Here at The Hockey News Ottawa, we obviously try to focus on stories that matter directly to Ottawa Senators fans. But if you’re of a certain vintage, the Senators aren’t your first love, simply because the Sens didn’t exist until 1992. So I’d wager that half of the current Sens fans out there over the age of 40 grew up cheering on the Montreal Canadiens.
And so a lot of fans in Ottawa today are mourning the passing of Habs goalie Ken Dryden at the age of 78, in much the same way they’ll mourn a beloved Ottawa Senator in the future. As a result, as someone who loved the Habs as a boy, I’m going to break format to share a few personal thoughts about Dryden, even if they emanate from what’s now a rival NHL city.
In Ottawa during the 1970s, no matter who you cheered for, it was impossible not to admire Dryden. He was the calm giant who led Montreal to six Stanley Cups in eight seasons. He also defended our goal when Team Canada saved the world (it sure felt like that) with a win over the Soviet Union in the eight-game 1972 Summit Series.
Dryden was a fixture on those great Montreal Canadiens teams, which lost just 29 regular-season games combined over three seasons in the mid-70s. To put that in perspective, that three-year total is one fewer than the Senators lost last season, and Ottawa couldn’t have been happier with that seasonal performance.
As a kid, only my best school teachers could disrupt my Hockey Night in Canada classroom daydreams and sketches, often starring Dryden, either making an impossible save, or famously standing there during stoppages leaning on the top of his stick.
Like so many Canadian kids of that era, I was a hockey card collector. Richmond Public School recess was often spent huddled with friends, flipping through stacks of trading cards and reciting the familiar refrain: “Got ’em, got ’em, need ’em.”
Our school playground was right across the street from Storey’s General Store, which stocked more candy and hockey cards than a nine-year-old Warnesy knew what to do with. The O-Pee-Chee cards came in waxy blue packs with 10 to 15 players inside – it seemed to vary from year to year. And there was this thin pink rectangle of stale, petrified gum that we should have thrown away but never did.
Opening a fresh pack of cards was magic. Sometimes you’d find a no-name player from a team you forgot existed. Sometimes you got a star, and once in a while, if you were lucky, a Montreal Canadien. But for me, nothing compared to pulling a Ken Dryden card.
When that happened, I was Charlie Bucket, and Dryden’s card was the golden ticket.
As an adult, my career in sports media brought me face-to-face with Dryden on four occasions, usually around the release of one of his books. He wasn’t what I expected. He seemed more professor than athlete – thoughtful, measured, and serious in a way that made you sit up a little straighter. I did my best not to slip into fanboy mode.
After one radio interview, while discussing his book Game Change in 2017, he challenged my co-host and me on the issue of concussions in hockey.
The Senators had just come off their run to the Conference Final, and Clarke MacArthur’s comeback from long-term concussion symptoms was fresh on everyone’s mind. MacArthur had played just four games in 2015-16, then just four more in 2016-17. So he had just missed 156 of 164 games due to concussions. But suddenly, MacArthur was able to play in all 19 playoff games that spring, before immediately retiring due to concussions at age 32.
Dryden wanted to know why we, as members of the Ottawa media, weren’t pressing harder on the story, asking about the health risks that may have been taken and permitted, and why a player with long-term concussion issues was seemingly allowed to have his one last hurrah before calling it a career.
It was jarring to be taken to task by my childhood hero—but it was also quintessential Dryden: principled, articulate, and unwilling to let the easy answer slide. It’s part of why Dryden’s legacy extends well beyond the crease.
He was an author, a lawyer, a broadcaster for the 1980 Miracle on Ice, an NHL executive, and even a cabinet minister. Few figures in Canadian sport have been as accomplished, or as thoughtful, in so many areas.
That said, I’ll remember him best as the star of my childhood Saturday nights in front of our low-def TV, the perennial MVP of my hockey card collection, and the calm giant who stood tall in the crease for the Canadians and the Canadiens.
News of his passing on Saturday hit harder than I expected. At this stage of life, I’ve grown used to seeing idols leave us, but this one landed flush.
By Steve Warne
The Hockey News Ottawa
This article was first published at The Hockey News-Ottawa
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