February 7, 2023 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, as mysterious as it is sacred, the Code is an unwritten set of rules—the bible of hockey sportsmanship, if you will—that has been handed down from generation to generation. Ross Bernstein, author of The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL, spent two years researching this story and is here to share it with you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Leigh Habibe and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app, to iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hockey is and always has been, a sport steeped in
(00:30):
a culture of violence. Players have learned, however, to navigate
the escalating levels of physical contact by adhering to an
honor system simply known as the Code. Ross Bernstein, author
of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation
in the NHL, spent two years for searching this story,
(00:52):
and he's here to share it with us. Let's think
a listen. I grew up in southern Minnesota, which is
not hockey country. This is wrestling in basketball country, not
like northern Minnesota where they pull the kids out of
the wombs by their skate blades, as they say. But
as a ten year old kid, I watched the Miracle
(01:13):
on ice and this rocked my world. I begged my
parents to please let me go to the Herb Brooks
hockey camp. He had a hockey camp that year for kids,
and I went. I had to go buy skates all
the stuff. I was the worst guy there. I won
the most Improved award for the guy who sucks the most.
But it got me into hockey, and I wound up
becoming the star of the Fairmont Cardinal slash Domino's Pizza
(01:37):
hockey team. We were so bad our high school wouldn't
even sponsor us. We had to wear Domino's Pizza jerseys.
That's how bad we were. But I got into hockey
in a big way. And I had a choice to
make as a high school senior small college football, or
I could be a Golden Gopher. I want to go
to the University of Minnesota. That was my dream. My
family bled more in gold I fear from Minnesota. You
(01:57):
know this means everything if you're not. This is like
Texas football, Indiana basketball, rugby in New Zealand and me.
We love hockey Minnesota. I got season tickets. It was incredible.
And then I took this class. It was a one
credit fied course called Introduction to Ice Hockey one O one.
It was the class players taught to get their scholarships, allegedly,
(02:17):
and I wanted becoming friends with a bunch of guys
in the team, and I would invite him over to
my fraternity parties that we'd hang out, and eventually they said,
you know, Ross, you're not that bad of a hockey player.
You should try out. You should walk onto the varsity.
I said, you know, you're crazy, but they wanted me
to do it, and I did it, and I lasted
about ten minutes. I made it through a while, and
(02:39):
I was trying to impress the coaches one day and
I wound up taking out our star player or the
team captain, Todd Richards former going to be an NHL
player and coach, and apparently that is not the thing
you're supposed to do. So I got cut. But they
told me that I could become the team mascot, Goldie
the Gopher. So I became the mascot. I had a blast.
I was entertaining drunk fans, a lot of trouble, so
(03:01):
much trouble that as a senior, a publisher approached me
and asked me if they could write a book about
all the trouble I had gotten into. Apparently it's not
appropriate to throw craft cheese singles at the Wisconsin hockey
players who knew cheese heads. But this got me into
hockey in a big way, and I wound up begging
my mom and dad to use my graduate school money
(03:23):
to write and publish my own book about the history
of Gopher hockey from Goldie the Gopher's point of view,
and it became a cult best seller, and I got
to interview hundreds of hockey players who would tell me
these amazing stories and flash forward. You know, I've written
almost fifty books since then. But along the way, I
remember I was working on a hockey book and I
watched this this fight where where Marty McSorley and Todd
(03:46):
Bertuzzi had had gotten into this incident and they kept
referring to it as the Bertuzzi incident, and I didn't
know why it was. And I said that Bertuzzi had
broken the Code, and I fancied myself, as you know,
as a big hockey guy had written a lot of
books at this point, and I didn't know what that meant.
So I kind of went down this rabbit hole and
it launched this book called The Code about the unwritten
unspoken rules and what leads to fighting and retaliation in hockey,
(04:09):
and it was just fascinating and I learned about these
unwritten rules like All Star wrestling like no one talked
about these things. There is no fight club. No one
talks about fight club. And I wanted the interviewing all
the players. And because I think I was a hockey guy,
because I was, you know, a player at some level,
and I was at all the charity golf tournaments. They
trusted me and they were sharing with me, and one
(04:30):
would tell me a story in the next and interviewing
hundreds of players about why fighting exists. I never understood.
It's the only sport that really allows fighting to exist.
And it's been that way forever, going back, you know,
years and years and years. The NHL always said they
just allowed it. They said it was originally called fisticuffs,
(04:51):
and they said it whereas other sports you'll get kicked out,
in hockey, they give you a five minute fighting major.
It's a part of the game. It's part of the
cult the game. There's an honor code the players live
by where the game polices itself. This honor code says
that if you play like a jerk, you'll be treated
like a jerk. It's the golden rule. Do something dirty,
(05:11):
hit a guy from behind, take liberties to the smaller player,
run a guy do something stupid. The honor code says
you must be held accountable. That's why players really aren't
allowed to wear face masks once they become professionals, because
you have to be held accountable. There's a code. You
can't hit a guy when he's down. You can't turtle,
you can't dip your helmet as if to invite a
(05:32):
guy to hit your helmet and break his knuckles. I mean,
there's all these rules within the rules that dictate how
you and when you can fight. It has to be
you know, both guys acknowledging at each other. You can't
jump a guy from behind the Linesmen have great liberties.
The NHL has given them liberties as to how they
can mitigate and make sure that no one gets hurt,
(05:52):
and make sure that once it's over, it's over. That
if someone doesn't want to be a willing participant, that
they won't be. But you'll see, guys, you'll see it's
when you on YouTube and see the audio when there
is a fight, you'll see that it's it's very much professional.
You'll do okayprol good luck, lids, good luck, then let's go.
(06:21):
He says, that's unbelievable. Look at him, this smile on
his face. They'll even give out like a flip flip
the thumb up, like we'll flip the lids meaning okay,
you know what, I got a broken finger, take your
helmet off. It's like a respect thing. Marty mcsolier wound
up writing one of the forwards for the book along
with Tony. Twist would have had Bob Probert, but he
(06:44):
wasn't around. Said that we had lost him, but send
me down another rabbit hole again of interviewing. I wrote
many books. I wrote a book with Derek Bougard. When
he's playing for the Minnesota Wild. He remembered taking boxing
lessons from this guy named Scott LaDue. Scott was a
heavyweight prize fight fought Muhammad Ali Homes so he understood
hockey leverage balance, but fighting body blows, how to leverage
(07:07):
reach and it was so these guys were very technical.
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code,
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL,
who knew when we come back, more of this fascinating
story here on our American Stories. You're in our American Stories.
(07:32):
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(07:53):
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue here
on Our American Stories with Ross Bernstein and author of
(08:13):
the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in
the NHL, and where he left off in his story
discussing hockey enforcer Derek Booguard. Derek would go on YouTube
every day and study tendencies. The poker tells what other
guys would do is that if you know, if this
is your job and you're not very good at it,
(08:35):
you know you're you're not gonna be around very long.
And back in those days he might have thirty forty
fights a year, not like today where it's really changed.
So going back in the history I'm weaving around, I apologize,
but going back in the history, you know, back in
the old Madison Square Garden, the promoters they were boxing
promoters and they would rented an ambulance and they would
(08:55):
drive it around Madison Square Garden with the sirens blaring, saying,
the Boston Bruins are in town. It's going to be
a blood bath. There was always a story like in wrestling,
like the you'd get heat and you'd you'd build up
this bad guy persona and then everything would come to
blows and then the loser had to leave town and
he'd go to another territory. Well that's kind of how
it was, but it was real. They knew the last
(09:17):
time wasn't found. You know, Tiger Williams got in a
big fight and whoever, and they would dramatize it. The
newspaper reporters loved it, and you know, the fans went crazy.
If there was a fight, no one got up. They
wouldn't go into the bathroom. They weren't buying a hot dog.
They wanted to see it. And really, what's fascinating is
is it It was a way to create momentum. You know,
(09:37):
it's hard in sports to create momentum. As a speaker,
I talk about momentum and how businesses can create momentum.
But in hockey, if your team's down to it and nothing,
and a coach taps a guy in the back, or
gives him a wink, or just gives him a look.
He knows to go out there and take on the
other guy's heavy weight, and if he wins, you know,
the guys are going to bang their sticks in the
boards and that's momentum. The crowd goes wild, or you
(10:00):
silence the other team's crowd. Either way, it creates momentium
and the players feed on that energy. It literally creates
a home field advantage, and it's remarkable. They'll rally, they'll
come back from two to nothing, then they'll win three
to two, and you can credit that that fighter, that
fourth line guy, in making the league minimum. You know,
there's a really interesting story that I thought was brought
(10:20):
to light in my book by Howard Bloom that I
think really explains a lot. Jack Jackson with a couple
of good left hands. Why is intimidation effectively changing the
whole pace of a game? Because one somebody on your
team gets hurt, that becomes a real preoccupation. Either makes
you feel like a victim or makes you feel like
(10:41):
it's time for revenge. The adrenaline level goes up, it
changes the very hormonal sea on which hockey has played.
Hockey's not just played on ice, Hockey's played on hormones.
How that game goes is going to determine whether for
the next week or month they are winners or hormonally
(11:06):
and biologically they are losers. Without him doing that role,
they don't win. So it's really remarkable. So they're the
most respected players on the team. When I was getting
to know Derek Bougard when he was in the Minnesota Wild,
you know, they sold more Boogard jerseys than anyone else's
jerseys because those guys are and they're teddy bears. They've
(11:26):
all got that Jackal and Hyde persona. They're all the
nicest guys off the ice, but on the ice their animals.
Their job is to inflict pain and it's never personal,
you know. Tony Twist said that he had knocked out
the forefront teeth of the best man in his wedding.
It wasn't personal. It's just business, you know. That's what
they gotta do. And it's hard because you know, those
guys as they get older. Marty McSorley, we'd we'd get together,
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you know, he could his hands barely worked because there's
so many you know, they're just they were so much
inflammation and arthritic. And you know, he'd say, you know,
during training camp, they dreaded it because you'd have to
play with what they would call the football players. And
those are the guys who were the tough kids from
medicine hat moose jaw monkedin. They knew they were never
(12:07):
gonna make the team, so they gave him like their
jersey numbers were like number seventy five. They were the
football players. So these guys would come in and they
would you know, you want to be the man, you
gotta beat the man's They would say, very cordially, you know,
mister mc sorley, i'm trying to make the team or
you know, the minor league team. Could I please have
a fight with you, sir. It's like, all right, you
know what, kids, you're you're you're you're okay. You know,
(12:28):
well we'll do it tomorrow. You know, at the end
of the game. I'm okay, but I got a sore
shoulders that don't don't don't come at me from this side,
and we're gonna flip the lids because I gotta you know,
and it's just amazing how it was very much just business,
it wasn't personal. And Tony Tony Twist described this. It
was fascinating. He described going to work every day like
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like I thought something that every guy could relate to.
He said, it was like being in eighth grade junior
high and the biggest bully in the school called you
out and they challenge you to a fight, and they
told everyone so in that bell ring at three o'clock,
man at three or five, you had to be there.
And that stress of knowing that you had to fight
this guy at the end of the day. And every
(13:10):
guy's been there right then, may have been in a
fight in your life. You've been there, and you know
what that's like. And they had to do that every day,
and they know that if you were going to Chicago,
he had to fight Proby and and the last time
he fought probably he cut him. So now probably's angry
and he embarrassed him. So now he's coming. He knows
he's coming for you, and he knows during pregame warm
ups it's coming like first period maybe first shift, right,
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and you're gonna get it out of the way. And
then and then there might be a rematch. Here's Bob Probert. Yes,
at a certain point in my career, you know, I
had a reputation as being one of the tougher guys
in the league. So he either had players that would
would come after you and try to make a name
for themselves or would stay away. So you had a
little bit of both. You know, it was a job
that that was. It wasn't easy. You know, you didn't
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have to you know, if you're a goalscorer, you just
have to worry about going out there and keeping your
stats up, going out and trying to score a goal. Right,
a fighter, there's a lot more too it. You got
you're thinking. You're constantly thinking, okay, well who are we
playing tomorrow? Who are we playing next week? Okay, next week,
I'm gonna have to fight this guy. Um, you're always
you're thinking that. It takes a lot, a lot, It
takes a saw on. Yeah, And then they got to
(14:15):
get up, right, so they're chicken in feed of me
pain killers because they gotta get up with this. But
then afterwards they got to come down because they got
they want to read stories to their kids to go
to bed, and they got to do it all again
the next day. So it's this cycle. So so many
of these guys get addicted to painkillers and it's tragic,
but a lot of these guys that's their ticket. And
it was fascinating. A lot of guys I met, they were,
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you know, four year college guys. These are smart guys.
It wasn't like it was hockey or else. A lot
of these guys, like Bougard, they left home and they
were thirteen to go live with the Billet family in Saskatchewan.
And that's your job. Like, if you don't make it,
there's nothing else. You're going to the back, to the
farm or the salt mine or whatever it is. So
go out of college. Guys said, you know what, I'll
take that role. The bottom line is you got to
protect your skill players. And if other teams know they
(14:59):
can take liberties with the skill players, they're going to
come after him. I remember one of my a real
good friend of mine, Neil Sheehy, who played about ten
years for Calgary. And this is a smart guy. This
guy went to Harvard Law School. He's an agent today
for some of the best players in the league. But
he learned that it's chess. He said, you know what,
if I can go punch Gretzky and McSorley or Samenko
(15:19):
will come beat the crap out of me, my team
will gladly exchange me for Gretzky. So he'd do that
all day, every day, and they figured out that ultimately
became the Instigator rule that they literally they named kind
of after him because he figured out an arbitrage a
gray area where you could, you know, if you can
get Gretzky to fight, will gladly take him off the
(15:40):
ice because we got a chance to beat you. So
it was really interesting learning about the history, the culture,
the honor of sticking up for your teammates. It's the
toughest role in sports, in any sport bar none. The
fact if these guys typically don't fight their own fights,
they're fighting for someone else. Someone takes out your star
player knowing that they're going to have to go out
with two minutes in the game, when they could just
(16:01):
go home and go to bed, but now they're going
to go have to get stitched up. I remember interviewing
the old team doctor for the Montreal Canadian Ends. He said,
if you a lot of times the team doctor, if
they were traveling. They wouldn't pay him in money, they
didn't have money. They'd pay him in booze. So you
hope if you got caught it was like in the
first period, because by the third period you were getting
those Frankenstein stitches, like you know, cut six inches might
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came back yet four zippers. Right. So it's a fascinating
look into a really unique part of what I think
is the greatest sport in the world. I love it.
I know you love it, Greg, something we both played
it very passionate about. And you're listening to Ross Bernstein,
author of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and
(16:43):
Retaliation in the NHL, and as a hockey fan who
spent many a night at Madison Square Garden watching the
Philadelphia Flyers brawl with the New York Rangers bullies. Now
I understand they weren't bullies. They were protectors. The history,
the culture, the honor of sticking up for your teammates,
your star players is fundamental to the game. That's what
(17:07):
we just heard from Ross Bernstein. Hockey is not just
played on ice. Hockey is played on hormone. When we
come back, more of these insights and so much more,
and by the way America's passion for sports is unrivaled
and the world's passion for sports is unrivaled. But there's
something about going to an NHL game where all you
(17:29):
see a different kind of passion than almost any other sport.
More with Ross Bernstein here on our American stories, and
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein, author
of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation
in the NHL. Let's pick up where we last left off.
(18:28):
I think one of the things that really changed in
hockey came at the advent of the early seventies when
the Philadelphia Flyers under Freddie Shirow really changed the rules.
They were tired of getting beat up by the big
bad Bruins. They just couldn't make any headway. So they decided,
Freddie Shirow and decided they were going to put a
fighter on every line Schulte and Moose DuPont, and they
(18:50):
basically created an arms race. It became legendary. Players would
always say they the bus would start shaking when they
would go over the Whitman Bridge because the guys were nervous,
because they knew didn't matter if you were on a
fourth line or not. You were gonna have to fight.
They would take on anybody and everybody, and they intimidated
you and guys would get what they called the Philly flu.
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They'd say to the coach, oh, coach, I don't feel
good that I yeah, yeah, right, because you don't want
to lose any teeth. But they found this system through
fear and intimidation to win, and it was brilliant. It's
no different than Belichick creating his system. Great coaches figure
out ways to win, and he worked within the rule book.
They eventually changed the rules because of him, but during
the time they were able to win two Stanley Cups.
(19:34):
Since you're saying I wrote another book, was the guy
named Glenn SayMore. Blenn was a legendary coach. He coached
the Minnesota north Stars, and the north Stars had never
beaten the Boston Bruins. They called it the Curse of
the Garden. The north Stars had entered the league in
nineteen sixty seven as an expansion team, and all those years,
the thirteen fourteen seasons, they'd never beaten the Bruins. The
(19:56):
Bruins came to Minnesota, they were crushing them and Bruin's
tough guy John Wensink came out and he challenged the
entire north Star bench to a fight, and that one
guy answered the bell and it killed Glenn. Glenn, it
killed him, and that all season he said, I don't
care if we win one game all year. We're gonna
face the Bruins. We're gonna beat the Bruins. We're gonna
fight the Bruins. So they go to Boston the next
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season and Glenn tells the guys, he says, not the
third time, not the second time, but the first time.
These guys trying to intimidate us. We go to war.
So opening faceoff, Bobby Smith star the north Stars. He
just won the Lady bing A Trophy, which is emblematic
of the league's most gentleman player. Like Bobby never got penalties,
(20:40):
he never fought before. But opening faceoff, one of their
guys came up and he brought his stick straight up
on the opening face off and cut Bobby's chin wide open,
and he's bleeding like a pig. And Bobby looks over
at Glenn, and Glenn looks at him, but fits up
his fists and Bobby drops the mills and it's on.
And this was a blood bath. It still stands as
a record most penalty minutes. Ever, it was like four
(21:02):
hundred and five penants. They almost couldn't finish the game
because everyone either got ejected. It was unbelievable, and the
Bruins killed the north Stars. They beat him, but afterwards
Glenn had Champagne brought in to celebrate what he took
as a moral victory that we finally stood up to
the Bruins. And during the game he almost got thrown
in jail because he threatened to throw chief of the
(21:24):
head coach of Boston ripped his head off and given
to him in a basket. I mean, it was just
unbelievable what was going on, all the fights. And sure enough,
as the hockey gods aligned that postseason, Minnesota went back
to Boston the first round of the playoffs and they
swept him. And they in that confidence of knowing that
they could fight him, that they were able to face him.
(21:46):
It was great. I wrote Glen's book. It was called
Old Time Hockey. Actually went up writing a screenplay about
a team he coached called the nineteen seventy seven Birmingham
Bulls the Bullies. And you know, I wrote a book
with the Handsome Brothers when there will be Slapshot. Dave
Hanson was on that team all and Glenn basically traded
away all their top talent on this team in the
(22:06):
old WHA to sell tickets down And if you're in Mississippi,
this is an Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, So it was unbelievable.
They would they and they would, they would sing instead
of singing the national anthem, they'd sing Dixie and all
these fans would come and it was a bloodbath every night.
And it was just Glenn traded away all their great
tellers and brought him all these tough guys and the
(22:27):
fans loved it. But Glenn understood the business of hockey
and how to sell tickets, and they were they were
in the competition to sell tickets, and everyone wanted to
keep their jobs. So it's fascinating, really fascinating stuff. Okay, guys,
show us what you got. So I wrote this crew
book called Slapshot Original, and I got to interview Paul
(22:48):
Newman right before he died, and he said it was
the most fun he ever had making a movie. He
said they drank more beer during that movie than anything,
and the Handsome Brothers who are legendary. If you haven't
seen the movie Slapshot, please once this recording is finished,
leave immediately and go and go watch it, because if
you're any kind of self respecting sports fan, you've seen
(23:09):
it at least one hundred times, so you've got a
lot of catching up to do. Everybody, Gil Gil Gil.
But it's a great movie. Horribly, horribly politically incorrect. You
could never make a movie like this today. It offends
every culture, race, creed, religion, sex, everything. It's an iconic
movie of the era of the times. Man, I'm telling you,
(23:33):
Home County is just visibly upset by this display. Come
on down again, places for the home games, bring the kids.
We got entertainment for the whole family. At one point
it was the number three rented VHS of all time.
I say vhs, not DVD because I think it was
behind Animal House and Stripes. So back in that era
it was. It was a classic comedy, but really it
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was really art imitating life. They were imitating the broad
Street Bully. They said, if we don't change hockey, it's
gonna become a parody. It's gonna become nothing but fights.
It'll be the old Rodney dangerfield. You know, I went
to a fighting hockey game broke out, and you know
it was after that, you know, that was that became
the end. As we got into the eighties and those
epic brawls of the bench clearing brawl, the line brawl,
(24:18):
the instigator, you know, you wouldn't see guys jumping guys.
And today it's a much more sanitized version. But everyone's
roots goes back to those the glory days. If you're
if you're a hockey purist, so you know, I'm not
advocating fighting. I certain you know, I certainly don't advocate
it for kids. There's your your PSA. But you know,
in hockey, it's part of the game. And when you
(24:40):
see a captain, when you would see you know, Mark Messier,
a very respected guy, we're in the seat when you
see those guys stick up for teammate and they dropped
the mits and it's heat of the moment, it's it's beautiful.
It is because they're they're sticking up for their teammates.
Or if someone you know, takes a cheap shot and
they drop the gloves and they all at it and
they and they and even say to their heavyweight, their enforcer.
(25:03):
Their job is to protect them. They say, no, I
got this. Even today, if the guy gets a Gordie
Howe hat trick, which for your listeners that they don't
know what that means. You score a goal, you get
an assist, and you're getting a fight that that's like
they're breaking out the champagne. I think the game is
really changed. And you know, the head injuries, the postconcussion syndrome,
(25:23):
the CTE, it's really taken a toll. And you know,
back in the day, the guys like Gretzky had hit bodyguards,
right McSorley, Simanco, you don't even you didn't even look
a cross eyed at Gretzky, someone would take you out.
But now a lot of the star players, the guys
like said Crosby, they have to take a lot of
those hits. Maybe not fights, but they're taking a lot
(25:44):
of body blows and the concussions. It's a big problem.
And the players see this now and football it's it's
it's much worse with the CTE and the brain injuries,
and football and hockey have a problem. I mean even football.
For a company that owns a day the week, you
know they need new customers. They're like big tobacco. Kids
aren't quitting football, they're not starting football. That's a problem
(26:06):
if you're in the football business. And we're seeing the
same thing in hockey. I mean mostly that people don't
play hockey because it's so expensive, but it's certainly become
that way now, where everything about hockey is bigger, faster, stronger.
You look at a guy like Dave Schultz, who is
a monster back in the seventies at six foot one
hundred and eighty five pounds. I mean, when I was
working on a book with Derek Bogard, Derek was six
(26:27):
to eight two hundred and fifty pounds. Look at the
Dano Chara. Look at some of these guys. They're beasts.
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NAHL.
And by the way, we don't advocate fighting here at
our American stories either, that's our PSA. But my goodness,
(26:48):
as I was telling you about watching Schulte from the
Philadelphia Flyers, I was at some of those games. I
was twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. I'll never forget them.
So exciting, so exhilarating, and you knew from the time
you stepped in the garden. Well, it's just a matter
of when the fight happened. That was the over underbet
at Madison Square Garden. When would the first fight start?
(27:09):
When we come back, more of the history of the NHL,
the role fighting played in it, and how it had
to change to comply and comport with modern times. Here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(27:39):
stories and Ross Bernstein, author of the Code, the Unwritten
Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL. Let's pick
up where we last left off. Look at some of
these guys. They're they're beasts, and they understand physics and
trigonometry and angles and how to leverage and how speed,
and how to really cause the maximum force with a punch,
(28:02):
using on skates and grabbing a guy and pulling on
one hand and punching on the other, and how to
cause the biggest damage. And then you've add YouTube and
places like Hockey Fights dot com which and and cell
phone video. Now it's escalated because now guys fight, it's
all on YouTube. And then they're going to vote who won,
who lost. Well, now you want to you don't win,
so you're bring a guy down. You know you're not
going to land a knockout punch because they've got fight straps.
(28:25):
It means your jersey's attached in the back, so you can't.
You know, Bob Probert used to put Vassilina on and
have a rip away volcro jersey. You'd grab him and
his jersey was gone. Now you couldn't grab him. He's
like a greased pig and he'd just pummeling you to death. Well,
now it's all about leverage. So you got a guy now,
and you want to bring him down because now it's
about wins and losses. Who's gonna go on YouTube, who's
gonna be at Hockey Fights dot Com? And these are metrics.
(28:47):
I mean, if you're an agent, you're gonna use these
metrics to say, well, I had this many fights that
I'm gonna I want an elevator clause in my contract.
I want to be able to get paid. I mean,
when Barrett Bougard left the Wild for the New York Rangers,
He's signed a multimillion dollar contract. Boogard had one goal,
that's it. He was only there to fight. But they
realized the value. It's like having a kicker. In football,
(29:07):
if you don't got a kicker, you're you're you're not
gonna win. And if you don't have a good fighter
to protect your best players, even to send a message.
You know, Tony Twist was so good that at one
point he said he didn't even have to tie his skates.
He was never going to go on the ice. But
the other teams knew with him sitting at the end
of the bench, no one was going to mess with
their guys because they didn't want to face Twister. He
was crazy, He'd he'd come out and kill you. So
(29:29):
so just that it's like us and the Russians and
with the nuclear bombs, we have them so that we
never have to use them. And that's what these guys are.
They're nuclear bombs. Sitting at the end of the bench,
knowing that a guy goes I'm gonna I'm gonna think
twice about cheap shot and a guy or finishing a
check because I don't want that guy to come out
and take me out and take out our star player.
So it's tip for tat. That's how the code works.
(29:52):
You take out our guy, we're taking out your guy.
Same in baseball, Tony LaRussa manager. You take out our
cleanup hitter, We're taking out your cleanup hitter. You our
center fielder, We're drew in your center fielder. You pimple
home run, you steal signs, you disrespect us, We're taking
your guys out. There's always going to be cheating, gamesmanship, spygate,
the fraight gate, sign stealing, you name it. Even in
(30:14):
the World Cup, just saw these referee will come over
and he'll spray paint. They have a little can't of
spray paint. With a spray paint a little circle where
that guy can put the ball for a free kick.
You watch all the guys run over there and they
try and kick that little circle, and they want the
dirt all all fluffed up so that he can't get
a clean shot. You watch him, they'll distract him. Those
one guy, I'll pretend he's injured just so they can
(30:35):
come kick it up. They're constantly trying to cheat. Everyone's
cheating except golf. That's hill the sport where there's no cheating.
But fighting is the ultimate equalizer. You cheat, you're gonna
lose some teeth, spit and chicklets, as they say, and
That's what keeps the game honest, is that when you
have that level of respect and accountability, you knowing that, hey,
if you cheap shot us, what cheap shot you? The
(30:56):
game gets cleaned up. Look back in the seventies, when
college hockey players didn't wear face masks, there was a
lot less facial injuries, believe it or not, because you
didn't see a five foot four guy cheap shotting some
six foot two guy. He'd get killed. It was a
level of respect without a face mask. You know, keep
your stick down, you know, be responsible, don't don't run
(31:17):
a guy, don't. But then when the face mask got
put on, they were invincible. Now you see guys running
around right, smacking guys because what do you into? Hit
me in my face mask? Big deal. So, believe it
or not, by keeping the face masks off, it cleans
up the game and it makes it more more fair,
and the players live by that honor code. You break
(31:37):
that code, you're you're going to get it. And that's
that's that's more sacred than anything in hockey, the code.
You know. It's interesting. I actually got to work with
the Colorado Avalanche a couple of years ago. Patrick Waugh
and Joe Sakic became good friends and they brought me
in to work with their team and I got to
spend a weekend with him at their retreat and it
was interesting. But you know Patrick Waugh, and you know
(31:58):
he was legendary fighting and that you know, the code
says that you know, heavyweights fight heavyweights, middleweights fight middleweights,
lightweights fight lightweights, and goalies fight goalies. You don't break
that code unless a goalie totally says we're going to
do it and then the linesman agrees, right, But otherwise
you don't. You don't break that code. So if there's
a fight, that means the two goalies are going to
(32:19):
meet in the middle, and that's that's how it goes.
But decency is a really important and it's it seems
like hockey is so barbaric, but there are real rules,
there are real laws. Some of these guys, like my movie,
the book The Code, got turned into a movie with
an Academy War Warning director. It's called The Last Gladiators
and the kind of the star of the movie is
Chris Nilan And Nyland was a guy. He was he
(32:40):
was a small guy. You know, Nyland's barely six foot
maybe maybe one hundred and eighty pounds, but he'd fight anybody.
You know. He had the crazies right he was, and
his teammates loved him. They adored him. In Montreal, he
was just beloved and the fans loved him because he
was just that guy who grew up with a chip
on his shoulder and he didn't care how big you are.
He'd fight you. And we all know someone like that, right,
(33:01):
and we all love those protectors, those teddy bears who
are going to take care of us. And someone hits
our star player, and you could always expect Nilan to
come off the bench and write what was wronged, but
they do it in a decent way. They weren't clowns
about it, right, they would they would do it. And nowadays,
if you get a guy who clowns and they're not
going to last long in the league, the codes will
make sure that the justice is served. It's it's a
(33:22):
crazy thing, but it's it's really interesting. Here again, is
human behavior specialist Howard Bloom. Is there a virtue that's
overlooked by those who look at hockey? You bet, but
you don't know it until you step into the dressing
room and interview one of these guys. You think that
this guy is a monster. You think he has no
compunctions about breaking arms, breaking legs, smashing out teeth. You
(33:46):
think he's merciless, that he should be exterminated, he's a
cockroach in the game. And then you sit down with
him and discover that he has a most magnificent set
of ethics at morals you have ever seen your life,
and pursuing the question of the enforcer, pursuing the question
of what it is to be human? What does the
enforcer call on profound loyalty. Loyalty is so deep that
(34:10):
he's willing to risk his own structure, his own body,
his own bones, his own teeth, his own brain behalf
of protecting people he deeply loves. The enforcer is the
most ethical and moral member of the tribe because he
is willing to undergo such incredible sacrifice. That's looking at
(34:33):
it from the inside of the group. Looking at it
from the outside of the group, the enforcer is the
ultimate enemy, the super bad guy, and must be eliminated.
But that's because you and I are looking at it
from the point of view of another group. If we
were looking at it from within the group that the
enforcer defends, we would love the enforcer because the enforcer
loves every single one of us so much he is
(34:56):
willing to give his life for us. One of the
last lines in the book, it's hockey is a interesting
mixture of grace and disgrace. And you know it's true.
You've got these beautiful, poetic skaters, just creative, free flowing
down the ice with their long, beautiful walks of hair,
(35:19):
using physics and angles and space or relationships to time
perfect passes off the boards and understanding the beauty of
an incredible tic tech toe goal. And then you've got
the craziness of the fighting and the and the checking,
and the and the and the chirping, and the instigators
and the agitators and the side shows and the drama,
(35:42):
and you know, it's just it's all part of it.
It's it's what makes hockey hockey. And there's different levels.
You know, I still play old man hockey and and
beer league, and uh, there's still a level of decency
and grace there. And if you disgrace someone and do
something bad, you're still going to get it. There's guys
an open hockey that are going to drop the gloves
and you know, you'll you'll see a game in Nebraska
(36:03):
where everyone gets a free small pizza Billy Bobs if
there's a fight. So that's the kind of stuff that
I think has no place in hockey, just for for
that part, because these kids that they're none of them
are going to make it as a fighter at that level,
you know, So it's just for show, and it's just stupid.
So I'm not a fan of that kind of fighting
at all. But in the heat of the moment, when
Jerome a Ginla gets cheap shotted or he sees one
(36:25):
of his teammates gets cheap shot and he goes and
grabs that guy and drops the gloves and faces him
head on and he pummels him and knocks him down,
that's respect. That's that's the grace of hockey. And I
think that's always gonna have a place in the game
because the players want it. If they didn't want fighting
in hockey, they could eliminate it immediately. It would be
gone tomorrow. You make it a ten minute major a
(36:47):
game suspension, and I promise you there will be no
more fighting. But it exists because the players see the
value and the honor and it's just a really interesting
part of the game and a truly fascinating story, which
is what this program is all about. And a terrific
job on the production by hockey efficionado Greg Hengler, who
(37:08):
grew up in Minnesota, and the part where while they
pull him out of the wounds and skates and a
special thanks to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code, the
Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL. I
remember when Derek Bougard was signed by the Rangers to
a multimillion dollar deal, headlines across the daily news about
finally the Rangers getting the enforcer they deserved, and that
(37:33):
insight about the enforcers actually making the game safer is
something I really never thought about before. It's so counterintuitive.
And also the honor code and the moral and ethical
code of the enforcer, again, something I've never really thought about.
Fighting is the ultimate equalizer. Bernstein said, It's what keeps
(37:54):
hockey honest by keeping the face masks off. He also
pointed out cleaned up the game. Hockey is a mixture
of grace and disgrace. I don't think you could put
it better. The story of NHL's enforcers here on our
American stories.
This is Leigh Habibe and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to
the iHeartRadio app, to iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hockey is and always has been, a sport steeped in
(00:30):
a culture of violence. Players have learned, however, to navigate
the escalating levels of physical contact by adhering to an
honor system simply known as the Code. Ross Bernstein, author
of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation
in the NHL, spent two years for searching this story,
(00:52):
and he's here to share it with us. Let's think
a listen. I grew up in southern Minnesota, which is
not hockey country. This is wrestling in basketball country, not
like northern Minnesota where they pull the kids out of
the wombs by their skate blades, as they say. But
as a ten year old kid, I watched the Miracle
(01:13):
on ice and this rocked my world. I begged my
parents to please let me go to the Herb Brooks
hockey camp. He had a hockey camp that year for kids,
and I went. I had to go buy skates all
the stuff. I was the worst guy there. I won
the most Improved award for the guy who sucks the most.
But it got me into hockey, and I wound up
becoming the star of the Fairmont Cardinal slash Domino's Pizza
(01:37):
hockey team. We were so bad our high school wouldn't
even sponsor us. We had to wear Domino's Pizza jerseys.
That's how bad we were. But I got into hockey
in a big way. And I had a choice to
make as a high school senior small college football, or
I could be a Golden Gopher. I want to go
to the University of Minnesota. That was my dream. My
family bled more in gold I fear from Minnesota. You
(01:57):
know this means everything if you're not. This is like
Texas football, Indiana basketball, rugby in New Zealand and me.
We love hockey Minnesota. I got season tickets. It was incredible.
And then I took this class. It was a one
credit fied course called Introduction to Ice Hockey one O one.
It was the class players taught to get their scholarships, allegedly,
(02:17):
and I wanted becoming friends with a bunch of guys
in the team, and I would invite him over to
my fraternity parties that we'd hang out, and eventually they said,
you know, Ross, you're not that bad of a hockey player.
You should try out. You should walk onto the varsity.
I said, you know, you're crazy, but they wanted me
to do it, and I did it, and I lasted
about ten minutes. I made it through a while, and
(02:39):
I was trying to impress the coaches one day and
I wound up taking out our star player or the
team captain, Todd Richards former going to be an NHL
player and coach, and apparently that is not the thing
you're supposed to do. So I got cut. But they
told me that I could become the team mascot, Goldie
the Gopher. So I became the mascot. I had a blast.
I was entertaining drunk fans, a lot of trouble, so
(03:01):
much trouble that as a senior, a publisher approached me
and asked me if they could write a book about
all the trouble I had gotten into. Apparently it's not
appropriate to throw craft cheese singles at the Wisconsin hockey
players who knew cheese heads. But this got me into
hockey in a big way, and I wound up begging
my mom and dad to use my graduate school money
(03:23):
to write and publish my own book about the history
of Gopher hockey from Goldie the Gopher's point of view,
and it became a cult best seller, and I got
to interview hundreds of hockey players who would tell me
these amazing stories and flash forward. You know, I've written
almost fifty books since then. But along the way, I
remember I was working on a hockey book and I
watched this this fight where where Marty McSorley and Todd
(03:46):
Bertuzzi had had gotten into this incident and they kept
referring to it as the Bertuzzi incident, and I didn't
know why it was. And I said that Bertuzzi had
broken the Code, and I fancied myself, as you know,
as a big hockey guy had written a lot of
books at this point, and I didn't know what that meant.
So I kind of went down this rabbit hole and
it launched this book called The Code about the unwritten
unspoken rules and what leads to fighting and retaliation in hockey,
(04:09):
and it was just fascinating and I learned about these
unwritten rules like All Star wrestling like no one talked
about these things. There is no fight club. No one
talks about fight club. And I wanted the interviewing all
the players. And because I think I was a hockey guy,
because I was, you know, a player at some level,
and I was at all the charity golf tournaments. They
trusted me and they were sharing with me, and one
(04:30):
would tell me a story in the next and interviewing
hundreds of players about why fighting exists. I never understood.
It's the only sport that really allows fighting to exist.
And it's been that way forever, going back, you know,
years and years and years. The NHL always said they
just allowed it. They said it was originally called fisticuffs,
(04:51):
and they said it whereas other sports you'll get kicked out,
in hockey, they give you a five minute fighting major.
It's a part of the game. It's part of the
cult the game. There's an honor code the players live
by where the game polices itself. This honor code says
that if you play like a jerk, you'll be treated
like a jerk. It's the golden rule. Do something dirty,
(05:11):
hit a guy from behind, take liberties to the smaller player,
run a guy do something stupid. The honor code says
you must be held accountable. That's why players really aren't
allowed to wear face masks once they become professionals, because
you have to be held accountable. There's a code. You
can't hit a guy when he's down. You can't turtle,
you can't dip your helmet as if to invite a
(05:32):
guy to hit your helmet and break his knuckles. I mean,
there's all these rules within the rules that dictate how
you and when you can fight. It has to be
you know, both guys acknowledging at each other. You can't
jump a guy from behind the Linesmen have great liberties.
The NHL has given them liberties as to how they
can mitigate and make sure that no one gets hurt,
(05:52):
and make sure that once it's over, it's over. That
if someone doesn't want to be a willing participant, that
they won't be. But you'll see, guys, you'll see it's
when you on YouTube and see the audio when there
is a fight, you'll see that it's it's very much professional.
You'll do okayprol good luck, lids, good luck, then let's go.
(06:21):
He says, that's unbelievable. Look at him, this smile on
his face. They'll even give out like a flip flip
the thumb up, like we'll flip the lids meaning okay,
you know what, I got a broken finger, take your
helmet off. It's like a respect thing. Marty mcsolier wound
up writing one of the forwards for the book along
with Tony. Twist would have had Bob Probert, but he
(06:44):
wasn't around. Said that we had lost him, but send
me down another rabbit hole again of interviewing. I wrote
many books. I wrote a book with Derek Bougard. When
he's playing for the Minnesota Wild. He remembered taking boxing
lessons from this guy named Scott LaDue. Scott was a
heavyweight prize fight fought Muhammad Ali Homes so he understood
hockey leverage balance, but fighting body blows, how to leverage
(07:07):
reach and it was so these guys were very technical.
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code,
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL,
who knew when we come back, more of this fascinating
story here on our American Stories. You're in our American Stories.
(07:32):
We bring you inspiring stories of history. Sports, business, faith
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
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Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
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(07:53):
a lot, help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's our American Stories dot Com. And we continue here
on Our American Stories with Ross Bernstein and author of
(08:13):
the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in
the NHL, and where he left off in his story
discussing hockey enforcer Derek Booguard. Derek would go on YouTube
every day and study tendencies. The poker tells what other
guys would do is that if you know, if this
is your job and you're not very good at it,
(08:35):
you know you're you're not gonna be around very long.
And back in those days he might have thirty forty
fights a year, not like today where it's really changed.
So going back in the history I'm weaving around, I apologize,
but going back in the history, you know, back in
the old Madison Square Garden, the promoters they were boxing
promoters and they would rented an ambulance and they would
(08:55):
drive it around Madison Square Garden with the sirens blaring, saying,
the Boston Bruins are in town. It's going to be
a blood bath. There was always a story like in wrestling,
like the you'd get heat and you'd you'd build up
this bad guy persona and then everything would come to
blows and then the loser had to leave town and
he'd go to another territory. Well that's kind of how
it was, but it was real. They knew the last
(09:17):
time wasn't found. You know, Tiger Williams got in a
big fight and whoever, and they would dramatize it. The
newspaper reporters loved it, and you know, the fans went crazy.
If there was a fight, no one got up. They
wouldn't go into the bathroom. They weren't buying a hot dog.
They wanted to see it. And really, what's fascinating is
is it It was a way to create momentum. You know,
(09:37):
it's hard in sports to create momentum. As a speaker,
I talk about momentum and how businesses can create momentum.
But in hockey, if your team's down to it and nothing,
and a coach taps a guy in the back, or
gives him a wink, or just gives him a look.
He knows to go out there and take on the
other guy's heavy weight, and if he wins, you know,
the guys are going to bang their sticks in the
boards and that's momentum. The crowd goes wild, or you
(10:00):
silence the other team's crowd. Either way, it creates momentium
and the players feed on that energy. It literally creates
a home field advantage, and it's remarkable. They'll rally, they'll
come back from two to nothing, then they'll win three
to two, and you can credit that that fighter, that
fourth line guy, in making the league minimum. You know,
there's a really interesting story that I thought was brought
(10:20):
to light in my book by Howard Bloom that I
think really explains a lot. Jack Jackson with a couple
of good left hands. Why is intimidation effectively changing the
whole pace of a game? Because one somebody on your
team gets hurt, that becomes a real preoccupation. Either makes
you feel like a victim or makes you feel like
(10:41):
it's time for revenge. The adrenaline level goes up, it
changes the very hormonal sea on which hockey has played.
Hockey's not just played on ice, Hockey's played on hormones.
How that game goes is going to determine whether for
the next week or month they are winners or hormonally
(11:06):
and biologically they are losers. Without him doing that role,
they don't win. So it's really remarkable. So they're the
most respected players on the team. When I was getting
to know Derek Bougard when he was in the Minnesota Wild,
you know, they sold more Boogard jerseys than anyone else's
jerseys because those guys are and they're teddy bears. They've
(11:26):
all got that Jackal and Hyde persona. They're all the
nicest guys off the ice, but on the ice their animals.
Their job is to inflict pain and it's never personal,
you know. Tony Twist said that he had knocked out
the forefront teeth of the best man in his wedding.
It wasn't personal. It's just business, you know. That's what
they gotta do. And it's hard because you know, those
guys as they get older. Marty McSorley, we'd we'd get together,
(11:47):
you know, he could his hands barely worked because there's
so many you know, they're just they were so much
inflammation and arthritic. And you know, he'd say, you know,
during training camp, they dreaded it because you'd have to
play with what they would call the football players. And
those are the guys who were the tough kids from
medicine hat moose jaw monkedin. They knew they were never
(12:07):
gonna make the team, so they gave him like their
jersey numbers were like number seventy five. They were the
football players. So these guys would come in and they
would you know, you want to be the man, you
gotta beat the man's They would say, very cordially, you know,
mister mc sorley, i'm trying to make the team or
you know, the minor league team. Could I please have
a fight with you, sir. It's like, all right, you
know what, kids, you're you're you're you're okay. You know,
(12:28):
well we'll do it tomorrow. You know, at the end
of the game. I'm okay, but I got a sore
shoulders that don't don't don't come at me from this side,
and we're gonna flip the lids because I gotta you know,
and it's just amazing how it was very much just business,
it wasn't personal. And Tony Tony Twist described this. It
was fascinating. He described going to work every day like
(12:49):
like I thought something that every guy could relate to.
He said, it was like being in eighth grade junior
high and the biggest bully in the school called you
out and they challenge you to a fight, and they
told everyone so in that bell ring at three o'clock,
man at three or five, you had to be there.
And that stress of knowing that you had to fight
this guy at the end of the day. And every
(13:10):
guy's been there right then, may have been in a
fight in your life. You've been there, and you know
what that's like. And they had to do that every day,
and they know that if you were going to Chicago,
he had to fight Proby and and the last time
he fought probably he cut him. So now probably's angry
and he embarrassed him. So now he's coming. He knows
he's coming for you, and he knows during pregame warm
ups it's coming like first period maybe first shift, right,
(13:32):
and you're gonna get it out of the way. And
then and then there might be a rematch. Here's Bob Probert. Yes,
at a certain point in my career, you know, I
had a reputation as being one of the tougher guys
in the league. So he either had players that would
would come after you and try to make a name
for themselves or would stay away. So you had a
little bit of both. You know, it was a job
that that was. It wasn't easy. You know, you didn't
(13:53):
have to you know, if you're a goalscorer, you just
have to worry about going out there and keeping your
stats up, going out and trying to score a goal. Right,
a fighter, there's a lot more too it. You got
you're thinking. You're constantly thinking, okay, well who are we
playing tomorrow? Who are we playing next week? Okay, next week,
I'm gonna have to fight this guy. Um, you're always
you're thinking that. It takes a lot, a lot, It
takes a saw on. Yeah, And then they got to
(14:15):
get up, right, so they're chicken in feed of me
pain killers because they gotta get up with this. But
then afterwards they got to come down because they got
they want to read stories to their kids to go
to bed, and they got to do it all again
the next day. So it's this cycle. So so many
of these guys get addicted to painkillers and it's tragic,
but a lot of these guys that's their ticket. And
it was fascinating. A lot of guys I met, they were,
(14:36):
you know, four year college guys. These are smart guys.
It wasn't like it was hockey or else. A lot
of these guys, like Bougard, they left home and they
were thirteen to go live with the Billet family in Saskatchewan.
And that's your job. Like, if you don't make it,
there's nothing else. You're going to the back, to the
farm or the salt mine or whatever it is. So
go out of college. Guys said, you know what, I'll
take that role. The bottom line is you got to
protect your skill players. And if other teams know they
(14:59):
can take liberties with the skill players, they're going to
come after him. I remember one of my a real
good friend of mine, Neil Sheehy, who played about ten
years for Calgary. And this is a smart guy. This
guy went to Harvard Law School. He's an agent today
for some of the best players in the league. But
he learned that it's chess. He said, you know what,
if I can go punch Gretzky and McSorley or Samenko
(15:19):
will come beat the crap out of me, my team
will gladly exchange me for Gretzky. So he'd do that
all day, every day, and they figured out that ultimately
became the Instigator rule that they literally they named kind
of after him because he figured out an arbitrage a
gray area where you could, you know, if you can
get Gretzky to fight, will gladly take him off the
(15:40):
ice because we got a chance to beat you. So
it was really interesting learning about the history, the culture,
the honor of sticking up for your teammates. It's the
toughest role in sports, in any sport bar none. The
fact if these guys typically don't fight their own fights,
they're fighting for someone else. Someone takes out your star
player knowing that they're going to have to go out
with two minutes in the game, when they could just
(16:01):
go home and go to bed, but now they're going
to go have to get stitched up. I remember interviewing
the old team doctor for the Montreal Canadian Ends. He said,
if you a lot of times the team doctor, if
they were traveling. They wouldn't pay him in money, they
didn't have money. They'd pay him in booze. So you
hope if you got caught it was like in the
first period, because by the third period you were getting
those Frankenstein stitches, like you know, cut six inches might
(16:22):
came back yet four zippers. Right. So it's a fascinating
look into a really unique part of what I think
is the greatest sport in the world. I love it.
I know you love it, Greg, something we both played
it very passionate about. And you're listening to Ross Bernstein,
author of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and
(16:43):
Retaliation in the NHL, and as a hockey fan who
spent many a night at Madison Square Garden watching the
Philadelphia Flyers brawl with the New York Rangers bullies. Now
I understand they weren't bullies. They were protectors. The history,
the culture, the honor of sticking up for your teammates,
your star players is fundamental to the game. That's what
(17:07):
we just heard from Ross Bernstein. Hockey is not just
played on ice. Hockey is played on hormone. When we
come back, more of these insights and so much more,
and by the way America's passion for sports is unrivaled
and the world's passion for sports is unrivaled. But there's
something about going to an NHL game where all you
(17:29):
see a different kind of passion than almost any other sport.
More with Ross Bernstein here on our American stories, and
(18:08):
we continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein, author
of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation
in the NHL. Let's pick up where we last left off.
(18:28):
I think one of the things that really changed in
hockey came at the advent of the early seventies when
the Philadelphia Flyers under Freddie Shirow really changed the rules.
They were tired of getting beat up by the big
bad Bruins. They just couldn't make any headway. So they decided,
Freddie Shirow and decided they were going to put a
fighter on every line Schulte and Moose DuPont, and they
(18:50):
basically created an arms race. It became legendary. Players would
always say they the bus would start shaking when they
would go over the Whitman Bridge because the guys were nervous,
because they knew didn't matter if you were on a
fourth line or not. You were gonna have to fight.
They would take on anybody and everybody, and they intimidated
you and guys would get what they called the Philly flu.
(19:11):
They'd say to the coach, oh, coach, I don't feel
good that I yeah, yeah, right, because you don't want
to lose any teeth. But they found this system through
fear and intimidation to win, and it was brilliant. It's
no different than Belichick creating his system. Great coaches figure
out ways to win, and he worked within the rule book.
They eventually changed the rules because of him, but during
the time they were able to win two Stanley Cups.
(19:34):
Since you're saying I wrote another book, was the guy
named Glenn SayMore. Blenn was a legendary coach. He coached
the Minnesota north Stars, and the north Stars had never
beaten the Boston Bruins. They called it the Curse of
the Garden. The north Stars had entered the league in
nineteen sixty seven as an expansion team, and all those years,
the thirteen fourteen seasons, they'd never beaten the Bruins. The
(19:56):
Bruins came to Minnesota, they were crushing them and Bruin's
tough guy John Wensink came out and he challenged the
entire north Star bench to a fight, and that one
guy answered the bell and it killed Glenn. Glenn, it
killed him, and that all season he said, I don't
care if we win one game all year. We're gonna
face the Bruins. We're gonna beat the Bruins. We're gonna
fight the Bruins. So they go to Boston the next
(20:19):
season and Glenn tells the guys, he says, not the
third time, not the second time, but the first time.
These guys trying to intimidate us. We go to war.
So opening faceoff, Bobby Smith star the north Stars. He
just won the Lady bing A Trophy, which is emblematic
of the league's most gentleman player. Like Bobby never got penalties,
(20:40):
he never fought before. But opening faceoff, one of their
guys came up and he brought his stick straight up
on the opening face off and cut Bobby's chin wide open,
and he's bleeding like a pig. And Bobby looks over
at Glenn, and Glenn looks at him, but fits up
his fists and Bobby drops the mills and it's on.
And this was a blood bath. It still stands as
a record most penalty minutes. Ever, it was like four
(21:02):
hundred and five penants. They almost couldn't finish the game
because everyone either got ejected. It was unbelievable, and the
Bruins killed the north Stars. They beat him, but afterwards
Glenn had Champagne brought in to celebrate what he took
as a moral victory that we finally stood up to
the Bruins. And during the game he almost got thrown
in jail because he threatened to throw chief of the
(21:24):
head coach of Boston ripped his head off and given
to him in a basket. I mean, it was just
unbelievable what was going on, all the fights. And sure enough,
as the hockey gods aligned that postseason, Minnesota went back
to Boston the first round of the playoffs and they
swept him. And they in that confidence of knowing that
they could fight him, that they were able to face him.
(21:46):
It was great. I wrote Glen's book. It was called
Old Time Hockey. Actually went up writing a screenplay about
a team he coached called the nineteen seventy seven Birmingham
Bulls the Bullies. And you know, I wrote a book
with the Handsome Brothers when there will be Slapshot. Dave
Hanson was on that team all and Glenn basically traded
away all their top talent on this team in the
(22:06):
old WHA to sell tickets down And if you're in Mississippi,
this is an Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, So it was unbelievable.
They would they and they would, they would sing instead
of singing the national anthem, they'd sing Dixie and all
these fans would come and it was a bloodbath every night.
And it was just Glenn traded away all their great
tellers and brought him all these tough guys and the
(22:27):
fans loved it. But Glenn understood the business of hockey
and how to sell tickets, and they were they were
in the competition to sell tickets, and everyone wanted to
keep their jobs. So it's fascinating, really fascinating stuff. Okay, guys,
show us what you got. So I wrote this crew
book called Slapshot Original, and I got to interview Paul
(22:48):
Newman right before he died, and he said it was
the most fun he ever had making a movie. He
said they drank more beer during that movie than anything,
and the Handsome Brothers who are legendary. If you haven't
seen the movie Slapshot, please once this recording is finished,
leave immediately and go and go watch it, because if
you're any kind of self respecting sports fan, you've seen
(23:09):
it at least one hundred times, so you've got a
lot of catching up to do. Everybody, Gil Gil Gil.
But it's a great movie. Horribly, horribly politically incorrect. You
could never make a movie like this today. It offends
every culture, race, creed, religion, sex, everything. It's an iconic
movie of the era of the times. Man, I'm telling you,
(23:33):
Home County is just visibly upset by this display. Come
on down again, places for the home games, bring the kids.
We got entertainment for the whole family. At one point
it was the number three rented VHS of all time.
I say vhs, not DVD because I think it was
behind Animal House and Stripes. So back in that era
it was. It was a classic comedy, but really it
(23:55):
was really art imitating life. They were imitating the broad
Street Bully. They said, if we don't change hockey, it's
gonna become a parody. It's gonna become nothing but fights.
It'll be the old Rodney dangerfield. You know, I went
to a fighting hockey game broke out, and you know
it was after that, you know, that was that became
the end. As we got into the eighties and those
epic brawls of the bench clearing brawl, the line brawl,
(24:18):
the instigator, you know, you wouldn't see guys jumping guys.
And today it's a much more sanitized version. But everyone's
roots goes back to those the glory days. If you're
if you're a hockey purist, so you know, I'm not
advocating fighting. I certain you know, I certainly don't advocate
it for kids. There's your your PSA. But you know,
in hockey, it's part of the game. And when you
(24:40):
see a captain, when you would see you know, Mark Messier,
a very respected guy, we're in the seat when you
see those guys stick up for teammate and they dropped
the mits and it's heat of the moment, it's it's beautiful.
It is because they're they're sticking up for their teammates.
Or if someone you know, takes a cheap shot and
they drop the gloves and they all at it and
they and they and even say to their heavyweight, their enforcer.
(25:03):
Their job is to protect them. They say, no, I
got this. Even today, if the guy gets a Gordie
Howe hat trick, which for your listeners that they don't
know what that means. You score a goal, you get
an assist, and you're getting a fight that that's like
they're breaking out the champagne. I think the game is
really changed. And you know, the head injuries, the postconcussion syndrome,
(25:23):
the CTE, it's really taken a toll. And you know,
back in the day, the guys like Gretzky had hit bodyguards,
right McSorley, Simanco, you don't even you didn't even look
a cross eyed at Gretzky, someone would take you out.
But now a lot of the star players, the guys
like said Crosby, they have to take a lot of
those hits. Maybe not fights, but they're taking a lot
(25:44):
of body blows and the concussions. It's a big problem.
And the players see this now and football it's it's
it's much worse with the CTE and the brain injuries,
and football and hockey have a problem. I mean even football.
For a company that owns a day the week, you
know they need new customers. They're like big tobacco. Kids
aren't quitting football, they're not starting football. That's a problem
(26:06):
if you're in the football business. And we're seeing the
same thing in hockey. I mean mostly that people don't
play hockey because it's so expensive, but it's certainly become
that way now, where everything about hockey is bigger, faster, stronger.
You look at a guy like Dave Schultz, who is
a monster back in the seventies at six foot one
hundred and eighty five pounds. I mean, when I was
working on a book with Derek Bogard, Derek was six
(26:27):
to eight two hundred and fifty pounds. Look at the
Dano Chara. Look at some of these guys. They're beasts.
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NAHL.
And by the way, we don't advocate fighting here at
our American stories either, that's our PSA. But my goodness,
(26:48):
as I was telling you about watching Schulte from the
Philadelphia Flyers, I was at some of those games. I
was twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. I'll never forget them.
So exciting, so exhilarating, and you knew from the time
you stepped in the garden. Well, it's just a matter
of when the fight happened. That was the over underbet
at Madison Square Garden. When would the first fight start?
(27:09):
When we come back, more of the history of the NHL,
the role fighting played in it, and how it had
to change to comply and comport with modern times. Here
on our American stories, and we continue with our American
(27:39):
stories and Ross Bernstein, author of the Code, the Unwritten
Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL. Let's pick
up where we last left off. Look at some of
these guys. They're they're beasts, and they understand physics and
trigonometry and angles and how to leverage and how speed,
and how to really cause the maximum force with a punch,
(28:02):
using on skates and grabbing a guy and pulling on
one hand and punching on the other, and how to
cause the biggest damage. And then you've add YouTube and
places like Hockey Fights dot com which and and cell
phone video. Now it's escalated because now guys fight, it's
all on YouTube. And then they're going to vote who won,
who lost. Well, now you want to you don't win,
so you're bring a guy down. You know you're not
going to land a knockout punch because they've got fight straps.
(28:25):
It means your jersey's attached in the back, so you can't.
You know, Bob Probert used to put Vassilina on and
have a rip away volcro jersey. You'd grab him and
his jersey was gone. Now you couldn't grab him. He's
like a greased pig and he'd just pummeling you to death. Well,
now it's all about leverage. So you got a guy now,
and you want to bring him down because now it's
about wins and losses. Who's gonna go on YouTube, who's
gonna be at Hockey Fights dot Com? And these are metrics.
(28:47):
I mean, if you're an agent, you're gonna use these
metrics to say, well, I had this many fights that
I'm gonna I want an elevator clause in my contract.
I want to be able to get paid. I mean,
when Barrett Bougard left the Wild for the New York Rangers,
He's signed a multimillion dollar contract. Boogard had one goal,
that's it. He was only there to fight. But they
realized the value. It's like having a kicker. In football,
(29:07):
if you don't got a kicker, you're you're you're not
gonna win. And if you don't have a good fighter
to protect your best players, even to send a message.
You know, Tony Twist was so good that at one
point he said he didn't even have to tie his skates.
He was never going to go on the ice. But
the other teams knew with him sitting at the end
of the bench, no one was going to mess with
their guys because they didn't want to face Twister. He
was crazy, He'd he'd come out and kill you. So
(29:29):
so just that it's like us and the Russians and
with the nuclear bombs, we have them so that we
never have to use them. And that's what these guys are.
They're nuclear bombs. Sitting at the end of the bench,
knowing that a guy goes I'm gonna I'm gonna think
twice about cheap shot and a guy or finishing a
check because I don't want that guy to come out
and take me out and take out our star player.
So it's tip for tat. That's how the code works.
(29:52):
You take out our guy, we're taking out your guy.
Same in baseball, Tony LaRussa manager. You take out our
cleanup hitter, We're taking out your cleanup hitter. You our
center fielder, We're drew in your center fielder. You pimple
home run, you steal signs, you disrespect us, We're taking
your guys out. There's always going to be cheating, gamesmanship, spygate,
the fraight gate, sign stealing, you name it. Even in
(30:14):
the World Cup, just saw these referee will come over
and he'll spray paint. They have a little can't of
spray paint. With a spray paint a little circle where
that guy can put the ball for a free kick.
You watch all the guys run over there and they
try and kick that little circle, and they want the
dirt all all fluffed up so that he can't get
a clean shot. You watch him, they'll distract him. Those
one guy, I'll pretend he's injured just so they can
(30:35):
come kick it up. They're constantly trying to cheat. Everyone's
cheating except golf. That's hill the sport where there's no cheating.
But fighting is the ultimate equalizer. You cheat, you're gonna
lose some teeth, spit and chicklets, as they say, and
That's what keeps the game honest, is that when you
have that level of respect and accountability, you knowing that, hey,
if you cheap shot us, what cheap shot you? The
(30:56):
game gets cleaned up. Look back in the seventies, when
college hockey players didn't wear face masks, there was a
lot less facial injuries, believe it or not, because you
didn't see a five foot four guy cheap shotting some
six foot two guy. He'd get killed. It was a
level of respect without a face mask. You know, keep
your stick down, you know, be responsible, don't don't run
(31:17):
a guy, don't. But then when the face mask got
put on, they were invincible. Now you see guys running
around right, smacking guys because what do you into? Hit
me in my face mask? Big deal. So, believe it
or not, by keeping the face masks off, it cleans
up the game and it makes it more more fair,
and the players live by that honor code. You break
(31:37):
that code, you're you're going to get it. And that's
that's that's more sacred than anything in hockey, the code.
You know. It's interesting. I actually got to work with
the Colorado Avalanche a couple of years ago. Patrick Waugh
and Joe Sakic became good friends and they brought me
in to work with their team and I got to
spend a weekend with him at their retreat and it
was interesting. But you know Patrick Waugh, and you know
(31:58):
he was legendary fighting and that you know, the code
says that you know, heavyweights fight heavyweights, middleweights fight middleweights,
lightweights fight lightweights, and goalies fight goalies. You don't break
that code unless a goalie totally says we're going to
do it and then the linesman agrees, right, But otherwise
you don't. You don't break that code. So if there's
a fight, that means the two goalies are going to
(32:19):
meet in the middle, and that's that's how it goes.
But decency is a really important and it's it seems
like hockey is so barbaric, but there are real rules,
there are real laws. Some of these guys, like my movie,
the book The Code, got turned into a movie with
an Academy War Warning director. It's called The Last Gladiators
and the kind of the star of the movie is
Chris Nilan And Nyland was a guy. He was he
(32:40):
was a small guy. You know, Nyland's barely six foot
maybe maybe one hundred and eighty pounds, but he'd fight anybody.
You know. He had the crazies right he was, and
his teammates loved him. They adored him. In Montreal, he
was just beloved and the fans loved him because he
was just that guy who grew up with a chip
on his shoulder and he didn't care how big you are.
He'd fight you. And we all know someone like that, right,
(33:01):
and we all love those protectors, those teddy bears who
are going to take care of us. And someone hits
our star player, and you could always expect Nilan to
come off the bench and write what was wronged, but
they do it in a decent way. They weren't clowns
about it, right, they would they would do it. And nowadays,
if you get a guy who clowns and they're not
going to last long in the league, the codes will
make sure that the justice is served. It's it's a
(33:22):
crazy thing, but it's it's really interesting. Here again, is
human behavior specialist Howard Bloom. Is there a virtue that's
overlooked by those who look at hockey? You bet, but
you don't know it until you step into the dressing
room and interview one of these guys. You think that
this guy is a monster. You think he has no
compunctions about breaking arms, breaking legs, smashing out teeth. You
(33:46):
think he's merciless, that he should be exterminated, he's a
cockroach in the game. And then you sit down with
him and discover that he has a most magnificent set
of ethics at morals you have ever seen your life,
and pursuing the question of the enforcer, pursuing the question
of what it is to be human? What does the
enforcer call on profound loyalty. Loyalty is so deep that
(34:10):
he's willing to risk his own structure, his own body,
his own bones, his own teeth, his own brain behalf
of protecting people he deeply loves. The enforcer is the
most ethical and moral member of the tribe because he
is willing to undergo such incredible sacrifice. That's looking at
(34:33):
it from the inside of the group. Looking at it
from the outside of the group, the enforcer is the
ultimate enemy, the super bad guy, and must be eliminated.
But that's because you and I are looking at it
from the point of view of another group. If we
were looking at it from within the group that the
enforcer defends, we would love the enforcer because the enforcer
loves every single one of us so much he is
(34:56):
willing to give his life for us. One of the
last lines in the book, it's hockey is a interesting
mixture of grace and disgrace. And you know it's true.
You've got these beautiful, poetic skaters, just creative, free flowing
down the ice with their long, beautiful walks of hair,
(35:19):
using physics and angles and space or relationships to time
perfect passes off the boards and understanding the beauty of
an incredible tic tech toe goal. And then you've got
the craziness of the fighting and the and the checking,
and the and the and the chirping, and the instigators
and the agitators and the side shows and the drama,
(35:42):
and you know, it's just it's all part of it.
It's it's what makes hockey hockey. And there's different levels.
You know, I still play old man hockey and and
beer league, and uh, there's still a level of decency
and grace there. And if you disgrace someone and do
something bad, you're still going to get it. There's guys
an open hockey that are going to drop the gloves
and you know, you'll you'll see a game in Nebraska
(36:03):
where everyone gets a free small pizza Billy Bobs if
there's a fight. So that's the kind of stuff that
I think has no place in hockey, just for for
that part, because these kids that they're none of them
are going to make it as a fighter at that level,
you know, So it's just for show, and it's just stupid.
So I'm not a fan of that kind of fighting
at all. But in the heat of the moment, when
Jerome a Ginla gets cheap shotted or he sees one
(36:25):
of his teammates gets cheap shot and he goes and
grabs that guy and drops the gloves and faces him
head on and he pummels him and knocks him down,
that's respect. That's that's the grace of hockey. And I
think that's always gonna have a place in the game
because the players want it. If they didn't want fighting
in hockey, they could eliminate it immediately. It would be
gone tomorrow. You make it a ten minute major a
(36:47):
game suspension, and I promise you there will be no
more fighting. But it exists because the players see the
value and the honor and it's just a really interesting
part of the game and a truly fascinating story, which
is what this program is all about. And a terrific
job on the production by hockey efficionado Greg Hengler, who
(37:08):
grew up in Minnesota, and the part where while they
pull him out of the wounds and skates and a
special thanks to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code, the
Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL. I
remember when Derek Bougard was signed by the Rangers to
a multimillion dollar deal, headlines across the daily news about
finally the Rangers getting the enforcer they deserved, and that
(37:33):
insight about the enforcers actually making the game safer is
something I really never thought about before. It's so counterintuitive.
And also the honor code and the moral and ethical
code of the enforcer, again, something I've never really thought about.
Fighting is the ultimate equalizer. Bernstein said, It's what keeps
(37:54):
hockey honest by keeping the face masks off. He also
pointed out cleaned up the game. Hockey is a mixture
of grace and disgrace. I don't think you could put
it better. The story of NHL's enforcers here on our
American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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