Slim and None by Howard Baldwin

Author:Howard Baldwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2014-08-27T19:10:27+00:00

The Whalers’ Dark Ages

After we made the playoffs in our first season in the NHL, we then had five years of on-ice futility. The seasons from 1980 to 1985 were what I call the Dark Ages.

We played one more year in the Norris Division and then moved into the Adams Division with Montreal, Quebec, Boston and Buffalo. It was a really tough division but it didn’t matter who we were playing, we were just losing. We finished last the first four years we were in the division, and in 1982–83 we won only 19 games.

Two days after Christmas in our second NHL season, Mark Howe had a horrifying accident when he slid into the net and virtually impaled himself on the pointed piece of metal that balanced the back of the net. He had a deep cut on his thigh, lost 35 pounds and nearly lost not only his career but his life.

During the Whalers’ first couple of years in the NHL, Anne and I had separated and were going through the pain of that separation as we started a divorce process. This caused additional pressure on me that I was never expecting and, as a result, I was impulsive and made decisions for the hockey club that were not well thought-out, instead of methodically talking to people and thinking things through.

One of the decisions I most regret was the parting of ways with Jack Kelley as our GM. Sadly, there were people working for Jack who weren’t as loyal to him as he was to them. And I listened to the wrong people. I went along with changes that ended up being detrimental to our growth process on the ice. Subsequently, Jack and I worked together again in Pittsburgh, and we remain close to this day.

Jack and I have so much history together. One of the stories that is rarely told in Whalers history is that Jack left the team in 1976 to return to coach Colby College. I was really disappointed and didn’t want him to go. Ron Ryan became the GM and Don Blackburn the coach, but I brought Jack back to Hartford in 1978 as the GM. I admire Jack’s whole family. Karen and I have worked on two film projects with Jack’s son David, and Jack’s other son Mark has won two Stanley Cups as a well-regarded scout for the Chicago Blackhawks.

Overall, there were just too many changes in the Whalers hockey department. Larry Pleau, who had taken over as coach and GM when we fired Don Blackburn, was only 34 years old. We had three different coaches in 1982–83 alone. And Larry then traded away some of our biggest stars to try to get some depth and get a little younger — Mark Howe and Mike Rogers, who were the first Whalers voted into the NHL All-Star Game. Those were two trades that didn’t work out well for us.

As bad as we were on the ice for the first five years of the ’80s, those were the years that defined Hartford as a great hockey market.

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