Kukla's Korner Hockey
Talking Old Time Hockey
by Paul on 02/03/16 at 12:48 PM ET
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from Joe O'Connor of the National Post,
Ivan Irwin’s hands are big as bear paws and they are trembling. “Parkinson’s,” he grumbles. But the disease he was diagnosed with two years ago is not what is bothering the 88-year-old.
It is the game. Hockey. The NHL. The pros. Not the money those bozos are pulling in nowadays, since who wouldn’t love making good money, but the way they actually play the game. Holding the puck facing the boards, crosschecking, hitting from behind, doling out concussions to one another while failing, in Irwin’s view, to grasp the fine art of self-preservation.
“Look here,” he says, gesturing at a black and white photograph on the back wall of a Shopsy’s deli in suburban Toronto. “I am ready for him.”
He means Maurice Richard. The Rocket — the Montreal Canadiens legend. The photograph shows Richard swooping in on goal, eyes ablaze, and with his stick raised menacingly toward Ivan Irwin, otherwise known as “Ivan the Terrible,” of the New York Rangers, whose stick is likewise raised menacingly.
Filed in: NHL Teams, NHL Talk, Old School, | KK Hockey | Permalink
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