Greg Enright
Registered User
- Jun 27, 2020
- 17
- 37
Hello everyone, and thanks for your interest in Rocky Hockey.
I wrote the book because I simply wanted to know the whole story of the Colorado Rockies and it wasn’t available. Yes, there are Wikipedia entries, and there are numerous articles online (some of good quality, some of poor), and there are the familiar (and funny) stories from Don Cherry about his one year behind the Rockies’ bench and his supposed sufferings with Hardy Astrom in goal.
But I wanted to know much more. Who were all the owners they had, and why did all of them sell the team off? Why exactly was the team always so bad? What about all the other players who donned the Rockies’ (incredible) uniforms aside from the well-known names like Lanny McDonald, Chico Resch and Barry Beck? What were their stories? What were the circumstances of their move to New Jersey? What is their legacy, if any?
I felt bad that all of this had not, at some point over the past 40 years since they left Denver, been researched and put into a book. But I also felt a huge sense of excitement and impending discovery when I started in on the project, knowing that I was in many ways covering uncharted, or at least long-forgotten, territory. Now, two years later, the book is a reality, and what a satisfying and at times exhilarating journey of discovery it’s been.
Why did I want to know the Rockies’ story? I remembered the team from when I was a kid, always seeing them at or near the bottom of the standings, and always having a soft spot for them. Maybe it was their great uniforms, maybe it was the logo, maybe it was my penchant for underdogs, and maybe it was because the Rockies were a bit of a mystery. Living in Montreal and Toronto in the days before the Internet, social media and TV packages that let you watch every NHL game, you never got to see or hear much about them. You’d maybe see them once of twice on TV in a season. News of them was scant, usually just a short wire game report and maybe a summary in the local papers. And then, before I had barely become a teenager, they vanished from the NHL scene, off to New Jersey to become the Devils. Fast forward to 2021, and that curiosity still remained, and most of the questions I’d always had were still unanswered. It was time to start solving the Rockies mystery.
Here is the back-cover blurb:
Long before the Avalanche started winning Stanley Cups, Colorado was home to a short-lived and decidedly less-successful National Hockey League team: the Colorado Rockies. Operating from 1976 to 1982, the club established itself as a hard-working outfit on the ice that was constantly hobbled by a series of impatient owners and a host of controversial – and often crazy – front-office maneuvers. The result was a team that didn’t win many games but did win the hearts of a small and loyal fan base. In the process, they laid a foundation for the Mile High City’s future hockey success.
Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of the NHL’s Colorado Rockies tells the complete story of this pioneering franchise for the first time. It's a history that included four different ownerships, seven head coaching changes, one inspiring and memorable playoff appearance, and a mountain of rollicking stories from an era when helmets were optional, bench-clearing brawls were common, and player salaries were measured in thousands, not millions.
Though the Rockies’ stay in the NHL wasn’t long, it featured a bounty of wild incidents and larger-than-life characters, including a berserk goalie who trashed a locker room after being pulled; an incompetent goal judge who was fired by a referee in the middle of a game; a maniacal cheerleader named Krazy George; and the near sale of the team to a con man who ended up behind bars.
Meticulously researched and filled with recollections from Rockies players and front-office figures based on original interviews with the author, the book puts a long-overdue spotlight on this unique brand of the game that affectionately came to be known as “Rocky Hockey.”
A bit about me:
My day job involves writing and editing blogs and articles for a software company in Toronto, but my real passion is researching and writing about the history of hockey. In 2020, my first book, The Pittsburgh Penguins: The First 25 Years, was published by McFarland. Rocky Hockey was published in March 2023. My hockey history Twitter feed, @NHLNewsAchive, was launched in 2014 and now has over 4,000 followers. I’ve also set up a Facebook page about the book and the Rockies.
Buying Information
The book is available through the following online retailers:
Amazon:
Paperback - Amazon.com
Kindle: Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble:
Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of the NHL's Colorado Rockies|Paperback
Thrift Books:
Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of... book
Excerpt
This excerpt describes a game between the Rockies and Bruins in Boston on December 2, 1979 – Don Cherry’s first game back in Boston after being fired by the Bruins and taking over the Rockies the previous off-season:
Cherry was expected to be packing some dynamite when his Rockies rolled into Boston on December 2 for the coach’s first meeting against his old team since his acrimonious exit from the Bruins the previous spring. Although the odds of his struggling squad taking a point or two out of old Boston Garden weren’t good, Cherry, with the spotlight sure to be shining directly on him, would no doubt want to do something special.
“Of course, I want [my team] to look good every game, but especially this game. Boston is a tough place to play, especially when I know the Bruins players will be a thousand percent up for this game. If I were them I would be.”
It would surely be an emotional night for Cherry, who left a lasting mark on the team and the city during his five years behind the Bruin bench.
“It’ll be nice to meet all the fans there, because you sure get treated good in that corridor (outside the dressing room). I used to shake a million hands. Toward the end, it was almost like I knew everybody.”
That this was a special night for Cherry was indicated by his choice of attire. Known for his sartorial style, Cherry had been reserving a special suit for this homecoming: a deep burgundy, ultraviolet three-piece velvet number that he’d planned on wearing in last spring’s Stanley Cup Final had his Bruins got by the Canadiens in their semi-final series. When Cherry strode out to take his spot for the first time behind the visitors’ bench, the Garden crowd gave him a long standing ovation. One fan tossed a bunch of grapes into the bench area in tribute. There was clearly still a lot of love for their old coach.
“I don’t care where I go, what I do,” Cherry remarked later, “even if I win the Stanley Cup, I’ll never feel the same like I did with that crowd giving me that ovation. That’s tops for me. I can’t go any higher than that.”
It certainly didn’t look like his new team would take him anywhere close to higher on this night as they quickly fell behind 2-0. But in the first intermission, the Rockies seemed to wake up. Cherry overheard one of the players in the dressing room say, “C’mon…let’s win it for Grapes.”
Jack Valiquette answered that rallying cry at 2:14 of the second period when he slammed a loose puck in the crease past Gilles Gilbert to make it 2-1. The determined Rockies played the Bruins tight for the rest of the frame and were rewarded during the last minute when Wilf Paiement grabbed a loose puck at center, raced in on Gilbert and beat him high over the goalie’s left shoulder.
Valiquette struck again midway through the third to put Colorado ahead, and when rookie Doug Berry flipped a rebound over a fallen Gilbert less than two minutes later, it looked like the Rockies were going to make Cherry’s return a complete success. The players held the Bruins tightly in check and with just 53 seconds to go, Grapes called a timeout. He didn’t, however, use it to talk strategy with the players. He instead spent the break signing a few autographs for some fans holding programs over the glass at the end of the Colorado bench. To many, Cherry appeared to be rubbing the Rockies’ impending victory in the Bruins’ faces. To his critics, it looked as if Cherry was telling Harry Sinden, “See? Look how popular I still am in this town!”
Cherry claimed he called the timeout not to sign autographs but to give two of his older defensemen, Nick Beverley and Mike Christie, a rest before play resumed. But the super media-conscious coach surely had to know before he put pen to program what kind of message his actions would be sending.
The Bruins sent Cherry’s heart rate up when John Wensink tipped a Ray Bourque shot past Bill McKenzie to make it 4-3 with 35 seconds remaining on the clock. Wilf Paiement, however, sealed the deal with a long empty-net goal with only one second left to make the final Rockies 5, Bruins 3.
Asked later about the autograph signing, Cherry maintained his innocence. “Everybody thinks I did it to be a wise guy. I just happened to be near the end of the bench and some people reached over with their programs. Our owner (Imperatore) and our president (Pohan) weren’t enthralled with it, but I knew exactly what was going on behind my back. And some of the Bruins who were close to me on the other side were looking over and probably saying, ‘Look at him twist the knife in our backs.’ But I never gloated or enjoyed beating the Bruin players themselves ’cause they’re a great bunch of guys and I love ’em.”
It was the type of stunt that ruffled the feathers of Cherry’s bosses but helped endear him to the fans back home in Denver and get the Rockies some prime real estate in the city’s newspapers. And, perhaps most importantly, it helped build a bond between the coach and his players, who gave Cherry the game puck after the win.
“He never said anything before the game,” said goalie Bill McKenzie, who stopped 32 Bruin shots on the night, “but you could tell, you could just tell. There was an extra twinkle in his eye.”
Added Ron Delorme, who backed up Cherry’s claim of the Rockies always being tough by fighting Bruin tough guy Terry O’Reilly twice on the night, “We’re getting together. We’re building as a team. You play Cherry’s style, it works. If we can just keep playing like this, we’ll be knocking on a lot of teams’ doors before the year is out.”
I wrote the book because I simply wanted to know the whole story of the Colorado Rockies and it wasn’t available. Yes, there are Wikipedia entries, and there are numerous articles online (some of good quality, some of poor), and there are the familiar (and funny) stories from Don Cherry about his one year behind the Rockies’ bench and his supposed sufferings with Hardy Astrom in goal.
But I wanted to know much more. Who were all the owners they had, and why did all of them sell the team off? Why exactly was the team always so bad? What about all the other players who donned the Rockies’ (incredible) uniforms aside from the well-known names like Lanny McDonald, Chico Resch and Barry Beck? What were their stories? What were the circumstances of their move to New Jersey? What is their legacy, if any?
I felt bad that all of this had not, at some point over the past 40 years since they left Denver, been researched and put into a book. But I also felt a huge sense of excitement and impending discovery when I started in on the project, knowing that I was in many ways covering uncharted, or at least long-forgotten, territory. Now, two years later, the book is a reality, and what a satisfying and at times exhilarating journey of discovery it’s been.
Why did I want to know the Rockies’ story? I remembered the team from when I was a kid, always seeing them at or near the bottom of the standings, and always having a soft spot for them. Maybe it was their great uniforms, maybe it was the logo, maybe it was my penchant for underdogs, and maybe it was because the Rockies were a bit of a mystery. Living in Montreal and Toronto in the days before the Internet, social media and TV packages that let you watch every NHL game, you never got to see or hear much about them. You’d maybe see them once of twice on TV in a season. News of them was scant, usually just a short wire game report and maybe a summary in the local papers. And then, before I had barely become a teenager, they vanished from the NHL scene, off to New Jersey to become the Devils. Fast forward to 2021, and that curiosity still remained, and most of the questions I’d always had were still unanswered. It was time to start solving the Rockies mystery.
Here is the back-cover blurb:
Long before the Avalanche started winning Stanley Cups, Colorado was home to a short-lived and decidedly less-successful National Hockey League team: the Colorado Rockies. Operating from 1976 to 1982, the club established itself as a hard-working outfit on the ice that was constantly hobbled by a series of impatient owners and a host of controversial – and often crazy – front-office maneuvers. The result was a team that didn’t win many games but did win the hearts of a small and loyal fan base. In the process, they laid a foundation for the Mile High City’s future hockey success.
Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of the NHL’s Colorado Rockies tells the complete story of this pioneering franchise for the first time. It's a history that included four different ownerships, seven head coaching changes, one inspiring and memorable playoff appearance, and a mountain of rollicking stories from an era when helmets were optional, bench-clearing brawls were common, and player salaries were measured in thousands, not millions.
Though the Rockies’ stay in the NHL wasn’t long, it featured a bounty of wild incidents and larger-than-life characters, including a berserk goalie who trashed a locker room after being pulled; an incompetent goal judge who was fired by a referee in the middle of a game; a maniacal cheerleader named Krazy George; and the near sale of the team to a con man who ended up behind bars.
Meticulously researched and filled with recollections from Rockies players and front-office figures based on original interviews with the author, the book puts a long-overdue spotlight on this unique brand of the game that affectionately came to be known as “Rocky Hockey.”
A bit about me:
My day job involves writing and editing blogs and articles for a software company in Toronto, but my real passion is researching and writing about the history of hockey. In 2020, my first book, The Pittsburgh Penguins: The First 25 Years, was published by McFarland. Rocky Hockey was published in March 2023. My hockey history Twitter feed, @NHLNewsAchive, was launched in 2014 and now has over 4,000 followers. I’ve also set up a Facebook page about the book and the Rockies.
Buying Information
The book is available through the following online retailers:
Amazon:
Paperback - Amazon.com
Kindle: Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble:
Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of the NHL's Colorado Rockies|Paperback
Thrift Books:
Rocky Hockey: The Short but Wild Ride of... book
Excerpt
This excerpt describes a game between the Rockies and Bruins in Boston on December 2, 1979 – Don Cherry’s first game back in Boston after being fired by the Bruins and taking over the Rockies the previous off-season:
Cherry was expected to be packing some dynamite when his Rockies rolled into Boston on December 2 for the coach’s first meeting against his old team since his acrimonious exit from the Bruins the previous spring. Although the odds of his struggling squad taking a point or two out of old Boston Garden weren’t good, Cherry, with the spotlight sure to be shining directly on him, would no doubt want to do something special.
“Of course, I want [my team] to look good every game, but especially this game. Boston is a tough place to play, especially when I know the Bruins players will be a thousand percent up for this game. If I were them I would be.”
It would surely be an emotional night for Cherry, who left a lasting mark on the team and the city during his five years behind the Bruin bench.
“It’ll be nice to meet all the fans there, because you sure get treated good in that corridor (outside the dressing room). I used to shake a million hands. Toward the end, it was almost like I knew everybody.”
That this was a special night for Cherry was indicated by his choice of attire. Known for his sartorial style, Cherry had been reserving a special suit for this homecoming: a deep burgundy, ultraviolet three-piece velvet number that he’d planned on wearing in last spring’s Stanley Cup Final had his Bruins got by the Canadiens in their semi-final series. When Cherry strode out to take his spot for the first time behind the visitors’ bench, the Garden crowd gave him a long standing ovation. One fan tossed a bunch of grapes into the bench area in tribute. There was clearly still a lot of love for their old coach.
“I don’t care where I go, what I do,” Cherry remarked later, “even if I win the Stanley Cup, I’ll never feel the same like I did with that crowd giving me that ovation. That’s tops for me. I can’t go any higher than that.”
It certainly didn’t look like his new team would take him anywhere close to higher on this night as they quickly fell behind 2-0. But in the first intermission, the Rockies seemed to wake up. Cherry overheard one of the players in the dressing room say, “C’mon…let’s win it for Grapes.”
Jack Valiquette answered that rallying cry at 2:14 of the second period when he slammed a loose puck in the crease past Gilles Gilbert to make it 2-1. The determined Rockies played the Bruins tight for the rest of the frame and were rewarded during the last minute when Wilf Paiement grabbed a loose puck at center, raced in on Gilbert and beat him high over the goalie’s left shoulder.
Valiquette struck again midway through the third to put Colorado ahead, and when rookie Doug Berry flipped a rebound over a fallen Gilbert less than two minutes later, it looked like the Rockies were going to make Cherry’s return a complete success. The players held the Bruins tightly in check and with just 53 seconds to go, Grapes called a timeout. He didn’t, however, use it to talk strategy with the players. He instead spent the break signing a few autographs for some fans holding programs over the glass at the end of the Colorado bench. To many, Cherry appeared to be rubbing the Rockies’ impending victory in the Bruins’ faces. To his critics, it looked as if Cherry was telling Harry Sinden, “See? Look how popular I still am in this town!”
Cherry claimed he called the timeout not to sign autographs but to give two of his older defensemen, Nick Beverley and Mike Christie, a rest before play resumed. But the super media-conscious coach surely had to know before he put pen to program what kind of message his actions would be sending.
The Bruins sent Cherry’s heart rate up when John Wensink tipped a Ray Bourque shot past Bill McKenzie to make it 4-3 with 35 seconds remaining on the clock. Wilf Paiement, however, sealed the deal with a long empty-net goal with only one second left to make the final Rockies 5, Bruins 3.
Asked later about the autograph signing, Cherry maintained his innocence. “Everybody thinks I did it to be a wise guy. I just happened to be near the end of the bench and some people reached over with their programs. Our owner (Imperatore) and our president (Pohan) weren’t enthralled with it, but I knew exactly what was going on behind my back. And some of the Bruins who were close to me on the other side were looking over and probably saying, ‘Look at him twist the knife in our backs.’ But I never gloated or enjoyed beating the Bruin players themselves ’cause they’re a great bunch of guys and I love ’em.”
It was the type of stunt that ruffled the feathers of Cherry’s bosses but helped endear him to the fans back home in Denver and get the Rockies some prime real estate in the city’s newspapers. And, perhaps most importantly, it helped build a bond between the coach and his players, who gave Cherry the game puck after the win.
“He never said anything before the game,” said goalie Bill McKenzie, who stopped 32 Bruin shots on the night, “but you could tell, you could just tell. There was an extra twinkle in his eye.”
Added Ron Delorme, who backed up Cherry’s claim of the Rockies always being tough by fighting Bruin tough guy Terry O’Reilly twice on the night, “We’re getting together. We’re building as a team. You play Cherry’s style, it works. If we can just keep playing like this, we’ll be knocking on a lot of teams’ doors before the year is out.”
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