Toggle sidebar

In Memoriam Former pro hockey players/management/others deaths (Ron Ellis)

BenchBrawl

BenchBrawl

Registered User
Jul 26, 2010
30,919
13,732
Won his tournament as a kid and he came to hang out in the room with us after our victory. Class act all the way. I still have a cap with his signature from that tourney. Great memory.

R.I.P. and condolences to his family and friends.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MXD, Fenris and gotyournose
reckoning

reckoning

Registered User
Jan 4, 2005
7,046
1,318
Even after hearing about his lung cancer a few months ago, this still comes a huge shock.

One of the greatest ever. Thank you for the memories #22. Rest in peace.
 
Danny46

Danny46

Registered User
Dec 28, 2015
461
203
R. I. P. Mike Bossy, a true all time great and a goal machine. He seemed to be such a nice guy, what a shame, so young, to me he will always be the face of the Islanders.
 
Staniowski

Staniowski

Registered User
Jan 13, 2018
3,555
3,125
The Maritimes
Eric Nesterenko will always be remembered for his racist outburst towards Willie O'Ree in 1961. Willie said it was the worst racism he faced from any player during his time in the NHL.

I hope Nesterenko didn't treat anybody else like that in his life.
 
  • Like
Reactions: seventieslord
Mrfenn92

Mrfenn92

Proud to be American
Sponsor
Nov 27, 2018
31,142
30,810
Chicago,Illinois
C387F457-A495-4949-810D-153719D28654.jpeg
A5A42E49-EB18-4E81-A0C0-B781ACB7A063.jpeg
 
Habsfan18

Habsfan18

The Hockey Library
May 13, 2003
30,727
8,908
Ontario
Staniowski said:
Eric Nesterenko will always be remembered for his racist outburst towards Willie O'Ree in 1961. Willie said it was the worst racism he faced from any player during his time in the NHL.

I hope Nesterenko didn't treat anybody else like that in his life.
Click to expand...

Of course we’ll never know what was truly said (and I sincerely hope Nesterenko didn’t say what O’Ree claims he did), but the “attack” has already been refuted some time ago by historian Paul Patskou. Willie claims that Nesterenko shattered his front teeth with a butt end of his stick in an on-ice assault, but there’s no actual record of the attack nor are there any penalty minutes assessed to Nesterenko in any of the games in which he and O’Ree would have played against each other. So, at least THAT part is being refuted..unless it was behind the play and the referees never saw AND reporters just never wrote about it..but I’d say that’s quite unlikely.

But yeah, as for a racist verbal attack, of course that’s possible. I’d hope not but I guess we’ll never truly know. Nesterenko denied it ever happened. But I don’t see why O’Ree would lie about something like that either.

Edit: I stand corrected on the penalties. I must be remembering Patskou’s post incorrectly. I’ll try to find it. I think it was on a hockey book facebook group. But he did make a solid case for refuting O’Ree’s claim. At least of it happening exactly how he said it did anyways.
 
Last edited:
Staniowski

Staniowski

Registered User
Jan 13, 2018
3,555
3,125
The Maritimes
Habsfan18 said:
Of course we’ll never know what was truly said (and I sincerely hope Nesterenko didn’t say what O’Ree claims he did), but the “attack” has already been refuted some time ago by historian Paul Patskou. Willie claims that Nesterenko shattered his front teeth with a butt end of his stick in an on-ice assault, but there’s no actual record of the attack nor are there any penalty minutes assessed to Nesterenko in any of the games in which he and O’Ree would have played against each other. So, at least THAT part is being refuted..unless it was behind the play and the referees never saw AND reporters just never wrote about it..but I’d say that’s quite unlikely.

But yeah, as for a racist verbal attack, of course that’s possible. I’d hope not but I guess we’ll never truly know. Nesterenko denied it ever happened. But I don’t see why O’Ree would lie about something like that either.
Click to expand...
It's not the case, obviously, that it has been proven that none of this happened.

It's not accurate that Nesterenko didn't get any penalties in his games against O'Ree. In fact, he had 5 penalties....and O'Ree had 4.

Among those is one stoppage where they got penalties together:
Nesterenko: elbowing
O'Ree: high-sticking

There are several possibilities here....e.g. Nesterenko could have butt-ended without the ref seeing it, and O'Ree got called for retaliation, etc.

O'Ree faced racism throughout his career, so the Nesterenko incident wasn't unique....but Willie said it was the worst he received from any player during his relatively short stint in the NHL. He said Chicago, Detroit and New York were the worst, from players and fans. The N-word all the time, he also got spit on by fans, drinks thrown at him, lots of verbal abuse, restaurants wouldn't serve the Bruins because of Willie, etc.

But you're free to think whatever you want.
 
Habsfan18

Habsfan18

The Hockey Library
May 13, 2003
30,727
8,908
Ontario
Staniowski said:
It's not the case, obviously, that it has been proven that none of this happened.

It's not accurate that Nesterenko didn't get any penalties in his games against O'Ree. In fact, he had 5 penalties....and O'Ree had 4.

Among those is one stoppage where they got penalties together:
Nesterenko: elbowing
O'Ree: high-sticking

There are several possibilities here....e.g. Nesterenko could have butt-ended without the ref seeing it, and O'Ree got called for retaliation, etc.

O'Ree faced racism throughout his career, so the Nesterenko incident wasn't unique....but Willie said it was the worst he received from any player during his relatively short stint in the NHL. He said Chicago, Detroit and New York were the worst, from players and fans. The N-word all the time, he also got spit on by fans, drinks thrown at him, lots of verbal abuse, restaurants wouldn't serve the Bruins because of Willie, etc.

But you're free to think whatever you want.
Click to expand...

I haven’t looked into it in-depth myself, I was only going on what I had read from Paul Patskou. I probably shouldn’t have stated “no penalties” as I didn’t look into it the boxscores myself. I just remember reading a post of his that made a case for the story not matching up with what had actually happened on the ice.

But really, what we have to go on is Willie O’Ree’s word, and like you said, he undoubtedly dealt with racism. So it wouldn’t be all that surprising if this did indeed happen. We just don’t know if it happened exactly how Willie is claiming.

Edit: I’m looking for the post in question by Paul Patskou and can’t find it right now but I did see this one in a discussion:

No, it's not at all like trying to find proof that Nesterenko didn't do it. O'Ree has made some very specific claims that simply can't be verified by the available evidence.

He says it happened a certain way and for all we know maybe that's what he sincerely believes is true. Journalists have always taken his story at face value without checking the facts. Well, I was a journalist and I would have been guilty of that sort of sloppiness before. But I'm a historian now, and we have the ability now to check the facts. We have access to official game sheets and historic newspaper articles from multiple cities.

We can know that O'Ree and Nesterenko did in fact clash on the ice one time, but it appears to have been nowhere near as dramatic as O'Ree describes - there was no brawl and no riot. It didn't happen when and where Willie says it did. And we can still only speculate to what degree racism was involved, if at all. Nesterenko has denied it, and none of their teammates ever stepped forward to say they also heard what Willie says he heard. An accusation by itself is not proof, and therefore I believe that people and especially journalists should stop uncritically repeating O'Ree's story.
Click to expand...

Quite a few SIHR members have tried to find proof of this alledged incident, and there simply isn’t any. So all we can go on is Willie’s word. But I don’t think it’s fair for Nesterenko to be forever labelled a racist based on one accusation that hasn’t been proven to be accurate. Could it have happened? It’s obviously possible. But articles claiming this to be a cold hard fact..I’m not sure that’s right..
 
Last edited:
ES

ES

Registered User
Feb 14, 2004
4,227
878
Finland
I had to think a lot why Nesterenko was such a familiar name, then realized he was one of five players who have played 1000 games for a team other than player debuted.

Bucyk, Draper, Thornton and Chara are others to have done so, and I think Blake Wheeler is the next player who has a chance to do it, but even he needs three more seasons with Jets.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kaiser matias

kaiser matias

Registered User
Mar 22, 2004
4,741
1,890
ES said:
I had to think a lot why Nesterenko was such a familiar name, then realized he was one of five players who have played 1000 games for a team other than player debuted.

Bucyk, Draper, Thornton and Chara are others to have done so, and I think Blake Wheeler is the next player who has a chance to do it, but even he needs three more seasons with Jets.
Click to expand...

This is the type of thing that belongs in the obscure facts thread. Never would have thought of such a list, and solid names there, too.
 
Chairman Maouth

Chairman Maouth

Retired Staff
Apr 29, 2009
26,222
13,021
Comox Valley
byrone said:
Former NHL’er Greg Tebbutt
Click to expand...
Saddened to learn of Greg's passing.

He and I had some pretty brutal battles when I played for Coquitlam and Greg played for North Shore Winter Club. He was built like a truck and deceptively fast. If you didn't keep your head up when he was on the ice he would take it off.

Later, our animosity turned to friendship when we were reacquainted through a mutual friend in White Rock. The last time I saw Greg, we were in the back of a friend's pickup truck driving around Surrey and sharing a bottle of cheap wine. Hey, it was the '80s. Things were different then.

Rest in peace, Greg. You were one tough motherf***er.
 
Nick Hansen

Nick Hansen

Registered User
Sep 28, 2017
3,128
2,659
Damn, indeed. Came out of nowhere.

Don't want to speak ill of the dead but what comes to mind is all his nasty hits that injured other players.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dingo and gary69
You must log in or register to reply here.

Ad

Latest posts

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

Top Bottom