Troubadour
Registered User
- Feb 23, 2018
- 1,157
- 842
Was There an NHL Player Who Would Qualify as a Hippie?
- Thread starter Troubadour
- Start date
Derek Sanderson. Read his book. Explains it all......
The Panther
Registered User
This may be the best thread-title ever...
I dunno, how about Henry Boucha, just by appearance?
This Oilers' fan, of course...
I dunno, how about Henry Boucha, just by appearance?
This Oilers' fan, of course...
Canadiens1958
Registered User
yukoner88
Registered User
George Laraque is full on vegan and was a deputy leader of the Green party in Canada not long after his playing days ended
SealsFan
Registered User
- May 3, 2009
- 1,716
- 506
Turk and Gratton were the first to come to mind, and they've already been mentioned. Players had "stylishly" long hair along with sideburns and moustaches that reflected the look of the times, but no one had hair to the extent that they would be mistaken for a fourth guitarist for Black Oak Arkansas...
Theokritos
Global Moderator
- Apr 6, 2010
- 12,541
- 4,938
Killion
Registered User
- Feb 19, 2010
- 36,763
- 3,215
Oh God ya. Thats my era as a player coming up, growing up. You were living a life as a bit of societal outlier in pursuing a very narrowly focused career path, chasing a dream much like a musician, writer or poet, outside the norm, gifted. Going back even earlier some serious eccentrics, guys, colorful characters with much in common with the Beatnick Generation of Jack Kerouac. Guys like Cowboy Howie Young. Polar opposites to the ultra conservative beyond polite graduates of St. Mikes or wherever who wouldnt say **** if their mouths were full of it. Total Hockey Nomads. Many who's lives spiraled out of control & wound up way off-road. Careers derailed. Dead prematurely by misadventure, substance abuse, murder.
The aforementioned Howie Young (hung out with Sinatra & the Rat Pack)... Doug Harvey very much an anti-hero type in terms of personality & disposition... Carl Brewer, Bob Baun, Mike Walton, Bruce Gamble... quite the wide swath, number of them through the 50's & 60's, into the 70's amp'd up even further with the formalization of player rights, NHLPA, Expansion, greater freedom of movement & money. Derek Sanderson of course the Poster Boy for much of that but really just the tip of the iceberg. A good number of the Bruins absolutely "out there". Some of the Flyers. All kinds of them top to bottom. NHL, WHA, Minor-Pro, Juniors.
These werent happy-slappy peace love & understanding pacifist "Hippies", a movement that was short lived peaking in the summer of 67 in San Francisco, dying hard in the summer of 69 with the Manson Family Murders in LA... but many did live alternative lifestyles while playing & after. Some famously as mentioned above. Gilles Gratton. Believed in Reincarnation & claimed to have memories of multiple past lives. Ran off to an Ashram in India, became a professional photographer (think Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now)... A tonne of them. Anti-establishment. Railed against the authoritarian nature of the game & business. The Man. The Machine. Quit... yours truly included.
vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
- 28,794
- 16,254
begs the question: did hockey not have an equivalent to bill walton or phil jackson, or were there high profile guys in hockey who merged the lifestyle with the job behind closed doors but we didn’t get to see it because the mainstream hockey culture is so conservative?
David Bruce Banner
Nude Cabdriver Ban
vadim sharifijanov
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2007
- 28,794
- 16,254
i'm guessing rod gilbert did fine for himself.
“Rod was the quintessential New York hockey player,” longtime broadcaster and author Stan Fischler proclaims. “He had great looks, talent, and acclimatized himself to Broadway as well as any player did in the Big Apple.”
https://thehockeywriters.com/rod-gilbert-mr-ranger/
and the true king of new york
shave those sideburns you hippies
Killion
Registered User
- Feb 19, 2010
- 36,763
- 3,215
Fred Shero while no spring chicken in the 70's, Brown Baggys' & Platform Shoes etc... certainly had the mind & soul of a Gypsy~Hippy. Way way waaaaaaay out there. Wasnt an act, a persona, something he affected in order to relate to his younger charges, the late 60's & 70's "Me Generation". All kinds of stories from the players about his unusual motivational techniques, quotes, things he'd write out on the chalkboard in the dressing room... lyrics from Beatles, Dylan, Steppenwolf or whatever songs, Beat Poets.... None of this Pop stuff, "Best Of" Quotes from Readers Digest.... Stoner stuff that clearly Freddy the Fogg read, listened to at length, studied.... Hookah keeping the cabin warm... blazing...
... things he'd say.... "I dont live in the fast lane I live on the off-ramp".... sort of thing someone might say blasted out of their skull on Peyote contemplating the universe & their place in it.... Strange strange Man... "When you have bacon & eggs for breakfast, the chicken makes a contribution, the pig a commitment".... see.... now your just scaring me Freddy.... What are you on anyway?.... Ha? Got anymore?. You'd be surprised how "out there" so many of the Old Guard actually were, how a life in hockey breeds it in the individual. As Hunter S. Thompson once said "The Edge; there is no honest way to explain it as the only ones who understand it are those who have gone over".... and back in the 70's more than a few did indeed "go over". Frequent flyers.
... things he'd say.... "I dont live in the fast lane I live on the off-ramp".... sort of thing someone might say blasted out of their skull on Peyote contemplating the universe & their place in it.... Strange strange Man... "When you have bacon & eggs for breakfast, the chicken makes a contribution, the pig a commitment".... see.... now your just scaring me Freddy.... What are you on anyway?.... Ha? Got anymore?. You'd be surprised how "out there" so many of the Old Guard actually were, how a life in hockey breeds it in the individual. As Hunter S. Thompson once said "The Edge; there is no honest way to explain it as the only ones who understand it are those who have gone over".... and back in the 70's more than a few did indeed "go over". Frequent flyers.
Last edited:
BenchBrawl
Registered User
- Jul 26, 2010
- 30,880
- 13,672
Grew up around pigs and chickens and this never occurred to me! Yes, Freddie was out there, especially as a figure of management in a dour NHL. He did develop some issues during his tenure in The Big Apple. I would imagine if the NHL grabbed Hunter S Thompson's attention as the Oakland Raiders did during the 70's, he would have likely tried to cover the Flyers back then, Fear and Loathing on Broad Street!
Killion
Registered User
- Feb 19, 2010
- 36,763
- 3,215
Oh? The guy on the Bruins who reminded me of Johnny Cash with his Middle Finger Salute was the late great (and very recently deceased sadly) Johnnie Pie McKenzie. Another player who like a Hippy in many ways embraced the entire lifestyle of hockey... probably would have played for free if he was making enough during the summers at Rodeo.... embracing as well that whole Cowboy lifestyle including.... Country & Western, Johnny Cash. McKenzie looking like a Parole' most of the time, having committed crimes, likely to commit more, didnt care, catch me if you can, Cop/Ref didnt see it so... never happened.....
Phil Esposito more a Lothario. More in the mold of a 50's Crooner type. Dean Martin... who I was shocked to learn had had a fairly lengthy affair with Petula Clark, the 60's British Songbird with a string of hits like Downtown, Dont Sleep in the Subway, Round Every Corner n' so on & so on. Part of that whole British Invasion who if dating a musician I'd have figured a contemporary, one of the Yardbirds, Peter Noonan of Hermans Hermits or whomever. Bur Dean Martin?... Deano' married to someone else of course. That was Phil Esposito. Sharkskin suit. Hair perfect. Lady Killer.... Not judging Big Phil as there was a lot of that going down during the 60's & 70's as well. Society was changing. Womens lib. Emancipation. Girls on top. Aggressive. Sexual revolution underway & hockey, hockey players not immune.
Last edited:
Stan Fischler once described Phil as looking like a basset hound. I wonder how Phil would describe Stan's "writing".
How about the two guys with full beards in the early 70's? Stoughton, and Bill Flett, they had to be a bit out of the range as no one had beards like that then, totally against the grain.
Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
I don't think there were.
Posters seem to be equating any nut jobs in the game as hippies. You had to be shabby, long-haired, lover of weed & LSD, psychedelic rock and LOVE, man, to be a real hippie. They drove VW buses or hitched rides (on VW buses).
"hip·pie
also hip·py (hĭp′ē)
n. pl. hip·pies
A member of a counterculture originating in the United States in the 1960s, typically characterized by unconventional dress and behavior, communal or transient lifestyles, opposition to war, and liberal attitudes toward sexuality and the use of marijuana and psychedelic drugs."
TheMoreYouKnow
Registered User
I always felt athletes typically took some ideas from that counter-culture..like individualism, resistance vs traditional structures and values..sexual liberation, 'easy-going' mentality and the drug culture etc. and then twisted them in an entirely self-serving way...
ZZZZ'D
JMCx4
Censorship is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
^^^This reflects my overall impression of the replies so far. Seems to me that a true hippie would lack the will & the discipline - and probably the physical prowess - to ever make an NHL roster in the late 1960s & early 1970s, much less be able to last in the League.
But if all you're making judgments by is physical appearance, look no further than the SJ Sharks' Brent Burns ...
Yes, the "Look" is there alright, he could seemlessly blend in with a tambourine and appropriate white cloth clothing at any California airport with similar minded and looking people proclaiming their latest guru and offering to read you your past life or lives depending on how distinguished your soul is. Some are well travelled indeed and some, not so much, just went a long way.
