SLY o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-09 published
Smooth defenceman got high by winning
Denied National Hockey League stardom, he won Olympic silver
and studied on the side
By Tom HAWTHORN,
Special to The Globe and Mail, Page S9
Darryl SLY never won a Stanley Cup and never held a permanent
job in the National Hockey League. His career statistics were
uninspiring - 79 games played, one goal, two assists.
A versatile player known as Slippery Sly for his smooth skating,
he played professionally for 22 seasons and worked behind the
bench as a coach for several more. Over those years, he wore
sweaters for towns that no longer exist (Galt, Ontario, now Cambridge)
and for teams long defunct (the original Iowa Stars).
Mr. SLY was a valuable asset on any hockey roster. As an amateur,
he skated for Canada at the 1960 Winter Olympics (winning a silver
medal), and he represented his country at the 1961 world championships
(winning gold). As a professional, he helped a powerhouse Rochester
Americans squad win three consecutive Calder Cup titles in the
mid-1960s.
Originally a forward with a good touch around the net, he was
converted into a defenceman whose tenacious play made him a favourite
of goaltenders.
With Rochester, he was paired on the ice and in road hotel rooms
with a pugnacious defenceman of equal heart but lesser skill:
"Darryl SLY carried me for six years, his skating was that good,"
said Don Cherry, who went on to greater success as a hockey commentator.
"Whenever the puck was dumped into our end, I'd say, 'Go get
it, Darryl.' "
But success eluded Mr.
SLY in hockey's premier league. He played
only two games in the pre-expansion National Hockey League and,
after the league doubled in teams, he dressed for only 77 games
with Toronto, Minnesota and Vancouver.
Darryl Hayward
SLY learned his hockey in his hometown, a popular
Ontario resort on Georgian Bay. He led the Collingwood Cubs to
the Ontario juvenile-A title shortly before his 17th birthday.
It would be the first championship of many.
He spent the following three seasons in Toronto at Saint Michael's
College School, the Catholic institution that graduated more
hockey players than priests. His teammates included Dave Keon
and Frank Mahovlich. Coached by Rev. David Bauer, the boys were
tutored to combine academic achievement with athletic endeavour.
Mr. SLY attended teachers college in his final season with the
St. Mike's Majors, during which he served as team captain. St.
Mike's lost to Peterborough in the junior-A finals.
The
National
Hockey League's Toronto Maple Leafs offered Mr.
SLY
a $3,500 salary with a $1,500 signing bonus, an attractive sum
on its own, all the more so for a graduating student contemplating
a career as a teacher. Instead, he accepted Father Bauer's advice
to remain an amateur, playing for the Kitchener-Waterloo (Ont.)
Dutchmen, a senior team.
The Dutchies were coached by Bill Durnan, the former Montreal
Canadiens goaltender, but he quit after a losing streak. Bobby
Bauer, an National Hockey League star and the brother of Father
Bauer, was reluctantly pressed into service.
The Dutchmen were chosen to represent Canada at the Olympics
after the Allan Cup-winning Whitby (Ont.) Dunlops declined. The
Dunlops bolstered the Dutchies' lineup by contributing a forward
line and defenceman Harry Sinden, who would be named captain
of the Olympic squad.
The team travelled by bus for two weeks, playing exhibitions
across Western Canada before arriving at Squaw Valley, California.
His lone goal in the Olympic tournament came when he opened the
scoring against Czechoslovakia, a tally that would be the game-winner
as Canada posted a 4-0 victory. He also earned an assist.
The team's hopes for a gold medal diminished when the U.S. team,
cheered on by 8,000 partisans, scored a 2-1 upset. The decisive
goal was scored by Paul Johnson, who was being covered on the
play by Mr.
SLY.
The Americans went on to strike gold and the Canadians had to
make do with silver.
Mr. SLY played for the Galt Terriers the following season, a
team formed from the remnants of the Dutchmen. The team nearly
folded at Christmas, struggling in last place. Midway through
the season, Mr.
SLY was invited to temporarily join the Trail
(B.C.) Smoke Eaters. The club had been chosen to represent Canada
at the world championships in Switzerland.
Granted a three-month leave from his job as a teacher in Elmira,
Ontario, Mr.
SLY began an odyssey that saw him travel to British
Columbia for a few games before flying back through Toronto on
his way to Europe.
The Smoke Eaters went undefeated in the tournament at Geneva,
the only blemish a 1-1 tie with the Czechs. The Canadians clinched
the championship with a 5-1 victory over the Soviets. Afterward,
a reporter found an exhausted Mr.
SLY slumped on a bench in the
dressing room. He said he was "bushed, but I am about the happiest
guy in the world."
After his 10-week hiatus with the Trail team, the world-beating
defenceman returned to the Galt blueline. His return was a happy
one - he had four goals and six assists in 12 Allan Cup playoff
games, helping his team claim the national senior title. An ecstatic
home crowd prevented the victors from reaching their dressing
room for 20 minutes after the game. The championship came just
six weeks after his return from overseas.
Mr. SLY then turned professional with the Rochester Americans,
an American Hockey League team that was home for seven seasons.
Although playing in a minor league, the Amerks, as they were
known, were widely regarded as being strong enough to compete
in the six-team National Hockey League.
Rochester won three consecutive Calder Cups as league champs
with a roster packed with high-calibre talent, from National
Hockey League players winding up their careers to young stars
with promising futures. The team also produced future National
Hockey League coaches in Mr. Cherry and fellow defenceman Al
Arbour.
A Maple Leafs' call-up in December of 1965 lasted just two games,
with Mr. SLY assigned penalty-killing duties. It was not an auspicious
debut.
Despite his many road trips, Mr.
SLY completed English studies
at Saint_John Fisher College in Rochester in 1966. Newspapers carried
stories on his achievement, so rare was an educated skater. "Darryl
Sly," The Globe and Mail noted, "is one hockey player who is
improving by degrees."
The doubling of the National Hockey League before the 1967-68
season gave Mr.
SLY hope he would be drafted by one of the six
new American teams. Instead, he was passed over.
"My chances of making the National Hockey League would have been
a lot better. My pay, too," he said while at Toronto's training
camp, which, as usual, boasted a surfeit of quality defencemen.
He saw limited action in 17 games with the Leafs that season,
recording no points.
His rights were transferred to the Vancouver Canucks of the Western
Hockey League after the club purchased the Syracuse franchise.
He took on the role of assistant coach even as he maintained
a regular spot on the ice. The Canucks won eight consecutive
playoff games to claim the Lester Patrick Cup as league champion.
The National Hockey League's Minnesota North Stars spent $30,000 to
pluck Mr. SLY from the Canucks in the 1969 inter-league draft.
He scored his lone National Hockey League goal while wearing
Minnesota's sweater for 29 games.
He returned to Vancouver the following season, as the new Canucks
National Hockey League franchise grabbed him in the expansion
draft. He was Vancouver's sixth pick and third defenceman, after
Gary Doak and Pat Quinn.
By 1971, he was again playing senior hockey in Ontario as the
playing coach of the Barrie Flyers. He led them to four Allan
Cup finals in five seasons - losing to Spokane in 1972 and 1976,
and to Thunder Bay, Ontario, in 1975. The Flyers took the senior
championship by knocking off the Cranbrook (B.C.) Royals in 1974.
In 1973, his old team, the Rochester Americans, asked him to
return for a single game to fill a hole on defence. Mr.
SLY responded
by playing perhaps the greatest game of his career, scoring a
goal and adding two assists in a 3-3 tie.
After hanging up his skates at 39, Mr.
SLY took up the coaching
reins of the amateur Collingwood Shipbuilders, winning an intermediate-A
title in 1983 and a senior-A title in 1987.
Mr. SLY was prominent in his hometown as a real-estate developer
and owner of the Blue Mountain Chrysler automobile dealership.
He was inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame in 1980 and
was an inaugural member of the Amerks Hall of Fame in 1986.
Mr. SLY once told The Globe's Nora McCabe that he enjoyed coaching
unpaid players who, like him, simply loved hockey. "Some guys
drink and some guys take dope to get high," he said. "Amateur
hockey players get high by winning."
Darryl SLY was born April 3, 1939, in Collingwood, Ontario He
died of cancer August 28, 2007, in Collingwood. He was 68. He
leaves his wife, Sylvia
(McCLURE,) a daughter, two sons, five
grandchildren and two brothers. He was predeceased by two brothers.
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