In Memoriam Tom McCarthy

[Gee Wally]

Former Bruin 30 goal scorer. Had a troubled life for awhile.




RIP

Click to read more...

 

[BMC]

May he rest in peace.

 

[Aeroforce]

Wow, very sad. And nowadays 61 is so young.

 

[Fenian24]

Terrible, I always liked him.

 

[quietbruinfan]

RIP to a very slick player.

 

[HustleB]

Was he part of a deal that sent Moog to Dallas? Did we send a different goalie to Dallas. Was he just a FA. Not sure the best archive for that kind of thing. I was following in 86 but I was young. Still surprised because I really don't remember this Bruins 30 goal scorer.

 

[quietbruinfan]

Was he part of a deal that sent Moog to Dallas? Did we send a different goalie to Dallas. Was he just a FA. Not sure the best archive for that kind of thing. I was following in 86 but I was young. Still surprised because I really don't remember this Bruins 30 goal scorer.

We got Jon Casey for Moog. We got Tom m for a couple of second rounders.

 

[BostonBob]

We got Tom m for a couple of second rounders.

You're close - the Bruins traded a 1986 3rd round pick ( Stars picked Rob Zettler 55th overall ) and a 1987 2nd round pick ( Stars picked Scott McGrady 35th overall ) to Minnesota for McCarthy. He actually scored 30 goals in 68 games during the 1986-87 season for the Bruins.

 

[HustleB]

Thank you guys.

 

[LSCII]

Wow, terrible news. Hopefully he's found the peace he couldn't while alive. RIP...

 

[Ladyfan]

Wow. I remember that name. Way too young. R.I.P.

 

[TP70BruinsCup]

Sorry to hear this. Was a solid performer in the ‘88 playoffs when we beat Montreal and went to the finals.

 

[bbfan419]

Very sad news, RIP Tom, praying for his family and friends.

 

[DKH]

He was so talented - what a shame

SIMMONS: The strange saga of Tom McCarthy should never be forgotten

You couldn’t help but like Tom McCarthy. He was full of fun and talent, silliness, and naivete.

torontosun.com

 

[chizzler]

Former North Stars All-Star winger Tom McCarthy dies at 61

After his career ended, he served prison time but sought redemption by coaching and teaching young players.

m.startribune.com

Great story with video.

 

[chizzler]

GoFundMe created after NHL alumnus with Mississauga, Oshawa ties dies suddenly in Mexico | insauga

Mississauga-raised Tom McCarthy, a one-time National Hockey League all-star forward who found a second life in sports by coaching young players, died suddenly in Mexico today. The 61-year-old, who developed into a future pro with the Oshawa Generals in the late 1970s after famously being the No...

www.insauga.com

Nice video interview.

 

[Gee Wally]

Former NHL player Tommy McCarthy’s roller-coaster life story is one that Hollywood should look at - The Boston Globe

His low point, years in a federal prison, was in sharp contrast to where he began, selected ahead of Wayne Gretzky as the No. 1 pick in the 1977 OHL draft.

www.bostonglobe.com

Harry Sinden swung a couple of big deals as general manager in the summer of 1986 after the Bruins were rubbed out in three straight (again!) by the Canadiens in Round 1 of the playoffs. Losing to the Habs in the first round became the Black-and-Gold franchise’s rite of spring in the mid-’80s.

The summer of ‘86 swaps were old-world hockey deals. Assets in. Assets out. New nameplates stamped for the backs of sweaters. This was some 20 years before the salary cap and no-move/no-trade clauses made hockey trades more intricate to pull off than spiriting priceless objets d’art out the back door of the Gardner Museum in the dead of night.

The biggest of Sinden’s deals came June 6, his acquisition of a rawboned Cam Neely from Vancouver that reset the franchise. If only every GM could have a Neely-like heist on his CV.

Neely, who turned 21 that same day, went on to score 344 goals for the Bruins en route to compiling his Hall of Fame career. Today, at age 56, he has been the club’s president for nearly a dozen years.

Three weeks before that monumental swap, Sinden sent a pair of draft picks to the North Stars to acquire Tommy McCarthy, then age 25. Strong and energetic, McCarthy already had seven years of NHL experience (including a 39-goal season) with the North Stars. He lasted in Boston for little more than a season, connecting for 30 goals his first season on Causeway Street.

On Wednesday, McCarthy died of a heart-related aneurysm while in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He was 61.

Fun-loving, a bit goofy, it was virtually impossible to dislike McCarthy, as it is a tail-wagging Great Dane that turns a family room into a Hazmat site. He was full of smiles, good words, energy, moves, and talent. The spark in his personality stood out, even in the day when NHL dressing rooms were chock full of characters not afraid to go off team script, willing to repeat something other than clichés and team-screened party lines.


Post-Boston, there were some very difficult years for McCarthy, beginning not long after his NHL days came to an end after only seven games with the Black and Gold in 1987-88.

“It really started when I stopped dreaming,” he told CBC reporter Scott Morrison years later, reflecting on some of the poor choices he made.

At his lowest, McCarthy recalled, his mind-set became, “I had my chance, my life is over . . . ”

His thinking wasn’t hard to comprehend. His low point, which arrived during years behind bars in a federal lockup, was in sharp contrast to where he began his hockey journey, selected ahead of Wayne Gretzky as the No. 1 pick in the 1977 OHL Draft.

But McCarthy eventually turned his life around, starting on an unconventional hockey surface that he created in Leavenworth, Kan., while serving out a 10-year sentence for a conspiracy to traffic a truckload of marijuana from California to Minnesota. Today, given where drug legislation has gone, such hand-on-the-wheel initiative might have made McCarthy a candidate for marijuana entrepreneur of the year.

But in the 1990s, it meant hard time in a notorious federal pen, a place for murderers, bank robbers, and a goofy, naïve truck driver who’d made some bad friends, and worse decisions, when his playing days came to an end.

Thanks in part to a hockey-loving Leavenworth warden who grew up in Cornwall, Ontario, McCarthy was granted the go-ahead to create a ball hockey program inside the prison walls. Saturday morning clinics led by McCarthy were followed eventually by weekly games — including some that pitted prisoners against guards — and it was during his years guiding that program that McCarthy set coaching as his new career goal.

A reminder about our goals and passions: Sometimes they find us, even at times when it feels our lives are lost.

“There’s a positive to every negative in life,” McCarthy said in the 2008 CBC report, some 10 years into coaching lower-tier junior hockey in Ontario. “When you believe it, it will carry you out of anything.”

Along the way, McCarthy said in a recent interview, he redefined his idea of wealth, having learned to value relationships with players, friends, and family above everyday assets such as homes, cars, boats, jewelry, and money.

“The most precious gift we can offer others,” he said, “is our time.”

 

[DaBroons]

I really liked McCarthy when he played for Da Broons. I like his quote very much. His trade to Da Broons was unusual in that it occurred during the playoffs, although both Da Broons and Da Nahth Stahs had completed their seasons.

The article is incorrect about the Neely and McCarthy trades. The Neely trade was during the previous off season, 6-6-86, which happened to be on Neely's B-day no less, June 6. The trade was risky for Sinden, because Neely's goal scoring totals for his 3 years in Vancouver were 16, 21, and 14. Not shabby, but not great. Pedersen, OTOH, had 29 goals and 47 assists in the season prior to the trade, and previously had scored 44, 46, and 39 goals. However, in the penultimate season to his trade, he only scored 4 goals in 22 games, having had a large growth surgically removed from his right shoulder. He seemed to have lost the power behind his blazing shot after the surgery, despite the 29 goals.

However, ruthless it was, Sinden was quick to trade a player whose value he sensed was slipping. And I will always be convinced that that is the reason he was willing to trade Esposito in order to get Brad Park, whom he desperately wanted to replace Orr as the team's all-star dman (again, he correctly sensed that Orr's career was nearly over due to the numerous knee surgeries). The year before Esposito's trade, he scored 61 goals--however, he scored 41 in the first half of the season, but only 20 in the second half. And then he started the next season by scoring only 6 goals in 12 games, and now he appeared to be slipping from a 60-goal scorer to a 40-goal scorer. Indeed, in his 4 full seasons with the Rags, he only scored 40 goals once. Sinden again was vindicated by his methods.

 

[Baddkarma]

RIP.