March 10, 2025 • 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 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.
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 moret and gold.
If you're from Minnesota, you know this means everything. If
you're not, this is like tenchxis football, Indiana basketball, Rugby
New Zealand me. We love hockey Minnesota. I got season tickets.
(02:06):
It was incredible. And 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
a friends with a bunch of guys in the team,
and I would invite them over to my fraternity parties
and would 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 or the team captain, Todd
Richards former going to be an NHL player and coach,
(02:48):
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 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 to
(03:09):
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 gover's point of view, and it
became a cult bestseller, and I got to interview hundreds
(03:30):
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 fight
where Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi had gotten into this
incident and they kept referring to it as the Bertuzzi incident,
(03:51):
and I didn't know why that was. And I said
that Bertuzzi had broken the Code, and I fancied myself,
as you know, a big hockey guy. I'd 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
(04:12):
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 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 wound up interviewing hundreds of players about why
(04:35):
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, and they said it whereas other
sports you'll get kicked out, in hockey, they give you
(04:55):
a five minute fighting major. It's a part of the game.
It's part of the culture of 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 the smaller player, run a guy do something stupid.
(05:16):
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 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.
(05:39):
It has to be 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
it's great when you on YouTube and see the audio
(06:01):
when there is a fight, you'll see that it's it's
very much professional.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
We do okay, good luck, lids.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Luck, good luck. Then let's go.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
He says, that's unbelievable. Look at him, the smile.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
On his face. 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. Martin 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
(06:47):
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 Land. Scott was a heavyweight prize fighter.
He fought Muhammad Ali Holmes, so he understood hockey leverage balance,
but fighting body blows, how to leverage reach and it
(07:08):
was 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, you and 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, 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 that
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.
(09:29):
They 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 in 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 field 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 (10:24):
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 harmonially 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
Booguard jerseys than anyone else's jerseys because those guys are
and they're teddy bears. They've all got that Jekyll 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 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 got to do.
And it's hard because you know, those guys as they
get older. Martin McSorley, we'd get together, you know, he
could his hands barely worked because there's so many you know,
(11:51):
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 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
(12:13):
guys would come in and they would you know, you
want to be the man, you gotta beat the man.
So they would say, very cordially, you know, mister mric 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
a 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 challenge
you to a fight, and they told everyone so in
that dull 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 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
(13:18):
were going to Chicago, he had to fight Proby. And
the last time he fought probably he cut him. So
now Proby'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 you 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're thinking.
You're constantly thinking, Okay, well, who are we playing tomorrow?
Who are we playing next week? Okay, next week, I'm
going to have to fight this guy. You're always you're
thinking that. It takes a lot, a lot, It takes
a soul on you.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And then they got to get up, right, So they're
taking infetamine toward a pain killers because they got to
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
(14:35):
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
Blue Guard, 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 go out to college.
Guys said, you know what, I'll take that role. The
(14:55):
bottom line is you got to protect your skill players.
And if other teams know they can take liberty their
skilled players, they're going to come after them. 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,
(15:15):
you know what, if I can go punch Gretzky and
McSorley or Samenko will come beat the crap out of me.
My team will gladly skan exchange me for Gretzky. So
he'd do that all day, every day. And they figured
out and that big 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,
(15:37):
you know, 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 player knowing that they're going
(15:59):
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 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
(16:19):
those Frankenstein stitches, Like 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, were 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
(17:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
More with Ross Bernstein here on our American.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Stories, and we continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein,
(18:12):
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. They just couldn't make any headway, so they
decided Freddie Schiro decided they were going to put a
fighter on every line, Schultze 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 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):
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. The Bruins
(19:57):
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 off 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.
(20:17):
So they go to 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 Bobby never got penalties, he
(20:40):
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 them, but puts up
his fists and Bobby drops the mids and it's on.
And this was a blood bath. It still stands as
a rerec most penalty minutes ever. It was like four
(21:02):
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 throw Jerry Chief, the
(21:24):
head coach at Boston, rip 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 guds lined that postseason, Minnesota
went back to Boston the first round of the playoffs
and they swept him. And they and that confidence of
knowing that they could fight him, that they were able
(21:45):
to face him. It was great. I wrote Glenn's book.
It was called Old Time Hockey. Actually one 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 Hansom brothers from the movie Slapshot.
Dave Hansen was on that team all and Glenn basically
traded away all their top talent on this team in
(22:06):
the old w H 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
blood bath every night, and it was just Glenn traded
away all their good payers. He brought in all these
tough guys and the fans loved it. But Glenn understood
(22:29):
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
I got to interview Paul Newman right before he died,
(22:50):
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 Hansom 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
sports fan, you've seen it at least one hundred times.
(23:10):
So you've got a lot of catching up to do.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Everybody, you've just done the week screaming guil Gil guilty.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
This is But it's a great movie. Horribly, horribly politically incorrect.
You could never make a movie like this today. It
defends 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 physibally upset by this display.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Come on down and get places for the home games,
Bring the kids.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
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 a classic comedy. But really it was really
art imitating life. They were imitating the Broad Street Bully.
(24:00):
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
fight and 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.
(24:22):
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
see a captain, when you would see you know, Mark Messier,
(24:45):
a very respected guy wearing the sea, when 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
(25:05):
got this. Even today, if a guy gets a Gordy
haw hat trick, which for your listeners, if they don't know,
that means you score a goal, you get an assist,
and you get in 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 post concussion syndrome,
the CTE, it's really taking a toll. And you know,
(25:28):
back in the day, the guys like Gretzky had had bodyguards,
right McSorley, Semenko. You didn't even you didn't even look
crosside 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
(25:49):
see this now and the football 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 data 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.
(26:10):
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 Bougard, Derek was six' eight two hundred
and fifty. Pounds look at The Dano. Chara look at
(26:31):
some of these. Guys they're.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Beasts 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 that's OUR. Psa but my,
goodness AS i was telling you about Watching schultzi from
The Philadelphia, FLYERS i was at some of those. GAMES
(26:54):
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 the history of THE,
nhl the role fighting played in, it and how it
(27:16):
had to change to comply and comport with modern. Times
here on Our american, stories and we continue with Our
(27:38):
american stories And Ross, bernstein author of The, code The
Unwritten rules Of fighting And retaliation in THE.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Nhl let's pick up where we last left.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Off look at some of these. Guys they're, beasts and
they understand physics and trigonometry and angles and how to
leverage and speed and how to really call the maximum
force with a, punch 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'd add YouTube and places Like hockeyfights dot, com which
(28:12):
and cell phone. Video 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, know,
Win so you bring a guy down and you're not
gonna land a knockout punch because they've got fight. 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
(28:34):
he's like a greased pig 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
i'm GONNA i want an elevator clause in my. CONTRACT
i want to be able to get. PAID i, mean
(28:55):
When Barrick bougard left 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
(29:16):
he said he didn't even have to tie his. Skates
he was never gonna 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
(29:38):
sitting at the end of the. Bench knowing that a
guy Goes i'm not Gonna i'm gonna think twice about
cheap shoting the 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 on our,
guy we're taking out your. Guy same in, Baseball tony LaRussa,
manager you take out our cleanup, Pitter we're taking out
(29:59):
your cleanup. Pitter centerfielder we're drew in your center. Fielder
you pimp a 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 sign, stealing 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
(30:19):
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.
Though one, Guy i'll pretend he's injured 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.
(30:42):
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 cheap shot. You
the game gets cleaned. Up look back in the, seventies
when college hockey players didn't wear face, masks there was
(31:02):
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 a, guy. Don't but then when the face mask
got put, on they were. Invincible now you see guys
(31:22):
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 that, code you're gonna get. It and that's more
sacred than anything in, hockey the. Code you. Know it's.
(31:44):
INTERESTING i actually got to work with The Colorado avalanche
a couple of years. Ago Patrick waugh And Joe sakkik 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 fighting and
that you, know the code says, that you, know heavyweights fight,
heavyweights middleweights fight, middleweights lightweights fight, lightweights and goalies fight.
(32:07):
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 that's how it. Goes but
decency is a really important and it seems like hockey
is so, barbaric but there are real, rules there are real.
(32:28):
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 but
he'd fight. Anybody you, know he had the crazies right he,
was and his teammates loved, him they adored. Him In,
(32:51):
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 Expect nyland to come off the bench and write
what was, wrong but they do it in a decent.
(33:11):
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.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
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 think he's, merciless that he
should be. Exterminated he's a cockroach in the, game and
(33:50):
then 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 we're pursuing the question of what it is to be?
Human what does The enforcer call on profound. Loyalty loyalty
is so deep that he's willing to risk his own,
(34:13):
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 he is willing to undergo such incredible.
Sacrifice that's looking at it from the inside of the.
(34:34):
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
(34:55):
much he is willing to give his life for.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
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 using physics and angles and spacial relationships
(35:22):
to 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
(35:43):
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 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
(36:05):
Pizza 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
(36:27):
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 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.
(36:49):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
About 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
(37:24):
rangers 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.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I really never thought about. Before it's so.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Counterintuitive and also the honor code and the moral and
ethical code of the, enforcer again Something i'd never really thought.
About 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
(38:03):
mixture of grace and, disgrace AND i don't think you
could put it. Better the story of NHL's enforcers here
on Our 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 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.
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 moret and gold.
If you're from Minnesota, you know this means everything. If
you're not, this is like tenchxis football, Indiana basketball, Rugby
New Zealand me. We love hockey Minnesota. I got season tickets.
(02:06):
It was incredible. And 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
a friends with a bunch of guys in the team,
and I would invite them over to my fraternity parties
and would 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 or the team captain, Todd
Richards former going to be an NHL player and coach,
(02:48):
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 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 to
(03:09):
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 gover's point of view, and it
became a cult bestseller, and I got to interview hundreds
(03:30):
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 fight
where Marty McSorley and Todd Bertuzzi had gotten into this
incident and they kept referring to it as the Bertuzzi incident,
(03:51):
and I didn't know why that was. And I said
that Bertuzzi had broken the Code, and I fancied myself,
as you know, a big hockey guy. I'd 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
(04:12):
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 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 wound up interviewing hundreds of players about why
(04:35):
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, and they said it whereas other
sports you'll get kicked out, in hockey, they give you
(04:55):
a five minute fighting major. It's a part of the game.
It's part of the culture of 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 the smaller player, run a guy do something stupid.
(05:16):
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 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.
(05:39):
It has to be 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
it's great when you on YouTube and see the audio
(06:01):
when there is a fight, you'll see that it's it's
very much professional.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
We do okay, good luck, lids.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Luck, good luck. Then let's go.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
He says, that's unbelievable. Look at him, the smile.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
On his face. 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. Martin 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
(06:47):
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 Land. Scott was a heavyweight prize fighter.
He fought Muhammad Ali Holmes, so he understood hockey leverage balance,
but fighting body blows, how to leverage reach and it
(07:08):
was 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, you and 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
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 that
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.
(09:29):
They 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 in 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 field 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 (10:24):
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 harmonially 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
Booguard jerseys than anyone else's jerseys because those guys are
and they're teddy bears. They've all got that Jekyll 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 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 got to do.
And it's hard because you know, those guys as they
get older. Martin McSorley, we'd get together, you know, he
could his hands barely worked because there's so many you know,
(11:51):
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 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
(12:13):
guys would come in and they would you know, you
want to be the man, you gotta beat the man.
So they would say, very cordially, you know, mister mric 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
a 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 challenge
you to a fight, and they told everyone so in
that dull 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 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
(13:18):
were going to Chicago, he had to fight Proby. And
the last time he fought probably he cut him. So
now Proby'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 you 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're thinking.
You're constantly thinking, Okay, well, who are we playing tomorrow?
Who are we playing next week? Okay, next week, I'm
going to have to fight this guy. You're always you're
thinking that. It takes a lot, a lot, It takes
a soul on you.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And then they got to get up, right, So they're
taking infetamine toward a pain killers because they got to
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
(14:35):
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
Blue Guard, 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 go out to college.
Guys said, you know what, I'll take that role. The
(14:55):
bottom line is you got to protect your skill players.
And if other teams know they can take liberty their
skilled players, they're going to come after them. 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,
(15:15):
you know what, if I can go punch Gretzky and
McSorley or Samenko will come beat the crap out of me.
My team will gladly skan exchange me for Gretzky. So
he'd do that all day, every day. And they figured
out and that big 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,
(15:37):
you know, 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 player knowing that they're going
(15:59):
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 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
(16:19):
those Frankenstein stitches, Like 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, were 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
(17:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
More with Ross Bernstein here on our American.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Stories, and we continue with our American stories and Ross Bernstein,
(18:12):
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. They just couldn't make any headway, so they
decided Freddie Schiro decided they were going to put a
fighter on every line, Schultze 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 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):
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. The Bruins
(19:57):
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 off 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.
(20:17):
So they go to 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 Bobby never got penalties, he
(20:40):
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 them, but puts up
his fists and Bobby drops the mids and it's on.
And this was a blood bath. It still stands as
a rerec most penalty minutes ever. It was like four
(21:02):
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 throw Jerry Chief, the
(21:24):
head coach at Boston, rip 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 guds lined that postseason, Minnesota
went back to Boston the first round of the playoffs
and they swept him. And they and that confidence of
knowing that they could fight him, that they were able
(21:45):
to face him. It was great. I wrote Glenn's book.
It was called Old Time Hockey. Actually one 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 Hansom brothers from the movie Slapshot.
Dave Hansen was on that team all and Glenn basically
traded away all their top talent on this team in
(22:06):
the old w H 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
blood bath every night, and it was just Glenn traded
away all their good payers. He brought in all these
tough guys and the fans loved it. But Glenn understood
(22:29):
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
I got to interview Paul Newman right before he died,
(22:50):
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 Hansom 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
sports fan, you've seen it at least one hundred times.
(23:10):
So you've got a lot of catching up to do.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Everybody, you've just done the week screaming guil Gil guilty.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
This is But it's a great movie. Horribly, horribly politically incorrect.
You could never make a movie like this today. It
defends 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 physibally upset by this display.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Come on down and get places for the home games,
Bring the kids.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
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 a classic comedy. But really it was really
art imitating life. They were imitating the Broad Street Bully.
(24:00):
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
fight and 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.
(24:22):
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
see a captain, when you would see you know, Mark Messier,
(24:45):
a very respected guy wearing the sea, when 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
(25:05):
got this. Even today, if a guy gets a Gordy
haw hat trick, which for your listeners, if they don't know,
that means you score a goal, you get an assist,
and you get in 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 post concussion syndrome,
the CTE, it's really taking a toll. And you know,
(25:28):
back in the day, the guys like Gretzky had had bodyguards,
right McSorley, Semenko. You didn't even you didn't even look
crosside 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
(25:49):
see this now and the football 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 data 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.
(26:10):
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 Bougard, Derek was six' eight two hundred
and fifty. Pounds look at The Dano. Chara look at
(26:31):
some of these. Guys they're.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Beasts 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 that's OUR. Psa but my,
goodness AS i was telling you about Watching schultzi from
The Philadelphia, FLYERS i was at some of those. GAMES
(26:54):
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 the history of THE,
nhl the role fighting played in, it and how it
(27:16):
had to change to comply and comport with modern. Times
here on Our american, stories and we continue with Our
(27:38):
american stories And Ross, bernstein author of The, code The
Unwritten rules Of fighting And retaliation in THE.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Nhl let's pick up where we last left.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Off look at some of these. Guys they're, beasts and
they understand physics and trigonometry and angles and how to
leverage and speed and how to really call the maximum
force with a, punch 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'd add YouTube and places Like hockeyfights dot, com which
(28:12):
and cell phone. Video 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, know,
Win so you bring a guy down and you're not
gonna land a knockout punch because they've got fight. 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
(28:34):
he's like a greased pig 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
i'm GONNA i want an elevator clause in my. CONTRACT
i want to be able to get. PAID i, mean
(28:55):
When Barrick bougard left 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
(29:16):
he said he didn't even have to tie his. Skates
he was never gonna 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
(29:38):
sitting at the end of the. Bench knowing that a
guy Goes i'm not Gonna i'm gonna think twice about
cheap shoting the 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 on our,
guy we're taking out your. Guy same in, Baseball tony LaRussa,
manager you take out our cleanup, Pitter we're taking out
(29:59):
your cleanup. Pitter centerfielder we're drew in your center. Fielder
you pimp a 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 sign, stealing 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
(30:19):
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.
Though one, Guy i'll pretend he's injured 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.
(30:42):
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 cheap shot. You
the game gets cleaned. Up look back in the, seventies
when college hockey players didn't wear face, masks there was
(31:02):
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 a, guy. Don't but then when the face mask
got put, on they were. Invincible now you see guys
(31:22):
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 that, code you're gonna get. It and that's more
sacred than anything in, hockey the. Code you. Know it's.
(31:44):
INTERESTING i actually got to work with The Colorado avalanche
a couple of years. Ago Patrick waugh And Joe sakkik 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 fighting and
that you, know the code says, that you, know heavyweights fight,
heavyweights middleweights fight, middleweights lightweights fight, lightweights and goalies fight.
(32:07):
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 that's how it. Goes but
decency is a really important and it seems like hockey
is so, barbaric but there are real, rules there are real.
(32:28):
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 but
he'd fight. Anybody you, know he had the crazies right he,
was and his teammates loved, him they adored. Him In,
(32:51):
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 Expect nyland to come off the bench and write
what was, wrong but they do it in a decent.
(33:11):
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.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
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 think he's, merciless that he
should be. Exterminated he's a cockroach in the, game and
(33:50):
then 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 we're pursuing the question of what it is to be?
Human what does The enforcer call on profound. Loyalty loyalty
is so deep that he's willing to risk his own,
(34:13):
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 he is willing to undergo such incredible.
Sacrifice that's looking at it from the inside of the.
(34:34):
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
(34:55):
much he is willing to give his life for.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
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 using physics and angles and spacial relationships
(35:22):
to 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
(35:43):
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 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
(36:05):
Pizza 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
(36:27):
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 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.
(36:49):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
About 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
(37:24):
rangers 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.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I really never thought about. Before it's so.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Counterintuitive and also the honor code and the moral and
ethical code of the, enforcer again Something i'd never really thought.
About 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
(38:03):
mixture of grace and, disgrace AND 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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