November 2, 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 Lee Habib 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.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
You get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hockey is and always has been, a sport steeped in
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
(00:48):
in the NHL, spent two years for searching this story,
and he's here to share it with us.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
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 on ice and
this rock 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.
(01:22):
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 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
(01:43):
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 and gold.
If you're from Minnesota, you know this means everything. If
you're not, this is like EXAs football, Indiana basketball, Rugby
New Zealand. We love hockey Minnesota. I got season tickets.
(02:06):
It was incredible. Well, then I took this class. It
was a one credit fay ed course called Introduction to
Ice Hockey one oh one. It was the class players
taught to get their scholarships, allegedly, and I wanted becoming
friends with a bunch of guys in the team, and
I would invite them over to my fraternity parties and
we'd hang out and eventually they said, you know, Ross,
you're not that bad of a hockey player. You should
(02:27):
try out. You should walk on to 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 I was trying
to impress the coaches one day and I wound up
taking out our star player, the team captain, Todd Richards
before going to be an NHL player and coach, and
(02:48):
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, got in a lot of trouble, so 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
(03:09):
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 to
write and publish my own book about the history of
Gopher hockey from Goldie the golfer's point of view, and
it became a cult bestseller, and I got to interview
(03:30):
hundreds of hockey players who had 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
fight where Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi had gotten into
this incident and they kept referring to it as the
Bertuzzi incident, and I didn't know why that was. And
(03:52):
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, 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 and hockey, and it was just fascinating.
And I learned about these unwritten rules like All Star wrestling,
(04:15):
like no one talked about these things. There is no
fight club. No one talks about fight club. And I
wound up 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 would tell me a story
in the next and I want up interviewing hundreds of
players about why fighting exists. I never understood. It's the
(04:37):
only sport that really allows fighting to exist. And it
has 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, and
they said it whereas other sports you'll get kicked out,
in hockey, they give you a five minute fighting major.
(04:58):
It's a part of the game. It's part of the
cl 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,
hit a guy from behind, take liberties as a smaller player,
run a guy, do something stupid. The honor code says
you must be held accountable. That's why players really aren't
(05:20):
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
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
(05:40):
you know, both guys acknowledging 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 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 what it's
when you go on YouTube and see the audio when
(06:01):
there is a fight, you'll see that it's it's very
much professional.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Do okay, good luckwords luck man, good luck.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Then let's go. He says, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Look at him.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
This smile on his face.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
They'll even give a 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. That's
like a respect thing. Marty MCSORLEI wound up writing one
of the forwards for the book along with Tony. Twist.
Would have had Bob Probert, but he wasn't around. Sadly
we'd lost him, but sent me down another rabbit hole
(06:48):
again of interviewing. I wrote many books. I wrote a
book with Derek Bougard. When he's playing for the Minnesota Wild.
He remember taking boxing lessons from this guy named Scott
land Do. Scott was a heavyweight prize fight. He fought
Muhammad Alib Holmes, so he understood hockey leverage balance, but
fighting body blows, how to leverage reach and it was
(07:08):
so these guys were very technical.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (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, author of the Code,
(08:14):
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL,
and where he left off in his story discussing hockey
enforcer Derek bouguard.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Derek would go on YouTube every day and study tendencies.
The poker tells what other guys would do. Is said,
if you know, if this is your job and you're
not very good at it, you're not going to 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,
(08:48):
you know, back in the old Madison Square Garden, the
promoters there were boxing promoters and they would rent an
ambulance and they would 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 build up this bad guy persona and then
(09:09):
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 time wasn't found. You know, Tiger
Williams got in a big fight and whoever. And they
would dramatize it, and 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
(09:29):
weren't buying a hot dog. They wanted to see it.
And really what's fascinating is is that it was a
way to create momentum. You know, 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
(09:50):
out there and take on the other guy's heavyweight, and
if he wins, you know, the guys are going to
bang their sticks on the boards and that's momentum. The
crowd goes wild, or you silence the other team's crowd.
Either way, it creates momentium and the players feed on
that energy. It literally creates a home deal advantage, and
it's remarkable. They'll rally, they'll come back from two to nothing,
(10:12):
then they'll win three to two, and you can credit
that fighter, that fourth line guy and making the league minimum.
You know, there's a really interesting story that I thought
was brought to light in my book by Howard Bloom
that I think really explains a lot.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Jack Jackson with a couple of good left hands. Why
is intimidation effective at changing the whole pace of a game,
Because once somebody on your team gets hurt, that becomes
a real preoccupation. Either makes you feel like a victim
or makes you feel like it's time for revenge. The
adrenaline level goes up. It changes the very hormonal see
(10:49):
on which hockey is 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 and biologically they are losers.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
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 Buguard when he
was in the Minnesota Wild, you know, they sold more
Boo Guard jerseys than anyone else's jerseys because those guys
are and they're teddy bears. They've all got that Jecky
and Hyde persona. They're all the nicest guys off the ice,
(11:30):
but on the ice, they're animals. Their job is to
inflict pain and it's never personal. You know. Tony Twist
said that he'd 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 got to do. And it's
hard because you know, those guys as they get older,
Marty McSorley, we'd get together. You know, he could his
hands barely worked because there's so many you know, they're
(11:51):
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 are
the tough kids from medicine. Hat moose jaw monked in.
They knew they were never 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
(12:13):
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 Mrick Sorely, 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, kid, you're you're
you're okay. You know, we'll do it tomorrow, you know,
the end of the game. I'm okay, but I got
to sore shoulders, so don't don't don't come at me
(12:34):
from this side, and we're gonna flip the lids because
I got to, 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 like I thought something
that every guy could relate to. He said, it was
like being in eighth grade junior high and the biggest
(12:56):
bully in the school called you out and they challenged
you to fight, and they told everyone so in that
bell rang at three o'clock, man at three h 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 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 have to
do that every day, and they know that if you
(13:18):
were going to Chicago, he had to fight Proby. 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,
and you're gonna get it out of the way and
then and then there might be a rematch. Here's Bob Probert.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
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 was It wasn't easy. You know, you didn't
have to you know, if you're a goal scorer, you
just have to worry about going out there and keeping
your stats up, going out and trying to score a goal. Right,
(14:00):
a fighter, there's a lot more to 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. Uh, You're always
you're thinking that. It takes a lot, a lot, It
takes a soul on.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, and then they got to get up, right, So
they're taking infetamine to painkillers because they got to get
up with this. But then afterwards they got to come
down because they got to 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
(14:33):
guys that's their ticket. And it was fascinating. A lot
of guys I met they were, 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 Blueguard,
they left home when they were thirteen to go live
with a 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 a lot of college guys said,
(14:54):
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 can take liberties skilled players, they're
going to come after them. I remember one of my
a real good friend of mine, Neil Sheihi, 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,
(15:16):
if I can go punch Gretzky and McSorley or Samenko
will come beat the crap out of me. My team
will gladly scan exchange me for Gretzky. So he'd do
that all day, every day, and they figured out that
they ultimately became the instigator rule that they literally they
named it kind of after him because he figured out
an arbitrage, a gray area where you could, you know,
(15:37):
if you can get Gretzky to fight, will gladly take
him off the 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 that these guys typically don't fight their own fights.
They're fighting for someone else. Someone takes out your star
(15:58):
player knowing that they're going to have to go out
with two minutes in the game when they could just
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 Canadians. He said
if a lot of times the team doctor, if they
were traveling, they wouldn't pay them in money. They didn't money,
they'd pay him in booze. So you hope that if
you got cut it was like in the first period,
because by the third period you were getting those Frankenstein stitches, like,
(16:21):
you know, cut six inches might get 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 at we're very passionate about.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code,
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and 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
(17:01):
sticking up for your teammates, your star players is fundamental.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
To the game.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
That's what 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, well,
(17:29):
you see a different kind of passion than almost any
other sport. More with Ross Bernstein here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein,
author of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and
Retaliation in the NHL.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (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 Schiro really changed the rules.
They were tired of getting beat up by the big
bad Bruins and they just couldn't make any headway. So
they decided Freddie Schiro decided they were going to put
a fighter in every line, Schultze and Moose DuPont, and
(18:50):
they 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
(19:10):
the Philly flu. They'd say to the coach, oh, coach,
I don't feel good that 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 was 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,
(19:31):
but during the time they were able to win two
Stanley Cups. It's interesting I wrote another book was the
guy named Glenn Sonmore. Glenn 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.
(19:56):
The Bruins came to Minnesota, they were crushing them, and
Bruins tough guy John Wentzink 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 offseason he said, I don't
care if we win one game all year. We're going
to face the Bruins. We're going to beat the Bruins.
We're going to fight the Bruins. So they go to
(20:18):
Boston the next season and Glenn tells the guys, he says,
not the third time, not the second time, but the
first time, these guys try and intimidate us. We go
to war. So opening face off, Bobby Smith, star of
the North Stars. He just won the Lady bing A Trophy,
which is emblematic of the league's most gentleman player. Like
(20:38):
Bobby never got penalties, he never fought before. But opening
face off, 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 and puts up his fists and Bobby
drops the mids and it's on. And this was a bloodbath.
It still stands as a record most penalty minutes ever.
(21:01):
It was like four hundred and five pounds. 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
(21:22):
throw Jerky chief of the head coach of Boston ripped
his head off and give it 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
lined that postseason, Minnesota went back to Boston the first
round of the playoffs and they swept him. They and
that confidence of knowing that they could fight him, that
(21:44):
they were able to face him. It was great. I
wrote Glenn's book. It was called Old Time Hockey. Actually
wound 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
from the movie Slapshot. Dave Hansen was on that team
all and Glenn basically traded away all their top talent
(22:05):
on this team and the old WHA to sell tickets
down in you're in Mississippi. This is in 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 in all
(22:25):
these tough guys and the fans loved it. But Glenn
lenderstood 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 cop book called Slapshot Original, and
(22:47):
I got to interview Paul 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 Hanson brothers, who
are legendary. If you haven't seen the movie Slapshot, please
once this recording is finished, leave immediately go and go
watch it, because if you're any kind of self respecting
(23:09):
sports fan, you've seen it at least one hundred times,
so you've got a lot of catching.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Love to do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Everybody, you've just done the Reek screaming guilt, Gill Guilty.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
This is hon 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. I'm
telling you, Prome County is just physically upset by this display.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Come on down and get places for the home games,
Bring the kids.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
We got entertainment for the whole family.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
At one point it was the number three rented VHS
of all time. I say vhs, not DVD because I
think it was by Animal House and Stripes. So back
in that era it was a classic comedy. But really
it was really art imitating life. They were imitating the
Broad Street bullet. They said, if we don't change hockey,
it's gonna become a parody. It's gonna become nothing but fights.
(24:04):
It will be the old Rodney dangerfield. You know, I
went to a fight in a hockey game broke out
and 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, the instigator. You know, you wouldn't see
guys jumping guys. And today it's a much more sanitized version.
(24:25):
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 see a captain, when you would see you know,
Mark Messier, a very respected guy wearing the seat, when
(24:48):
you see those guys stick up for teammate and they
drop the mits and it's heat of the moment, it's
it's beautiful. It is because they're sticking up to their teammates.
Or if someone you know, takes a cheap shot and
they drop the gloves and they go at it and
they and they and even say to their heavyweight, their enforcer,
their job is to protect them. They say no, I
got this even today, if a guy gets a Gordy
Hawe hat trick, which for your listeners, if they don't know,
(25:10):
that means you score a goal, you get an assist,
and you get in a fight. That's like they're breaking
out the champagne. I think the game has really changed,
and you know, the head injuries, the post concussion syndrome,
the ct it's really taking a toll. And you know,
back in the day, the guys like Gretzky had had bodyguards,
(25:31):
right McSorley, Semenko. You didn't even you didn't even look
crossiye 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 of body blows
and the concussions. It's a big problem. And the players
see this now and football it's it's much worse with
(25:52):
the CTE and the brain injuries, and football and hockey
have a problem. I mean even football. For a company
that owns a day of 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 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
(26:15):
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 Bougard, Derek was six ' eight, two
hundred and fifty pounds. Look at the Dano Chara. Look
at some of these guys. They're beasts.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code,
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL.
And by the way, we don't advocate fighting here at
our American stories either.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
That's our PSA.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
But my goodness, as I was telling you about watching
Schultzi 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 under bet at Madison Square Garden. When would
the first fight start? When we come back more of
(27:11):
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
(27:37):
continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein, author of
the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in
the NHL.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Look at some of these guys. They're beasts, and they
understand physics and trigonometry and angles and how to leverage
speed and how to really the maximum force with a punch,
using on skates and grabbing a guy and pulling in
one hand and punching on the other, and how to
cause the biggest damage. And then you'd add YouTube and
places like Hockeyfights dot com, which and cell phones video.
(28:14):
Now it's escalated because now guys fight, it's all on YouTube,
and then they're gonna vote who won, who lost. Well,
now you want to you don't win, So you bring
a guy down and you're not gonna land a knockout
punch because they've got fights straps. It means your jersey's
attached in the back, so you can't. You know, Bob
Probert used to put Vaselina 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
(28:35):
and he just pummeled 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 hockeyfights dot com? And these are metrics. 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 Barrick Bugard left
(28:56):
the Wild for the New York Rangers, he 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. If you don't
got a kicker, you're not gonna win. And if you
don't have a good fighter to protect your best players,
even they send a message. You know, Tony Twist was
so good that at one point he said he didn't
(29:17):
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 gonna mess with their guys because they didn't
want to face Twister. He was crazy, he'd come out
and kill you. So so just the it's like us
in the Russians, with us 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
(29:38):
at the end of the bench knowing that a guy goes,
I'm not gonna I'm gonna think twice about cheap shoting
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. You take out our guy,
we're taking.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Out your guy.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Same in baseball, Tony larusa manager, you take out our
cleanup pitter. We're taking out your cleanup pitter. Drill are
a centerfielder, we're drew in your centerfielder, 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 freight gate, signs, stealing,
(30:14):
you name it. Even in the World Cup, just saw
these referee will come over and he'll spray paint. They
have a little can of spray paint with they 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 though. One guy, I'll pretend he's injured
(30:35):
just so they can come kick it up. They're constantly
trying to cheat. Everyone's cheating except golf. That's on 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, will
(30:55):
cheap shot you. The 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
(31:17):
run 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 do?
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 gonna get it. And 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 Sakik 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 Waw and you know he was legendary for
(32:00):
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 gonna do it and the linesman agrees, right,
But otherwise you don't break that code. So if there's
a fight, that means the two goalies are going to
meet in the middle, and that's how it goes. But
(32:21):
decency is a really important and it seems like hockey
is so barbaric, but there are real rules, there are
real laws. Some of these guys, like the book, The
Code got turned into a movie with an Academy War
running director. It's called The Last Gladiators and the kind
of the star of the movie is Chris Nylan. And
Nyland was a guy. He's a small guy, you know,
Nyland's barely six foot maybe one hundred and eighty pounds,
(32:45):
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 the 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, 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
(33:07):
expect Nyland to come off the bench and write what
was wrong, but they do it in a decent way.
They weren't clowns about it, right, 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 has served. It's
a crazy thing, but it's really interesting. Here again is
human behavior specialist Howard Bloom.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
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 think he's merciless, that he should
be exterminated. He's a cockroach in the game. And then
(33:51):
you sit down with him and discover that he has
the most magnificent set of ethics and morals you have
ever seen your life. And pursuing the question of the Enforcer,
you're pursuing the question of what it is to be human?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
What does the.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Enforcer call on profound loyalty. Loyalty is so deep that
he's willing to risk his own structure, his own body,
his own bones, his own teeth, his own brain on
behalf of protecting people he deeply loves. The Enforcer is
the most ethical and moral member of the tribe because
(34:28):
he is willing to undergo such incredible sacrifice. That's looking
at 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
(34:52):
loves every single one of us so much he is
willing to give his life for us.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
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, using physics and angles and spacial relationships to
(35:22):
time perfect passes off the boards and understanding the beauty
of an incredible tic tac toe goal. And then you've
got the craziness of the fighting and the and the
the checking, and the and the and the chirping, and
the instigators and the agitators and the side shows and
the the drama, and you know, it's just it's all
(35:43):
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 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 in open hockey that are going
to drop the gloves. And you know, you'll see a
game in Nebraska where everyone gets a free small pizza
(36:06):
Billy Bob's if there's a fight. So that's the kind
of stuff that I think has no place in hockey.
Just for that part, because these kids that none of
are are gonna 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 Aginla gets cheap shotted or he sees one of
his teammates gets cheap shot and he goes and grabs
(36:28):
that guy and drops the gloves and faces him head
on and he pummels him and knocks him down, that's respect.
That's the grace of hockey, and I think that's always
going to 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 game suspension,
and I promise you there will be no more fighting.
(36:50):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
And a terrific job on the production by hockey aficionado
Greg Hengler, who grew up in Minnesota, and the part
where while they pull him out of the wombs 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 Bouguard was signed by the Rangers
(37:25):
to a multimillion dollar deal, headlines across the daily news
about finally the Rangers getting the enforcer they deserved, and
that 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'd never really thought about.
(37:49):
Fighting is the ultimate equalizer, Bernstein said, It's what keeps
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
(38:12):
American Stories
This is Lee Habib 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.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
You get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hockey is and always has been, a sport steeped in
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
(00:48):
in the NHL, spent two years for searching this story,
and he's here to share it with us.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
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 on ice and
this rock 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.
(01:22):
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 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
(01:43):
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 and gold.
If you're from Minnesota, you know this means everything. If
you're not, this is like EXAs football, Indiana basketball, Rugby
New Zealand. We love hockey Minnesota. I got season tickets.
(02:06):
It was incredible. Well, then I took this class. It
was a one credit fay ed course called Introduction to
Ice Hockey one oh one. It was the class players
taught to get their scholarships, allegedly, and I wanted becoming
friends with a bunch of guys in the team, and
I would invite them over to my fraternity parties and
we'd hang out and eventually they said, you know, Ross,
you're not that bad of a hockey player. You should
(02:27):
try out. You should walk on to 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 I was trying
to impress the coaches one day and I wound up
taking out our star player, the team captain, Todd Richards
before going to be an NHL player and coach, and
(02:48):
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, got in a lot of trouble, so 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
(03:09):
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 to
write and publish my own book about the history of
Gopher hockey from Goldie the golfer's point of view, and
it became a cult bestseller, and I got to interview
(03:30):
hundreds of hockey players who had 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
fight where Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi had gotten into
this incident and they kept referring to it as the
Bertuzzi incident, and I didn't know why that was. And
(03:52):
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, 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 and hockey, and it was just fascinating.
And I learned about these unwritten rules like All Star wrestling,
(04:15):
like no one talked about these things. There is no
fight club. No one talks about fight club. And I
wound up 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 would tell me a story
in the next and I want up interviewing hundreds of
players about why fighting exists. I never understood. It's the
(04:37):
only sport that really allows fighting to exist. And it
has 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, and
they said it whereas other sports you'll get kicked out,
in hockey, they give you a five minute fighting major.
(04:58):
It's a part of the game. It's part of the
cl 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,
hit a guy from behind, take liberties as a smaller player,
run a guy, do something stupid. The honor code says
you must be held accountable. That's why players really aren't
(05:20):
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
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
(05:40):
you know, both guys acknowledging 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 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 what it's
when you go on YouTube and see the audio when
(06:01):
there is a fight, you'll see that it's it's very
much professional.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Do okay, good luckwords luck man, good luck.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Then let's go. He says, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Look at him.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
This smile on his face.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
They'll even give a 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. That's
like a respect thing. Marty MCSORLEI wound up writing one
of the forwards for the book along with Tony. Twist.
Would have had Bob Probert, but he wasn't around. Sadly
we'd lost him, but sent me down another rabbit hole
(06:48):
again of interviewing. I wrote many books. I wrote a
book with Derek Bougard. When he's playing for the Minnesota Wild.
He remember taking boxing lessons from this guy named Scott
land Do. Scott was a heavyweight prize fight. He fought
Muhammad Alib Holmes, so he understood hockey leverage balance, but
fighting body blows, how to leverage reach and it was
(07:08):
so these guys were very technical.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You are our American Stories.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
We bring you inspiring stories of history, sports business, faith
and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that
need to be told, but we can't do it without you.
Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not
free to make. If you love our stories in America
like we do, please go to our American Stories dot
com and click the donate button. Give a little, give
(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, author of the Code,
(08:14):
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL,
and where he left off in his story discussing hockey
enforcer Derek bouguard.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Derek would go on YouTube every day and study tendencies.
The poker tells what other guys would do. Is said,
if you know, if this is your job and you're
not very good at it, you're not going to 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,
(08:48):
you know, back in the old Madison Square Garden, the
promoters there were boxing promoters and they would rent an
ambulance and they would 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 build up this bad guy persona and then
(09:09):
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 time wasn't found. You know, Tiger
Williams got in a big fight and whoever. And they
would dramatize it, and 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
(09:29):
weren't buying a hot dog. They wanted to see it.
And really what's fascinating is is that it was a
way to create momentum. You know, 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
(09:50):
out there and take on the other guy's heavyweight, and
if he wins, you know, the guys are going to
bang their sticks on the boards and that's momentum. The
crowd goes wild, or you silence the other team's crowd.
Either way, it creates momentium and the players feed on
that energy. It literally creates a home deal advantage, and
it's remarkable. They'll rally, they'll come back from two to nothing,
(10:12):
then they'll win three to two, and you can credit
that fighter, that fourth line guy and making the league minimum.
You know, there's a really interesting story that I thought
was brought to light in my book by Howard Bloom
that I think really explains a lot.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Jack Jackson with a couple of good left hands. Why
is intimidation effective at changing the whole pace of a game,
Because once somebody on your team gets hurt, that becomes
a real preoccupation. Either makes you feel like a victim
or makes you feel like it's time for revenge. The
adrenaline level goes up. It changes the very hormonal see
(10:49):
on which hockey is 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 and biologically they are losers.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
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 Buguard when he
was in the Minnesota Wild, you know, they sold more
Boo Guard jerseys than anyone else's jerseys because those guys
are and they're teddy bears. They've all got that Jecky
and Hyde persona. They're all the nicest guys off the ice,
(11:30):
but on the ice, they're animals. Their job is to
inflict pain and it's never personal. You know. Tony Twist
said that he'd 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 got to do. And it's
hard because you know, those guys as they get older,
Marty McSorley, we'd get together. You know, he could his
hands barely worked because there's so many you know, they're
(11:51):
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 are
the tough kids from medicine. Hat moose jaw monked in.
They knew they were never 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
(12:13):
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 Mrick Sorely, 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, kid, you're you're
you're okay. You know, we'll do it tomorrow, you know,
the end of the game. I'm okay, but I got
to sore shoulders, so don't don't don't come at me
(12:34):
from this side, and we're gonna flip the lids because
I got to, 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 like I thought something
that every guy could relate to. He said, it was
like being in eighth grade junior high and the biggest
(12:56):
bully in the school called you out and they challenged
you to fight, and they told everyone so in that
bell rang at three o'clock, man at three h 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 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 have to
do that every day, and they know that if you
(13:18):
were going to Chicago, he had to fight Proby. 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,
and you're gonna get it out of the way and
then and then there might be a rematch. Here's Bob Probert.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
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 was It wasn't easy. You know, you didn't
have to you know, if you're a goal scorer, you
just have to worry about going out there and keeping
your stats up, going out and trying to score a goal. Right,
(14:00):
a fighter, there's a lot more to 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. Uh, You're always
you're thinking that. It takes a lot, a lot, It
takes a soul on.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yeah, and then they got to get up, right, So
they're taking infetamine to painkillers because they got to get
up with this. But then afterwards they got to come
down because they got to 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
(14:33):
guys that's their ticket. And it was fascinating. A lot
of guys I met they were, 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 Blueguard,
they left home when they were thirteen to go live
with a 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 a lot of college guys said,
(14:54):
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 can take liberties skilled players, they're
going to come after them. I remember one of my
a real good friend of mine, Neil Sheihi, 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,
(15:16):
if I can go punch Gretzky and McSorley or Samenko
will come beat the crap out of me. My team
will gladly scan exchange me for Gretzky. So he'd do
that all day, every day, and they figured out that
they ultimately became the instigator rule that they literally they
named it kind of after him because he figured out
an arbitrage, a gray area where you could, you know,
(15:37):
if you can get Gretzky to fight, will gladly take
him off the 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 that these guys typically don't fight their own fights.
They're fighting for someone else. Someone takes out your star
(15:58):
player knowing that they're going to have to go out
with two minutes in the game when they could just
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 Canadians. He said
if a lot of times the team doctor, if they
were traveling, they wouldn't pay them in money. They didn't money,
they'd pay him in booze. So you hope that if
you got cut it was like in the first period,
because by the third period you were getting those Frankenstein stitches, like,
(16:21):
you know, cut six inches might get 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 at we're very passionate about.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code,
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and 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
(17:01):
sticking up for your teammates, your star players is fundamental.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
To the game.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
That's what 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, well,
(17:29):
you see a different kind of passion than almost any
other sport. More with Ross Bernstein here on our American stories,
(18:08):
and we continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein,
author of the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and
Retaliation in the NHL.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (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 Schiro really changed the rules.
They were tired of getting beat up by the big
bad Bruins and they just couldn't make any headway. So
they decided Freddie Schiro decided they were going to put
a fighter in every line, Schultze and Moose DuPont, and
(18:50):
they 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
(19:10):
the Philly flu. They'd say to the coach, oh, coach,
I don't feel good that 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 was 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,
(19:31):
but during the time they were able to win two
Stanley Cups. It's interesting I wrote another book was the
guy named Glenn Sonmore. Glenn 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.
(19:56):
The Bruins came to Minnesota, they were crushing them, and
Bruins tough guy John Wentzink 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 offseason he said, I don't
care if we win one game all year. We're going
to face the Bruins. We're going to beat the Bruins.
We're going to fight the Bruins. So they go to
(20:18):
Boston the next season and Glenn tells the guys, he says,
not the third time, not the second time, but the
first time, these guys try and intimidate us. We go
to war. So opening face off, Bobby Smith, star of
the North Stars. He just won the Lady bing A Trophy,
which is emblematic of the league's most gentleman player. Like
(20:38):
Bobby never got penalties, he never fought before. But opening
face off, 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 and puts up his fists and Bobby
drops the mids and it's on. And this was a bloodbath.
It still stands as a record most penalty minutes ever.
(21:01):
It was like four hundred and five pounds. 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
(21:22):
throw Jerky chief of the head coach of Boston ripped
his head off and give it 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
lined that postseason, Minnesota went back to Boston the first
round of the playoffs and they swept him. They and
that confidence of knowing that they could fight him, that
(21:44):
they were able to face him. It was great. I
wrote Glenn's book. It was called Old Time Hockey. Actually
wound 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
from the movie Slapshot. Dave Hansen was on that team
all and Glenn basically traded away all their top talent
(22:05):
on this team and the old WHA to sell tickets
down in you're in Mississippi. This is in 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 in all
(22:25):
these tough guys and the fans loved it. But Glenn
lenderstood 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 cop book called Slapshot Original, and
(22:47):
I got to interview Paul 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 Hanson brothers, who
are legendary. If you haven't seen the movie Slapshot, please
once this recording is finished, leave immediately go and go
watch it, because if you're any kind of self respecting
(23:09):
sports fan, you've seen it at least one hundred times,
so you've got a lot of catching.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Love to do.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Everybody, you've just done the Reek screaming guilt, Gill Guilty.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
This is hon 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. I'm
telling you, Prome County is just physically upset by this display.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Come on down and get places for the home games,
Bring the kids.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
We got entertainment for the whole family.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
At one point it was the number three rented VHS
of all time. I say vhs, not DVD because I
think it was by Animal House and Stripes. So back
in that era it was a classic comedy. But really
it was really art imitating life. They were imitating the
Broad Street bullet. They said, if we don't change hockey,
it's gonna become a parody. It's gonna become nothing but fights.
(24:04):
It will be the old Rodney dangerfield. You know, I
went to a fight in a hockey game broke out
and 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, the instigator. You know, you wouldn't see
guys jumping guys. And today it's a much more sanitized version.
(24:25):
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 see a captain, when you would see you know,
Mark Messier, a very respected guy wearing the seat, when
(24:48):
you see those guys stick up for teammate and they
drop the mits and it's heat of the moment, it's
it's beautiful. It is because they're sticking up to their teammates.
Or if someone you know, takes a cheap shot and
they drop the gloves and they go at it and
they and they and even say to their heavyweight, their enforcer,
their job is to protect them. They say no, I
got this even today, if a guy gets a Gordy
Hawe hat trick, which for your listeners, if they don't know,
(25:10):
that means you score a goal, you get an assist,
and you get in a fight. That's like they're breaking
out the champagne. I think the game has really changed,
and you know, the head injuries, the post concussion syndrome,
the ct it's really taking a toll. And you know,
back in the day, the guys like Gretzky had had bodyguards,
(25:31):
right McSorley, Semenko. You didn't even you didn't even look
crossiye 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 of body blows
and the concussions. It's a big problem. And the players
see this now and football it's it's much worse with
(25:52):
the CTE and the brain injuries, and football and hockey
have a problem. I mean even football. For a company
that owns a day of 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 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
(26:15):
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 Bougard, Derek was six ' eight, two
hundred and fifty pounds. Look at the Dano Chara. Look
at some of these guys. They're beasts.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
And you're listening to Ross Bernstein, author of the Code,
the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the NHL.
And by the way, we don't advocate fighting here at
our American stories either.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
That's our PSA.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
But my goodness, as I was telling you about watching
Schultzi 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 under bet at Madison Square Garden. When would
the first fight start? When we come back more of
(27:11):
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
(27:37):
continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein, author of
the Code, the Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in
the NHL.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Look at some of these guys. They're beasts, and they
understand physics and trigonometry and angles and how to leverage
speed and how to really the maximum force with a punch,
using on skates and grabbing a guy and pulling in
one hand and punching on the other, and how to
cause the biggest damage. And then you'd add YouTube and
places like Hockeyfights dot com, which and cell phones video.
(28:14):
Now it's escalated because now guys fight, it's all on YouTube,
and then they're gonna vote who won, who lost. Well,
now you want to you don't win, So you bring
a guy down and you're not gonna land a knockout
punch because they've got fights straps. It means your jersey's
attached in the back, so you can't. You know, Bob
Probert used to put Vaselina 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
(28:35):
and he just pummeled 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 hockeyfights dot com? And these are metrics. 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 Barrick Bugard left
(28:56):
the Wild for the New York Rangers, he 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. If you don't
got a kicker, you're not gonna win. And if you
don't have a good fighter to protect your best players,
even they send a message. You know, Tony Twist was
so good that at one point he said he didn't
(29:17):
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 gonna mess with their guys because they didn't
want to face Twister. He was crazy, he'd come out
and kill you. So so just the it's like us
in the Russians, with us 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
(29:38):
at the end of the bench knowing that a guy goes,
I'm not gonna I'm gonna think twice about cheap shoting
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. You take out our guy,
we're taking.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Out your guy.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Same in baseball, Tony larusa manager, you take out our
cleanup pitter. We're taking out your cleanup pitter. Drill are
a centerfielder, we're drew in your centerfielder, 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 freight gate, signs, stealing,
(30:14):
you name it. Even in the World Cup, just saw
these referee will come over and he'll spray paint. They
have a little can of spray paint with they 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 though. One guy, I'll pretend he's injured
(30:35):
just so they can come kick it up. They're constantly
trying to cheat. Everyone's cheating except golf. That's on 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, will
(30:55):
cheap shot you. The 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
(31:17):
run 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 do?
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 gonna get it. And 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 Sakik 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 Waw and you know he was legendary for
(32:00):
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 gonna do it and the linesman agrees, right,
But otherwise you don't break that code. So if there's
a fight, that means the two goalies are going to
meet in the middle, and that's how it goes. But
(32:21):
decency is a really important and it seems like hockey
is so barbaric, but there are real rules, there are
real laws. Some of these guys, like the book, The
Code got turned into a movie with an Academy War
running director. It's called The Last Gladiators and the kind
of the star of the movie is Chris Nylan. And
Nyland was a guy. He's a small guy, you know,
Nyland's barely six foot maybe one hundred and eighty pounds,
(32:45):
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 the 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, 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
(33:07):
expect Nyland to come off the bench and write what
was wrong, but they do it in a decent way.
They weren't clowns about it, right, 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 has served. It's
a crazy thing, but it's really interesting. Here again is
human behavior specialist Howard Bloom.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
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 think he's merciless, that he should
be exterminated. He's a cockroach in the game. And then
(33:51):
you sit down with him and discover that he has
the most magnificent set of ethics and morals you have
ever seen your life. And pursuing the question of the Enforcer,
you're pursuing the question of what it is to be human?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
What does the.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Enforcer call on profound loyalty. Loyalty is so deep that
he's willing to risk his own structure, his own body,
his own bones, his own teeth, his own brain on
behalf of protecting people he deeply loves. The Enforcer is
the most ethical and moral member of the tribe because
(34:28):
he is willing to undergo such incredible sacrifice. That's looking
at 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
(34:52):
loves every single one of us so much he is
willing to give his life for us.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
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, using physics and angles and spacial relationships to
(35:22):
time perfect passes off the boards and understanding the beauty
of an incredible tic tac toe goal. And then you've
got the craziness of the fighting and the and the
the checking, and the and the and the chirping, and
the instigators and the agitators and the side shows and
the the drama, and you know, it's just it's all
(35:43):
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 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 in open hockey that are going
to drop the gloves. And you know, you'll see a
game in Nebraska where everyone gets a free small pizza
(36:06):
Billy Bob's if there's a fight. So that's the kind
of stuff that I think has no place in hockey.
Just for that part, because these kids that none of
are are gonna 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 Aginla gets cheap shotted or he sees one of
his teammates gets cheap shot and he goes and grabs
(36:28):
that guy and drops the gloves and faces him head
on and he pummels him and knocks him down, that's respect.
That's the grace of hockey, and I think that's always
going to 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 game suspension,
and I promise you there will be no more fighting.
(36:50):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
And a terrific job on the production by hockey aficionado
Greg Hengler, who grew up in Minnesota, and the part
where while they pull him out of the wombs 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 Bouguard was signed by the Rangers
(37:25):
to a multimillion dollar deal, headlines across the daily news
about finally the Rangers getting the enforcer they deserved, and
that 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'd never really thought about.
(37:49):
Fighting is the ultimate equalizer, Bernstein said, It's what keeps
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
(38:12):
American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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