Mention the name Dave Reece to any hockey fan of a certain age and what do you think they will remember? Their minds will immediately go back to a night in February of 1976 on which the aforementioned Reece surrendered eleven goals in a Boston Bruins’ loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was the night that Leafs’ star Darryl Sittler scored six goals and added four assists in the 11-4 win over the visiting Bruins.
That was a night! But there’s a lot more to this story than just what happened on that fateful Saturday night in Toronto.
For Sittler, the evening’s work guaranteed him immortality. His amazing night set a record for the most points by a player in a single game. We’re getting close to five decades since that winter night at Maple Leaf Gardens and it hasn’t been surpassed or even matched. It was the capper on a tremendous career, and it was just one step on the way to Sittler being named as one of the top 100 players of the National Hockey League’s first century of existence.
“It’s (Sittler’s night) something that’s stood the test of time,” The Hockey News’ Adam Proteau said on an episode of The Sports Lunatics Show back in February of 2022. “When you look at how games evolve now, if a team is running up the score, there’s always that hockey mentality of ‘oh, we don’t want to get too crazy on them, we’ll take it easy’. Just the way the game is structured now, it’s virtually impossible to do something like that. It’s hard to get a three-point night. A five-point night makes people raise their eyebrows.”
The record-setting night for Sittler was career-defining. It helped solidify the love that Leafs’ fans had for him. That, and his scoring the winning goal in the inaugural Canada Cup against Vladimir Dzurilla and the Czechs, also didn’t place any bumps on his road to the Hockey Hall of Fame. For the Bruins’ goaltender, Dave Reece, that game defined his career as well. It probably defined it unfairly. Three days after that night in Toronto, the Bruins waived Reece.
Going into that Saturday night, the Leafs had played 52 games. They were in third place in the Adams Division with a record of 21-20-11. They had just come out of a disappointing 4-4 tie with a miserable Washington Capitals team three days earlier. The Leafs had just a single win in their previous eight games and were looking quite mediocre heading into this Saturday night game against Boston.
The Bruins had been on a roll. In their previous 23 games, they had won eighteen of them, lost three and tied two. The afternoon of February 7 saw the Bruins on top of the Adams Division with a record of 32 wins, 10 losses and 9 ties. Between Boston at the top and Toronto down in third were the Buffalo Sabres, sitting seven points behind the Bruins. And Boston had achieved this run with the goalie tandem of Gilles Gilbert and the aforementioned Dave Reece.
(Oh, and, by the way, the fourth team in that iteration of the Adams Division was the California Golden Seals. I don’t know who it was who put these divisions together, but you’d think that organizing the divisions based on geography might have been a better way of doing things. The poor Seals, with the travel within the division, it must have been just horrendous. Anyway…)
In the previous season, 1974-75, the Bruins went mainly with Gilles Gilbert, who played 53 games. Spelling him off were the combination of Ross Brooks and Ken Broderick. Dave Reece was the main guy in Rochester of the American League with the aptly named Americans. Coming out of training camp in September of 1975, Reece was the guy who emerged as the goalie to back up Gilbert. Brooks and Broderick were relegated to play with the Amerks.
Reece turned 27 in that September and was on a National Hockey League roster for the first time in his life. He was even tabbed as the starter in the season opener for Boston against the Montreal Canadiens. The game was at the Boston Garden. This Habs team would go on to win the Stanley Cup in the spring of 1976. It would be the first of four straight Cups for them, so they had a good team.
Montreal jumped out to a 7-2 lead and Dave’s night was over. The final score was 9-4. It was good for the Bruins that they were not in the same division as those Canadiens.
Gilles Gilbert played the next game against the Islanders three nights later. That contest ended in a 3-3 tie. Four nights after that, Reece was back in goal against the Detroit Red Wings. The Bruins and Wings played to a 2-2 tie. The Bruins played nine games that October. Gilbert started five of them and Reece started four. The Bruins won four, lost three and tied two. Reece came out of the month with a pair of wins, that opening night loss to Montreal and the tie with Detroit.
Through November and December, Don Cherry then rode Gilbert as much as he could. There were 26 games for the Bruins over those two months. Gilbert played 22 of them. Reece played the other four. Any goalie will tell you that they like to get into a groove and play as much as they can. To ride the bench for two months and play only four games is tough mentally.
It takes a special person to be in a situation like that and play well. Reece played three games in November and won the first one against California in the Garden with a 5-0 shutout. Then he lost a pair in Buffalo and in Vancouver. The game against the Canucks was on November 8. Reece didn’t play again until December 17 against Washington. The Bruins won 3-2.
Cherry liked Gilbert because he knew what he had with the veteran. He was still learning about and trying to trust Reece. ‘Trying’ may have been a hopeful word. But as 1975 turned into 1976, Cherry figured he might lean on the 27-year-old rookie a little more. Maybe just a little.
Reece played back-to-back games to start the month of January when Boston tied the Canucks out in Vancouver 4-4. The next night, in Los Angeles, Reece blanked the Kings 3-0. Then, the Bruins had a week off. Their next game was at home against the Seals. Gilbert led the way in a 3-2 win. Reece was back in goal when they were in D.C. to play the Capitals. Boston came away with a 7-4 win.
Gilbert won a couple of games at home against the Penguins and Kings. On the road in St. Louis, Reece dropped a 7-4 decision as the Bruins and the league went into the All-Star break. Coming out of that, Cherry seemed content to get back on the Gilly Gilbert train and the Bruins went on a six-game winning streak.
The last game Gilbert played was on Sunday, February 1, in Boston against the Atlanta Flames. During the Wednesday skate, Gilbert took a shot off his knee that left him hobbled. That led Cherry to start Reece on the Thursday night at the Garden against Pittsburgh. The Bruins came away with a 5-1 victory. Gilbert’s swollen knee would also keep him out against the Leafs in Toronto on the Saturday and the Red Wings on Sunday.
Pittsburgh had come into this game on a four-game unbeaten streak, but Reece was up to the task and had a chance to record his third shutout in just thirteen starts as the game neared its end. But Lowell MacDonald got a puck past him with less than four minutes left in the game to get the Penguins on the board. It was the Bruins’ seventh straight victory.
That win over Pittsburgh came with a little spice. Before the game, the Bruins signed a goalie who had just come out of a financial dispute with his former World Hockey Association team, the Cleveland Crusaders. He had previously played with the Bruins, and he would be on the bench sitting as the backup goalie while Reece came close to posting a shutout. He carried a large presence in the whole scheme of Boston things.
Gerry Cheevers had been with the Bruins as far back as the 1965-66 season. When the WHA began operations in the summer of 1972, he jumped to the rebel league and played three full seasons in Cleveland. He was now back with the Bruins and his new contract with the team possibly meant that Dave Reece’s time in Boston, or in the league, might be coming to an end. But don’t ask Reece that question.
“The heck this is my last shot,” Reece told a reporter who asked him after his win against Pittsburgh. “I’m just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I still feel I’m part of the club.” Since Cheevers had left Cleveland a couple of weeks before, he hadn’t been on the ice since and so he wasn’t really up to playing a mid-season NHL game without some kind of decent time on the ice working at full speed.
Cherry wasn’t about to throw his new acquisition to the wolves without some kind of acclimatization. He also didn’t have the guy who had been his main starter all season. “Gilbert won’t be ready this weekend. Reece will play in Toronto Saturday night and probably back there against Detroit Sunday night, too.”
The Bruins’ coach talked about what he thought would be a reasonable schedule for his new/old goalie. “Cheevers will be ready in a week or ten days, in the shape I want him to be. He’s in better shape than I thought he’d be, but it’s tough on a goalie not to play for a while. We’re putting him through some rigorous things, and he hasn’t been too bad. He’ll lose some weight, but he doesn’t have to lose too much.”
Reece had gotten off on the right foot in the win over Pittsburgh and it impressed the guy who might take his job. He made an important stop on an early shot by Pierre Larouche that made a statement. “That was the key right there,” Cheevers told the press after the game. “He made the big save and it got him going. You can’t play any better than Reece did tonight. I’m happy for him.”
The team had lost just one game in their last seventeen. They were 15-1-1 over that window of time. That was the heady pace they had set going into Toronto on that fateful Saturday night, February 7, 1976.
While the Bruins had been hot going into this February Saturday, the Maple Leafs had been quite tepid. Over their previous eight games, they had won just one and that was over a New York Rangers team that had lost eight games more than they had won all season. The Leafs also managed three ties in that span as well.
Red Kelly was the Leafs’ coach, and he had been trying different combinations of wingers to play with his captain, Darryl Sittler. In their game against Pittsburgh on the previous Sunday that week, Kelly used six different wingers on his line. The natives in Ontario’s capital were getting restless and they were egged on by the team’s owner, Harold Ballard.
Ballard, in speaking to reporters a couple of days before the Bruins’ game, said that his club needed a strong centre between Errol Thompson and Lanny McDonald. That should have been the team’s captain, Sittler. But Ballard took a shot across the captain’s bow when he told the Toronto Star, “I’m determined to find a sensational centre” to play between the two wingers. “We’d set off a time bomb if we had a hell of a centre in there.”
Sittler had been dealing with a shoulder issue for weeks going into the game against Boston. The assortment of wingers he had been made to play with may also have contributed to some of the inconsistency there might have been in his play in the early weeks of 1976 as well.
On the Friday, after the Bruins held their daily skate, Cherry confirmed to Francis Rosa of the Boston Globe that Dave Reece would be in goal against the Leafs the next night. “And Reece probably will play against Detroit in Boston Sunday. Gilbert is still limping. He had x-rays today, and they showed he had a bruise. I’d doubt he could play Sunday.” Cheevers would likely still just be in a supervisory role for the weekend.
Reece acknowledged that his teammates had played well in front of him whenever he played and, in particular, the 5-1 win over Pittsburgh the night before. “They kept taking Pittsburgh to the boards and they were forced to shoot off the angles.” They took choices away from the Penguins puck carriers and allowed Reece to come out and challenge for the shot instead of worrying about the man having the ability to pass or shoot.
There was a line in Rosa’s article that appeared in the Globe on the Saturday of the game at Maple Leaf Gardens. “He’ll need the same kind of play in front of him tonight.” Everyone would have to wait until puck drop to see if that would happen.
Harry Sinden had told Reece on the Friday that this weekend would be his last with the team. That night, Reece and some of his teammates hit the town and had a long and enjoyable evening. He insisted that he was perfectly fit for the game on Saturday night though.
***
Greg Hubick was a defenseman on the Leafs in that 1975-76 season. His allotment of tickets wasn’t going to be used that night. Sittler scooped them up and called his father, Ken, in St. Jacobs, Ontario close to Kitchener and not far from Guelph to offer them up. Darryl’s parents would have a full day. Both of the captain’s brothers, Rodney and Jeff along with his nephews, Jason and Tony Rickert, were playing games that day. Sittler’s parents went to the kids’ games, and they still drove up to Toronto for the Leafs’ game.
Sittler himself had an uneasy day that Saturday. After the Leafs’ morning skate, he wasn’t able to stick to his usual routine. On the 40th anniversary of that amazing night, he sat down with people from The Hockey News and talked about it.
“My wife, Wendy, she was out doing something and wasn’t going to be home. I got behind schedule downtown for whatever reason. I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just run in and grab some takeout.’ So, I grabbed some Swiss Chalet chicken and some fries. Because I wanted to get home and sleep, I was eating it while it was still hot, off the front seat of my car.”
Wendy was eight months pregnant at the time. Their daughter Meaghan was born five weeks after. Darryl managed to get his pre-game nap in, but everything else was off. Anyway, he did manage to make it to the rink on time and was with his teammates as they all jumped on to the ice together come the time for the warm-up and the eventual 8 p.m. game time.
A few shifts into the game, the Sittler-Thompson-McDonald line managed to get on the scoreboard. At the 6:19 mark of the first period, Lanny McDonald scored his 25th goal of the season. It was set up on a long pass by the captain, Sittler. 42 seconds later, Errol Thompson and Sittler got assists on a goal on a long slapper by the gifted offensive defenseman, Ian Turnbull.
Just before the game was 17 minutes old, the Bruins got a goal back when Jean Ratelle put a puck past Leafs’ goalie Wayne Thomas. After twenty minutes, the Bruins had outshot Toronto 11-9. But the score was 2-1 for the home side.
The second period saw the ice tilt in a sudden and prolonged fashion. Just less than three minutes into the frame, the Leafs got on the board when Borje Salming carried the puck deep into the Bruins’ zone and flipped it out to the front of the net. Sittler was there and he batted it out of the air and into the net behind Reece. Thirty-three seconds later, Boston’s Brad Park went off for boarding.
Four seconds after that, Sittler won the draw in the Bruins’ end back to Salming. He hammered it straight into the net. It was 4-1 for Toronto. The goals were coming fast and furious. A minute and 46 seconds after Salming scored, Bobby Schmautz scored for Boston. Less than three minutes after that, Sittler stepped into the path of a Bruins’ pass in the neutral zone, skated over the blue line and fired a 50-footer through Reece’s legs to make it 5-2.
33 seconds after Sittler’s slap shot goal, Gregg Sheppard was called for slashing, giving Toronto another power play. Before that penalty expired, and while another Boston infraction was about to be called, Wayne Thomas scurried off and Sittler jumped on to replace his goalie. Eighteen seconds before Sheppard’s stay in the box was to end, Sittler jammed a pass from George Ferguson past the unfortunate Reece.
Less than a minute later, Johnny Bucyk got a shot past Thomas on assists from Jean Ratelle and Schmautz. 34 seconds after that, George Ferguson scored on Reece with helpers going to Inge Hammarstrom and Scott Garland. It was now 8-3 for the Leafs. Less than a minute after the Ferguson goal, Ratelle scored at 14:35 of the second period. After forty minutes, the score was 8-4 for Toronto.
There was a point in that second period when Cherry looked down at the bench at Cheevers, but he threw a towel over his head, as if to say, “Do not even bother to ask tonight.”
At this point, Sittler had accumulated three goals and four assists for a total of seven points. As he sat in the dressing room during the intermission, statistician Stan Obodiac was running down to ice level from the press box.
When he got down to the room, he told the Leaf captain that he was a point away from tying the league record of eight points (five goals and three assists) set by Maurice Richard in a game against Detroit back in December of 1944. That was tied by another Montreal Canadien, Bert Olmstead, who notched eight points in a game against Chicago in January of 1954.
“So, then I knew. I mean, when you’re having a good game, you’re playing an Original Six team, it’s in the Gardens, the building’s excited, you’re ahead, that in itself is exciting. But then, starting the third period, I knew there was a shot at tying a record.”
So, Obodiac’s information motivated Sittler, and you never know how that will affect anything, but less than a minute into the period, the Leafs’ centre stuffed a pass from Salming past Reece from the edge of the crease to tie Richard and Olmstead. “That was maybe the prettiest goal. I came around the defenseman on my off-side. I had lots of speed, and it’s hard to defend when you’re backing up and the forward’s got a little bit more speed on you.”
“When you’re on your off-side, you can bring the puck to your forehand, which I did there, and I tucked it inside the post. Because of the speed and the way the goal ended up, I ended up behind the net, hitting the boards and kind of knowing again, at that point – that was the eighth, right? – that I tied the record. That one was extra special.”
Just before the halfway mark of the final period, Sittler took a pass from Errol Thompson and lofted a soft 40-foot wrist shot that got past a surprised Reece.
Seven minutes later, Sittler was behind the Bruins’ goal line to one side of the net. He took a pass from Lanny McDonald and looked for a route to pass it out in front. He saw an open man and sent the puck in that direction. It hit the skate of defenseman Brad Park and slowly skittered toward the Boston goal. The slow movement of the puck handcuffed Reece and it ended up going in off his skate. It was now 11-4. That was how the game would end.
For Obodiac, the stats geek, it was a big night, and he had some big news as well. Maurice “Lefty” Reid was the curator of the most wonderful place in hockey, its Hall of Fame.
Obodiac told anyone who would listen. “Lefty Reid just called. He wants Sittler’s stick for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Call just came in from Vancouver…Did I tell you it’s my birthday?”
Some thought was given, by some reporters, that, as the game was getting further along, maybe Red Kelly should have sat some of his big guns in favour of some of the third and fourth liners. Kelly could not have been farther away from that idea. “Hang, no! It isn’t often I get a chance to feel that comfortable. Anyway, I played for the Leafs the night the Bruins beat us 11-0 here in the Gardens. Remember?”
But one thing that had been on a bunch of minds was how Sittler would respond to questions about the remarks from Harold Ballard earlier in the week. “Undoubtedly, Mr. Ballard will figure his little blast inspired me to set the record, but it just isn’t that way,” Sittler told the assembled press. “Maybe now he won’t have to hunt quite so hard for that centre he wants.”
Sittler continued. “Look, I’d been in a little slump, not producing the way I want and working with different wingers all the time hadn’t helped. When you play with guys like Thompson and McDonald, they create openings for their centre because they skate and move the puck so well. If you give either of them a good pass, you have a chance for an assist.”
Milt Dunnell of the Toronto Star wrote a column which described the team’s reaction to Sittler’s night as pretty much unanimous. He wrote, “In the Leaf locker room, there was one reaction which tells the story of how the Leaf skipper rates with the foot soldiers. They all said, ‘It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy nor a more deserving player.’”
That sentiment was shared not just among the Toronto players. In Bloomington, Minnesota, the North Stars were playing the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres won 4-3. But Tom Reid was a defenseman for the home team. Reid had some thoughts about Sittler setting the new mark for the Star’s Frank Orr. “When they announced Sittler’s record at our game at home against Buffalo, it received a huge ovation.”
The North Stars travelled on the Sunday night to Toronto and lost to the Leafs 4-1. “The players on our team and, I think I’m safe in saying, most guys in the NHL, were happy that Sittler had such a great achievement,” Reid said. “He’s pure class, a player who gives it all he’s got, and a genuine, down-to-earth guy.”
One of Sittler’s teammates, who asked to remain anonymous, talked about how the team’s captain stood up for the players against some of the attacks of certain people in upper management. “Darryl’s not afraid to tell the big man to go to hell. Ballard’s slams hurt individual players, but, because of Sittler’s attitude and counselling, we’re able, as a team, to turn the blasts into a joke.”
Lanny McDonald was thrilled for his teammate and linemate. “Nobody can say Darryl picked on a weak team, which makes it all the greater. The guys on this team couldn’t be happier if they’d done it themselves. He’s such a great team man and he works so hard.”
Sittler spoke realistically and respectfully about his night and what his teammates meant to this entire accomplishment. “It was a night when every time I had the puck, something seemed to happen. In other games, you can work as hard and come up empty. That’s why hockey is so frustrating. Some games, the puck just goes into the net for you. Next game, it won’t do anything you want it to, no matter how hard you try.”
He continued. “Sure, I got some bounces, and I don’t think it was one of their goalie’s greatest nights. On one goal, I slapped the puck from just inside the Boston blue line and sort of flubbed the shot. But it went through his legs. My sixth goal was one of those ‘when you’re hot, you’re hot’ efforts. I was behind the net, tried a pass out towards Thompson and it went in off two skates.”
“Getting ten points in one game is really a team achievement, not an individual thing. I had plenty of help. Borje Salming played an incredible game and made two super plays for two of my goals. Thompson and McDonald played great too.”
Harold Ballard had to impose himself on the night as well. According to Frank Orr, Ballard said that what Sittler did on this night was “a greater thing than what Paul Henderson did in Moscow.” All Henderson did was score the winning goal in each of the final three games of that eight-game series between Team Canada and the Soviets back in 1972. His goals gave Canada victory in one of the most noted series in Canadian hockey history.
But Ballard said he was going to be doing something significant for Sittler. “We’ll certainly be rewarding him for it. We’ll give him a gift which can be an heirloom in his family to commemorate the biggest night any hockey player has ever had.”
Sittler talked about the interaction with the team’s owner after the game. “Mr. Ballard congratulated me very warmly and told me how great it was. He gave my wife a big kiss and seemed really happy that I’d done it.” Then, Sittler went out and did his skate-around as the game’s first star. When he came back into the room, he was holding two bottles of champagne that someone had taken out of the Gardens’ lounge.
His teammates quickly grabbed one of them and gave him a shower with it. As he sat there after the dousing, he thought about what he had just accomplished.
“Ten points in one bloody game. Isn’t that something?”
“The thing I’ll remember most about it is the ovation the fans gave me after the ninth point.
That’s something you don’t forget.”
Years later with The Hockey News, Sittler sat down with Matt Larkin and talked about the feeling after the game that night. “It was exciting. You’re in friggin’ fantasy land. Hockey Night in Canada had me on. In the dressing room, the players were all excited for me. The trainer, Joe Sgro, kept the sticks. I don’t know if I used one or two sticks. Unfortunately, his townhouse burned down, and those sticks were in it, so they’re no longer here.”
Just to mention how strange the game can be sometimes, a look at the final game sheet was somewhat surprising in at least one respect. For the Bruins, Brad Park was on for four more goals against than his own team had scored and was a minus-4. Gregg Sheppard was a minus-5. Wayne Cashman was a minus-6.
Sittler and McDonald were each a plus-7. Errol Thompson and Borje Salming were each a plus-6. Defenseman Ian Turnbull was a plus-5. But there were five players on the Leafs who ended up as a minus-3 in a game their team had won 11-4. Claire Alexander, Pat Boutette, Rod Seiling, Jack Valiquette and Dave ‘Tiger’ Williams were each on the ice for three more goals against than their team scored. How is that even possible?
Sittler still laughs about the fact that a bunch of his teammates were whooping and hollering after the game about the night that he had had and the record that he had accomplished. But there was at least one player who wasn’t in the best of humours. When someone asked Williams why he wasn’t happy, he said, “I was a minus-3!”
***
For Dave Reece, that record-setting night could have been the worst night of his life. It could have been the anchor that pulled him down for a long time. But it wasn’t. He was supposed to play in the Bruins’ game on the Sunday night against Detroit. But he did not. Gerry Cheevers made his first start in his reboot with the Bruins.
Before the game against the Red Wings, Don Cherry spoke to reporters about his goaltending situation. “I didn’t want to rush Cheevers along this fast, but after last night (the 11-4 loss to Toronto), we had no choice. We’ll see how Gilbert is Monday before we decide on Reece. We’re going on a road trip Tuesday, so we’ll decide before we leave.”
According to Hans Tanner of the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, Reece had been put on waivers on Friday and had gone unclaimed by noon on Saturday. He was still allowed to play against the Leafs on the Saturday night and three more games after that, if his team needed him, under the NHL’s waiver rule.
He never played another National Hockey League after that, though. He finished that season with the Springfield Indians. The following year, his last in professional hockey, he split between the Rochester Americans and the Rhode Island Reds. The native of Troy, N.Y. also played with the American team at the World Championships.
After that, his hockey career was finished.
He tried coaching at prep schools and universities after his playing days were done but they didn’t seem to work for him. “I was a great practice coach. But in the games, I’d be too caught up trying to play in them. And of course, why would the goalies want to listen to me?”
Besides coaching, Reece became a teacher and guidance counsellor at Trinity-Pawling School and Albany Academy. He would use his hockey experiences to help lift the students who came into his care. “I just tell them what happened to me that night. You make them laugh about their own failures. I’ve screwed up, I’ve been on the bottom. But you don’t pick up a towel and cry. You pick up a shovel and get back at it.”
***
Ballard came through on his promise to honour Sittler and he presented Darryl and Wendy with a silver platter and tea service. On the platter was an inscription with the record, the date and Ballard’s signature. The gift remains one of Sittler’s family heirlooms.
1976 was a great year for Toronto’s Number 27. On February 7, he had the ten-point night at Maple Leaf Gardens. On April 22, with his team down 3 games to 2 in the conference semifinal against the Philadelphia Flyers, he scored five goals in an 8-5 win to ensure a seventh game in the series. That five-goal night tied an NHL record that had also been set by Maurice Richard. The Flyers would take that seventh contest by a score of 7-3 and move on eventually to the Stanley Cup final where they lost to the Montreal Canadiens.
In September, the inaugural Canada Cup took place. In the final game of the tournament, Canada was playing then-Czechoslovakia. Regulation time ended with the score tied 4-4.
Sittler scored the winning goal in overtime. Going into the extra period, Don Cherry, one of the coaches on the team, told the players, “I’ve been watching this guy, (Vladimir) Dzurilla, for three games. He likes to come out real fast to cut down the angle on any rush. After you go in over the blueline, fake a slapper. If you see him come out of his net, draw it back in and go wide and deeper. He’ll leave you with most of the net empty.”
Sittler found himself in exactly that position in the overtime. He did exactly as Cherry said he should and scored the goal that won the 1976 Canada Cup for his country.
One thing that Sittler always remembered was the importance of maintaining your perspective and remembering to always give back. “I don’t take this thing for granted. I’ve always said first impressions are lasting and important. When I was a kid, I waited outside the Kitchener Auditorium, I was maybe seven, eight years old, hoping to get an autograph.”
“A number of players filed by me and didn’t stop. I was disappointed, and then two guys stopped: Bobby Hull and Andy Bathgate. I’ll always remember that moment and that feeling as a kid. Now, I make it to the National Hockey League, and there are opportunities every day when people come up. People respect you; they want to say hello, they want an autograph. I go back to that memory I had as a kid. So, I try to pass that on to our players today.”
Forty years after Sittler’s incredible night, the Leafs wanted to honour their former captain and they invited the former Bruins’ goalie as well, if he wanted to participate. “I talked about it with my wife, that it would have to be the right thing, honouring Darryl and not demeaning me” Reece told Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun.
“But guys who play this game are great about that. We’re social animals who can B.S. each other in the dressing room but shake it off. That’s why I’ve always said if you can pick the best guy to score ten points against you, it’s Darryl.”
We are now almost five decades down the road from that magical February night, and though numerous players have put up eight-point nights, none have really come close to eclipsing Sittler’s ten-point mark. “Every year that goes by, the magnitude of the ten points gets bigger and means more to me,” Sittler told Tim Wharnsby about his record for nhl.com.
“My father (Ken) passed away on February 4 (back in 1985) when I was playing in my final NHL season for Detroit. He meant so much to our family. So, we remember him, especially this time of year, and that has made the anniversary of the ten points more special.”
***
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