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.
[...]
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.
Having mentioned Howie Young, I thought I'd chime in by mentioning the first guy I thought of when I saw the thread title:
Gary "The Cobra" Simmons. He was not a "peace, love & understanding pacifist 'hippie'" in that sense of the word, but was very much a man who lived life by the beat of his own drum. He absolutely did not believe in the professional hockey 'system'. Born in Charlottetown, PEI but grew up in Lethbridge, Alberta; played his junior hockey for the Oil Kings (in the years between their Memorial Cup victories in '63 and '66, unfortunately for him; he was hurt in the '65 Memorial Cup they lost to the Niagara Falls Flyers backstopped by a goalie by the name of Parent), but the Oil Kings weren't a sponsored junior team (having played in the senior men's league in Alberta rather than the AJHL) and he refused to sign away his hockey life to a 'C' Form with an NHL-affiliated club. In '65, having reached the end of his junior eligibility, he signed a contract in the IHL (then an independent league).
By the end of that first year of pro he was ready to hang 'em up, and was hired as a cop back in Lethbridge. But on his first day, before he'd sworn his oath as a police officer, he got a call from a fella from Conception Bay, Newfoundland who said they'd pay him to come play senior hockey for the CeeBees. He didn't want to go to The Rock so told the guy "Double it." Sure enough he did, and told Simmons to get on the next plane.
He played there for three years! Playing in such obscurity damaged his marketability, and seeking to crack the pros for good he went back to Alberta in '69 and played a year in the ASHL for the Stampeders, winning the provincial championship. He then played with the San Diego Gulls of the WHL for a year (backing up former US Olympian Jack McCartan), went back to Calgary for another year, and finally settled into a full-time pro hockey career at age 28 playing with the WHL's Phoenix Roadrunners. Splitting duties with Don Caley in his first year and the undeniable starter in his second, the Roadrunners won back-to-back championships in '73 and '74.
It was there that he met Howie Young, by then a 35-year-old NHL castoff. Howie got some of his Navajo buddies to paint The Cobra's mask with what were supposedly good luck charm markings. He introduced him to their jewellery, after which The Cobra (as he was nicknamed by a member of the press in Phoenix) would always be seen wearing one turquoise piece or another.
The Cobra got a call from his agent about an NHL opportunity in '74, while the Roadrunners were on a road trip in Salt Lake City. His agent was a little cagey about just who it was who made the contract offer; Simmons put two-and-two together and figured it was the team that was affiliated with the WHL's Salt Lake Golden Eagles: the California Golden Seals. He refused to sign the contract offer, made mid-season, and waited until after the playoffs had concluded. Having won a second straight championship and with the Roadrunners about to turn "Major League" by joining the WHA, he had the Seals' GM Garry Young up the ante to get him to sign. With the money settled there was one final hurdle: The Cobra insisted he had a clause in his contract that exempted him from having to wear a tie.
Gary Simmons made his NHL debut on October 11, 1974 at age 30, playing for the team that finished dead last the year before with a mere 36 points. In the previous four seasons they'd had a combined record of 70-193-49; a scant 0.303 winning percentage.
They won that game 3-0.
It was the first of only 10 wins that season for Simmons (out of 19 for the team overall), and the team finished third-last ahead of only the first-year expansion Capitals and Scouts. They turned it around the next year though finishing seven points out of a playoff spot, the closest they'd come to playoffs since 1970. In his time in the Bay Area he'd become renowned for being a 'flake': he chainsmoked, he hawked pieces of that Native American jewellery of his to players on the opposing teams, he had tattoos up and down his body. Just look at him:
Cowboy hat & boots (and two extra pairs of boots with him, just in case), Texas tuxedo, a sliver of one of his many tattoos at his right cuff, Navajo turquoise jewellery, cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth and wearing his Wayfarers inside. He won a fair bit of money off of the tattoo of a rooster in a noose on his lower leg: he'd bet the other players he had a cock hanging past his knee.
The Cobra was not happy when he learned the Seals were moving east to the hinterlands of Richfield, Ohio in 1976. Fellow goalie Gilles Meloche demanded a trade from the moribund Cleveland Barons, but it was Simmons who was traded in January of '77 back to the west coast. He played only 19 games for the Kings in relief of Hall-of-Famer Rogie Vachon over the '76-'77 and '77-'78 seasons. After he was sent to the Kings' AHL affiliate in the autumn of '78 for a five-game conditioning stint Kings GM George Maguire informed him it wasn't really a conditioning stint at all: he could play out his contract in Springfield (with fellow veteran castoff Pete Stemkowski) or he wouldn't play at all. He hung 'em up. (Stemkowski lasted another 19 games before doing the same.) He made more money co-owning a pizza joint in San Francisco with former Seals PR guy Len Shapiro.
The Cobra retired to Lake Havasu City, Arizona with his wife Whysperss, where they sold lingerie and adult toys out of their shop.
