completing his education was probably a smarter move. even though he might have got a higher salary than the average wage earner in the NHL or even WHA, most of these guys had to still work labour jobs like carpentry when their playing days were over.I didn’t know that about Fred O’Donnell (actually I’d never even heard of him).
So, I just looked him up.
That’s really unusual. He was only 24 years of age and in his 2nd NHL season. He was a Canadian to boot.
He wasn’t a highly touted guy so it’s unusual he’d refuse to report.
I see that the next season he signed in the WHA with the New England Whalers.
I wonder if he just fell in love with that area or met a girl from the area.
That was a time when every little Cdn boy had dreams of playing in the NHL and he chose to kind of throw his career aside at only 25.
Weird.
Mike Walton had a drinking problem and instead of reporting to the Canucks he too went to the WHA for the next 3 seasons.
He was kind of a crazy dude:
Following a HNIC game in Toronto he needed a drink so bad that he went to the bar in the arena in his full uniform immediately following the game.
There was also the time in Vancouver where he protested his lack of ice time by refusing to go to the dressing room between periods and instead went out on the ice and followed the Zamboni around as it cleaned the ice.
Lots of crazy characters in the game back then!
I like Miller even more now.
completing his education was probably a smarter move. even though he might have got a higher salary than the average wage earner in the NHL or even WHA, most of these guys had to still work labour jobs like carpentry when their playing days were over.
also, there were a number of players and coaches that didn't want to be in Vancouver in those days. Reasons included West Coast bias (homesickness, lack of French, etc.), Canucks were an expansion team with no tradition, Canucks were a bad team, Canucks organization was in chaos starting with ownership, locker room culture was pessimistic, lack of exposure.
I like Miller even more now.
Just watching some SDPN and Steve said Dipertro is having an allstar season in the AHL. So did we take the L on this one ?
2:00 in
8 years post draft and not in the NHL. A year out of ufa. A max of 37 games as a pro in any season. Wish him the best but physically he was an outlier based on Markstrom, Demko, Silovs, Aku, Young, and Tolopilo.Benning f***ed that relationship hard and it was best to let him go somewhere and have a fresh start.
I think in a different situation Dipietro would have gotten an opportunity. I was listening to Corey Schneider on a podcast and he talked about how he didn't get an opportunity to play because Sorokin and Varlamov were never injured.Dipietro is an about-to-turn 26 career minor leaguer who has played 0 NHL games since we traded him almost 3 seasons ago.