Boston Globe Sunday Hockey Notes - Nov 24

[Gee Wally]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/11/23/sports/sunday-hockey-notes-bruins-phil-esposito-auction/

Phil Esposito is auctioning off some of his career gems, including his 1970 Stanley Cup ring, one of the two crown jewels of the hallowed Big Bad Bruins era. The prolific Espo isn’t yet prepared to part with the ‘72 Cup ring, largely because he still enjoys wearing it, keeping him connected to a place he “never wanted to leave.”

“Still sticks in my craw, to tell you the truth,” said Esposito, now 82 years old and living in Tampa, where he founded the Lightning at the start of the ‘90s. “I never thought I’d leave Boston. We had so many more wins in us.”

The machinations behind Esposito’s departure, which came nearly a half-century ago (November 1975) when then-general manager Harry Sinden traded him to the Rangers with Carol Vadnais for Brad Park and Jean Ratelle, took years for Esposito to understand. Unlike the vast majority of today’s top-end NHLers, his contract with the Bruins did not include a no-trade provision. What is today’s rule was yesteryear’s exception.

“Harry and I talked about it before I signed the deal,” recalled the Hall of Fame center, whose No. 7 hangs in the Garden rafters. “I remember being asked, ‘Do you want a no-trade?’ And I looked at Harry, and I said, ‘Do I really need one, Harry? C’mon, after ‘72, do I really need one . . . after what we’ve done here?’ And Harry says, ‘Not in my mind, Phil.’ ”

“So,” added Esposito, “I know it wasn’t Harry.”

It took him a while to realize what happened, said Esposito, who eventually summed it up as “the general manager takes the blame.” He believes it was Jeremy Jacobs, then the 35-year-old new owner of the team, who wanted his contract off the Black-and-Gold payroll.

“It was all about a contract that Jeremy Jacobs just didn’t like,” Esposito said. “OK, then why the hell approve the deal, right?”

With the Bruins poised next Sunday to celebrate 100 years in business (faceoff, 3 p.m. at TD Garden vs. the Canadiens), Esposito recently decided it was a good time to auction off some of his prized possessions, including the ‘70 Cup ring, his Hockey Hall of Fame blazer, and a game-worn sweater from his final days with the Bruins early in the 1975-76 season.

“Is it from my last game with the Bruins?” mused Esposito, who was held off the board in that Nov. 5 final waltz at Buffalo. ”Honestly, it could be, but I can’t say.”

Esposito’s goods are being offered by Classic Auctions, owned by Montrealer Marc Juteau, who a few years ago guided Ray Bourque’s auction of career goods. The Esposito link: Catalog

Esposito said he plans to place the proceeds into trust funds for three of his grandchildren, Rocco, Dakota, and Niko, their well-being, he said, more important to him than having career artifacts “just collecting dust here at the house.”

“Look, when I’m gone,” he said, “what are they going to do with it? Just sell it anyway, right?”

Esposito said his Hockey Hall of Fame jacket, its navy blue fabric stitched together with 717 goals and 1,590 points, was not to surrender.

“No, not really, someone can have it,” mused Esposito. “I always said, ‘Look, God gave me talent to play, a lot of talent, and I exploited that talent. Period. That’s it. If I was good enough, and I was, I made the Hall of Fame. Listen, I always thought I should have been in the Hall of Fame as a builder, not as . . . ”

If not for Esposito’s conviction that hockey could be wildly successful in Tampa, there’s no knowing whether the NHL ever would have set up shop by the bay. Because of his belief, guile, and old-world arm-twisting, Esposito and partners scraped up the $50 million expansion fee that ushered the Lightning into the league for the 1992-93 season.

“I told the [original] Japanese investors, ‘If you hang in for 10 years,” Esposito recalled just days ago with a chuckle, “that $50 million will turn into $250 million.’”

The Seattle Kraken, the NHL’s most recent member of the Original 32, paid a $650 million expansion fee. In October, owner Jeffrey Vinik sold a majority stake in the Lightning for a reported $1.8 billion.

“There were times I’d have to pay our hotel bills myself,” said Esposito, recalling those early hardscrabble years in Tampa. “and pay for sticks myself. I mean, those things . . . people don’t believe it, but I believe it because I paid it!”

Entering the weekend, the bidding for Esposito’s ‘70 Cup ring stood at $13,852. Those are today’s dollars, which would be less than a Bruins season-ticket holder doles out for a pair of loge tickets to every home game at TD Garden. Feels like a bargain. Bidding on his No. 7 sweater from his last season with Boston had reached $16,696. The HHOF blazer stood at a bargain-busting $500.

Soon after receiving the ‘70 Cup ring, Esposito gave it to his father, who wore it proudly for many years.

“I really never wore it. And a couple of months before my dad passed, I went home to visit him in the Soo,” said Esposito, referring to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. “He said, ‘Listen, kid, you’re the oldest, so when I die, make sure you take this ring off before the coffin’s closed.’ ”

Patrick Esposito was laid to rest without the ring, but still wore one of Phil’s watches from an NHL All-Star Game.

“That’s right,” said Phil, whose late brother Tony Esposito, a renowned Blackhawks goalie, also made it to the Hall of Fame, “My father said, ‘Be sure to take the ring, you’ve got a bunch of watches, but only two of those.’ ”

The memories linger from a golden era in Bruins history. The auction ends Dec. 3.

Click to read more...

 

[Gee Wally]

Also:

Held out of the Phil Esposito’s Classic Auctions offerings: the solid-gold puck that then-Bruins owner Weston Adams bestowed up Esposito, Bobby Orr, John Bucyk, and Ken Hodge after their record-setting season of 1970-71. Those four were the league’s top point producers that season, with teammates Wayne Cashman and John McKenzie also finishing in the Top 10.

Esposito keeps the gold puck, which he said weighs 4 pounds, 6 ounces, in a safe deposit box. Gold in those days traded for less than $45 an ounce and now stands at some $2,700 per ounce.

Just over 10 years ago, following a trip to Russia that celebrated the 40th anniversary of the famed Summit Series between Canada and Russia, Esposito said a Russian investor offered him $700,000 for the solid-gold puck.

“I turned it down,” recalled Esposito. “I just couldn’t see myself, at that particular moment, selling it to a Russian.”

Esposito plans for the puck to be written into his will, though he could be persuaded otherwise.

“I think I’d like to sell it, and so would [Hodge],” Esposito said. “But we’re not going to give it away. I remember telling the Russian guy, ‘You give me a million dollars [for it], or give me $1.85 million and I’ll get you Kenny Hodge’s, and you can have two.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Nyet! Nyet!’ And I said, ‘Good, I don’t want to sell it to you anyway!’”

 

[sarge88]

Not knocking him at all, but I find it hilarious that he was so angry about being traded but when he was GM he made about 235 trades a year.

Lol