Chatting with the Isles at Racquet and Rink in Farmingdale after their always open and free practices every weekend and during school holiday weeks in the late 70's. I had their autographs 20x over, LOL. Except for Denis Potvin, who always arrived like one minute before practice and blew by everyone saying that he's running late and he'll catch us after practice. Except, he'd sneak out some other door after practice.
Chico was a great guy. Not only would he stop and give autographs, he would literally sit in the stands and chat up kids and parents.
Even though they didn't exactly look alike, I'd always confuse Hart and Howatt. One time when I did that to Hart, he told me "that's Mr. Hart to you".
Andre St. Laurent gave me his stick once, and another time, when I asked Parise, he smiled, stuck out his stick as if he was going to give it to me, and then pulled it away and said "ahh, no!" while laughing.
He did give me a puck. I had tons of pucks, most of which had an orange NHL logo printed on them.
Smitty would get pissed if guys shot high on him and he's literally skate after them in a rage.
Arbour was pretty serious on the ice most of the time. Not too much chuckling going on.
They seemed all to be really good guys overall.
We'd take the bus all the way down Hempstead Turnpike to get there, get off at Rt 110 and walk a few hundred feet. Sometimes we'd bring our skates and attend the public skating session on rink A after watching the Isles on Rink C. The snack bar had really good egg salad sandwiches!