The Goal of My Life by Paul Henderson Read Free Book Online

looked at me and asked me if I knew what day it was.
    “I could care less what day it is,” I replied (or at least that’s what I was told I said – I can’t really remember). “Just tell me, am I still alive?”
    It must have taken me four days to get over that hit. I felt it with every fibre of my body. He just caught me with my head down and hit me the way only Leo Boivin could in his prime.
    But you know, I learned a lesson from that hit. I never wound up getting hit that hard again because I learned tokeep my head up and be cognizant of who was on the ice at all times. I learned a valuable lesson and applied it – and I also realized that I had better not underestimate an older player ever again, especially a hard hitter like Boivin. Hockey players get hit – it’s just a part of the game, and I took a lot of them over the years – but that Boivin hit just about killed me!
    It was a good clean hit, though – players back then had respect for each other.
    Another thing about Boston: I had the opportunity to play in a lot of great arenas that held a lot of great memories. But some of those great old arenas didn’t exactly have the best amenities. The worst place to play for an opposing player? That’s an easy question to answer: Boston Garden.
    That place was just a joke. You’d walk into the dressing room and there’d be a wooden bench that had to have been an original piece of furniture from when they had opened the place. There was a nail hammered into the wall – that was where you were supposed to hang your clothes.
    The floor was solid cement, rock hard. And it wasn’t a very clean floor either, for that matter. The conditions really were atrocious. Then you’d get out to the ice and to the players’ benches and you’d see more benches that must have been there since the place had opened. There would be jackknife marks in the benches too, with “So and so was here” carved right into them! It was unbelievable.
    Chicago wasn’t much better, and the old Stadium had those stairs you had to climb up and down, as if you were going into a dungeon. Yes, those old buildings had lots of charm and were great for the fans and atmosphere, but they were hardly great places for visiting teams to play in. WhenI see some of the beautiful new arenas in the NHL these days and their luxurious dressing rooms, I wonder what today’s players would think about the dressing room the visitors “enjoyed” in the old Boston Garden.
    I was used primarily as a penalty killer in that first season, getting the odd shift here and there. I had three goals and three assists in thirty-two games and got to appear in fourteen playoff games, adding another two goals and three assists.
    After a fourth-place finish in the regular season, we advanced to the playoffs and stunned Chicago in seven games to go on to the Stanley Cup finals against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was a great thing to happen to me in my first NHL season. I was excited as I had great bonuses in my contract for making the playoffs and for winning each series, so it was great on a couple of fronts.
    We led that final series 3–2, with game six at the Detroit Olympia, with us having a chance to close it out at home. We trailed 1–0 before I scored on a breakaway against Johnny Bower early in the second period to tie it 1–1, by far the biggest goal in my brief NHL career.
    Bobby Baun would eventually score the game-winning goal in overtime – one of hockey’s great goals since he scored it playing on a broken leg – to tie the series. Toronto then blanked us 4–0 at Maple Leaf Gardens to win the Cup, leaving me in tears. We were just one win away from being able to win a Cup in my rookie year, and we had two chances to get that win!
    We had great players on that team, including the great Terry Sawchuk. He was the best goalie of his era, in my mind, and boy was he tough to beat in big games. Bill Gadsby wasalso terrific, standing up at the blue line and