaker 3: and we're playing against Detroit and I did well, It's stupid,
43:49
Speaker 3: but it's what I always did. I ran over Steve
43:51
Speaker 3: Eisaman unnecessarily hard. Oh nice, And you know it wasn't
43:58
Speaker 3: like part of the game. It's just the I did
44:00
Speaker 3: all the time. And I'm sure he didn't like it.
44:04
Speaker 3: And you know that if you do that, you know
44:06
Speaker 3: the Bob Probert's coming after you. Now I got two
44:11
Speaker 3: months left of the season. If I didn't hit him,
44:13
Speaker 3: I don't have to fight provert. You know, I could
44:15
Speaker 3: just cruise out my career. But I couldn't do it.
44:19
Speaker 3: I ran them hard, and proverb comes after me. I
44:27
Speaker 3: don't have to back up. Glenn Cochrane played one. We
44:31
Speaker 3: played Detroit a few months earlier and got to fight
44:37
Speaker 3: with Probert and proverb one, but Glenn, Glenn did his best.
44:41
Speaker 3: A lot of respect, A lot of respect for Glenn.
44:43
Speaker 3: To drop your gloves with Provert is no easy feet.
44:47
Speaker 3: And they raided us every game, one being the best,
44:51
Speaker 3: five being the worst. So again played one shift, fought
44:55
Speaker 3: Provert and got a one rating, a number one, and
44:58
Speaker 3: the coach says, you did exactlyactly what we need you
45:00
Speaker 3: to do. So we're having a rating system all season.
45:05
Speaker 3: My typical reading it probably averaged a four. I didn't
45:08
Speaker 3: get many five and every now and then I was
45:11
Speaker 3: lucky enough to get a three, but he got a one.
45:14
Speaker 3: So anyway, I run over eyes him and I'm in
45:16
Speaker 3: a fight with Probert, and a funny fight with Probert.
45:20
Speaker 3: I don't understand it, but I might have thrown ten
45:23
Speaker 3: to twenty punches. We had two good grips. He had
45:26
Speaker 3: a good grip on me. I had a good grip
45:27
Speaker 3: on him. Yeah, none of them really connected. I might
45:31
Speaker 3: have hit him half a punch and throw a punch
45:34
Speaker 3: on me.
45:36
Speaker 2: Wait, would you say it kind of cut out there?
45:38
Speaker 3: He didn't even throw a punch. Oh wow, he didn't
45:42
Speaker 3: even throw a punch. I hit him with a half
45:44
Speaker 3: so you want to technically slice that I won, But
45:48
Speaker 3: the real answer is, you know it's a draw. We
45:51
Speaker 3: both had good grips. He was a good fighter. He's
45:53
Speaker 3: the guy thought was going to be the one guy
45:55
Speaker 3: that's going to pell me. As I got old, I knew.
45:58
Speaker 3: I figured I was going to get the hell beat
45:59
Speaker 3: out of me one time as I got older, a
46:02
Speaker 3: younger version of me, and I figured it was him.
46:04
Speaker 3: He didn't even throw a punch, so I got out
46:08
Speaker 3: of there. We got to call that a draw, and
46:12
Speaker 3: I get my rating. Sometimes later I get a four rating.
46:18
Speaker 2: Wow, Now just.
46:20
Speaker 3: Like those interviews, because you've you've lit me up. Now
46:23
Speaker 3: it's all your fault job. You've lit me up. So
46:29
Speaker 3: it's the end of my career. Normally it just shut
46:32
Speaker 3: up and move on. And I said, and I never
46:35
Speaker 3: did this before. Instead of going to practice, I walked
46:38
Speaker 3: into Bob Polford, our manager's room, and to miss practices
46:44
Speaker 3: a beyond a no no. But I just didn't care.
46:48
Speaker 3: What are you bench me? So I go in and
46:53
Speaker 3: I said, I'm a little confused, and I want you
46:55
Speaker 3: to help me understand, I said. Glenn Cochrane dropped his
47:00
Speaker 3: gloves against Probert. Probert won the fight, but Glenn fought
47:08
Speaker 3: and he did great, and he got a one rating.
47:10
Speaker 3: And I agree with that. It's you can't underestimate how
47:17
Speaker 3: difficult it is to drop your gloves or to drop
47:20
Speaker 3: your gloves against Bob Probert. I believe Glenn I deserved
47:26
Speaker 3: for one rating, and he says, I agree. So he
47:31
Speaker 3: didn't know to Bob wasn't in on the rating. So
47:33
Speaker 3: I filled him in the one is good, five is bad, right,
47:37
Speaker 3: and he says, oh, okay, so this so I pulled
47:39
Speaker 3: out my rating and I gave him. I showed him
47:42
Speaker 3: my four, and I said. The part that I don't
47:47
Speaker 3: understand is I did better than Glenn at the fight
47:52
Speaker 3: and he got a one. I also played over twenty
47:56
Speaker 3: five minutes that night.
48:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, what the heck?
48:01
Speaker 3: So I agree if you agree with me that you
48:04
Speaker 3: can't get higher than a one because they did better
48:08
Speaker 3: in the fight, and you give me one for the
48:10
Speaker 3: for the fight. Now with my playing, I if I
48:15
Speaker 3: was like minus seven or minus eight, then it averages
48:19
Speaker 3: out that I get my four rating. But we've always
48:22
Speaker 3: established I can't get better than one. How do I get?
48:26
Speaker 3: But I had to have gotten there's no other way
48:28
Speaker 3: around it, right, Why I must have got a minus
48:33
Speaker 3: seven or an eight on my playing? And I said,
48:36
Speaker 3: if that's the case, right, I'm not the coach, I'm
48:41
Speaker 3: not the evaluator. But why put me on the ice
48:44
Speaker 3: more than twenty five minutes a game? Right? Why don't
48:47
Speaker 3: you put someone on the ice that can get a five?
48:50
Speaker 3: There you go, right, And Bob Wolford is a consummate
48:55
Speaker 3: professional and had all he had everyone's respect. He was amazing,
48:59
Speaker 3: and he knows he's in a no win situation and
49:06
Speaker 3: he knows that no one really says this stuff because
49:09
Speaker 3: no one dare says when they play. I didn't care.
49:14
Speaker 3: He said, well, you know, sometimes there's other reasons, and
49:17
Speaker 3: then he tries to usher me out. I said, but
49:21
Speaker 3: you know, I'm really confused. I would really like to
49:23
Speaker 3: get to the answer of this. And I kept him
49:26
Speaker 3: there for about I don't know, ten or fifteen minutes.
49:31
Speaker 3: I know it the shit out of him, but I
49:34
Speaker 3: was I was having a great time out then. And
49:38
Speaker 3: then the other great time I had was because no
49:41
Speaker 3: one kheo. I was retiring. As you go after the
49:43
Speaker 3: guys after a game and you're having some beers so
49:46
Speaker 3: I'm telling him the story and they first of all,
49:50
Speaker 3: they know how stupid the story is. And the next
49:55
Speaker 3: part about it is they can't believe that anyone actually
49:58
Speaker 3: would will bring this up and say that. So, needless
50:03
Speaker 3: to say, I guess by the next day, the coach,
50:07
Speaker 3: Bob Murdoch, he found that he must have had a
50:09
Speaker 3: talk with Bob Pulford. He was just so pissed at me.
50:12
Speaker 3: It's he had all this, he had all this rage
50:16
Speaker 3: at him and pissed at me. He just didn't know
50:18
Speaker 3: what to do, you know.
50:20
Speaker 2: So it's but great story.
50:24
Speaker 3: I think they're just funny stories because it just doesn't happened. Literally,
50:29
Speaker 3: it's just a combination of a lot of things, a
50:31
Speaker 3: lot of backdrops and stuff a long reason, and the
50:35
Speaker 3: stories are are in my opinion, they're hilarious and you know,
50:40
Speaker 3: some good, some bad, and but it made it funny.
50:45
Speaker 3: So my kids were.
50:45
Speaker 2: Laughing as they should, as they should.
50:48
Speaker 3: I'm laughing here, Yeah, Dad, you had to do this. Yeah,
50:54
Speaker 3: But I kept the book outside of silly stories like that,
50:58
Speaker 3: and I think they're I think they're funny because you know,
51:00
Speaker 3: it doesn't hurt him, you know, doesn't hurt me or whatever.
51:04
Speaker 3: But the other thing is is a lot of great stories,
51:07
Speaker 3: and I think great stories about great players like Paul Holmgren.
51:13
Speaker 3: Paul Holmgren at the beginning of the season Torres rotator
51:16
Speaker 3: Cuff decided not to have surgery till after the season,
51:20
Speaker 3: so he's going to play the whole season with one arm.
51:22
Speaker 3: And he started running over Beck and Barry. Beck was huge,
51:28
Speaker 3: he was powerful, he had destroyed everyone as a fighter.
51:32
Speaker 3: He was, you know, pretty much the man. And we're
51:36
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, after a whistle, Paul and Beck
51:39
Speaker 3: are about to get in a fight. Man, Paul's going
51:43
Speaker 3: to fight him with one arm. Now, Paul is certifiably
51:48
Speaker 3: the toughest guy ever to play the game, absolutely tough, tough.
51:54
Speaker 3: He wasn't backing down, but he's got one arm. And
51:57
Speaker 3: that's when I got in a fight with back. I
51:59
Speaker 3: jumped in and got in the way of Paul because
52:02
Speaker 3: you know, as tough as he is, I mean fighting Beck,
52:05
Speaker 3: fighting Beck with two arms isn't good. Fighting him with
52:08
Speaker 3: one arm as he got him in, is a little
52:10
Speaker 3: bit handicapped. And unless the coach is going to yell
52:13
Speaker 3: at you after you fight him with one arm, how
52:15
Speaker 3: come you didn't do better. So there are some there
52:19
Speaker 3: are some amazing things. And I think sometimes when he's oh,
52:22
Speaker 3: this guy's tough, this guy's tough. When you hear the
52:25
Speaker 3: story about Paul going to fight back with one arm,
52:30
Speaker 3: that's pretty there.
52:31
Speaker 1: You go, There you go. Boy, what a great discussion here.
52:34
Speaker 1: I honestly thought this discussion was going to take twenty
52:36
Speaker 1: five minutes.
52:37
Speaker 2: Folks.
52:37
Speaker 1: We're over fifty minutes. Why because it's fantastic discussion. I
52:41
Speaker 1: hope everybody has enjoyed. Ben Wilson again, folks, the author
52:46
Speaker 1: of Gloves Off, mostly true stories from my life in hockey.
52:51
Speaker 1: It was a family endeavor writing this book. And I
52:54
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, Buddy, it was great talking to you.
52:56
Speaker 1: It was great just sitting here talking about not only
52:59
Speaker 1: your career but what hockey has meant to you. Thank
53:02
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time to come on
53:03
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show. And again, folks, the
53:07
Speaker 1: link to the book is in the description and get it.
53:12
Speaker 2: Just buy it.
53:12
Speaker 1: Like Ben said earlier, you don't even need to read it,
53:15
Speaker 1: just buy it. Just buy the bug. Ben, Buddy, thank
53:18
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it,
53:21
Speaker 1: my friend.
53:22
Speaker 3: I'd be all wowed up. Now you got to have
53:24
Speaker 3: me on again.
53:25
Speaker 2: Will do? Let's get it done. Okay, that's gonna.
53:29
Speaker 1: Do it for us here on table Talk this week.
53:31
Speaker 1: Please share our podcast with your friends and family members
53:34
Speaker 1: who are Philly sports fans or sports fans in general.
53:38
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53:41
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53:45
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53:48
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53:51
Speaker 1: sites over on Twitter at Philadelphia PST, threads at Philadelphia.
53:56
Speaker 2: Sports Table, and over on Instagram as well. Take terblell
54:00
Speaker 2: catch you next time.