Iron Mike

Chapter 1. I Really Am a Bastard: Family and Hockey
 
I really am a bastard. There, I said it. Over my six decades as a coach and general manager, in a variety of leagues, from high school to junior to the pros, in several countries and continents, players have referred to me in many different languages, using many different terms, most of them not terribly flattering. And, no doubt, I deserved most of them. But it was my good friend, Jay Greenberg, who summed it up best.
 
Jay, for those not familiar, was the hockey beat writer for the Daily News in Philadelphia when I got my first job as a head coach in the National Hockey League, with the Flyers in 1984. He was a great guy and great writer, with a quick wit, and he was honoured by the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013. Jay was originally going to write this book with me, but he passed away at the age of 71 on August 12, 2021, of complications from, of all things, West Nile virus. So very tragic and sad.
 
Jay once said to me that of all those names the players had muttered and sometimes screamed, “One is correct by dictionary definition.”
 
Jay was right. I was born out of wedlock on October 21, 1949. Yes, I was a bastard. Still am. Of course, for many of those play­ers, I was also a bastard of a coach. But more about that later.
 
I was born in Bowmanville, Ontario, to Thelma Chatterton, who was 19 at the time and previously married, and Ted Keenan. Bowmanville is about a one-hour drive east of Toronto. And it was a stone’s throw from Oshawa, where my parents had lived until the pregnancy, which was not a proud moment for a very Catholic family! Anyway, after I came along they moved back to Oshawa, and over time along came my sister Marie, two years younger, then brother Patrick and sister Catherine. All my sib­lings came after Thelma and Ted got married.
 
Dad, like so many in Oshawa and like most of his family, including two uncles and my grandfather George, worked at the General Motors plant. Once Catherine started school, my mom worked in the men’s department at Eaton’s, a famous department store that is no longer around. Because our family didn’t have a lot of money, it helped that Mom was able to get us clothes at a discount.
 
Sadly, when I was four, Patrick passed away. He was born prematurely, and at just two months old he died from complica­tions from pneumonia. I was too young to really comprehend the tragedy, but I do remember when the police officer came to our home to tell my parents about Patrick’s death (he was in hospital and we didn’t have a phone). My mom was, understandably, crushed and hysterical. My dad, too. I remember at the funeral kneeling beside my father in front of Patrick’s casket. Even at that young age, it’s something you don’t forget. I’m sure that tragedy somehow pulled my sisters and me together. We got along well growing up and still do.
 
The year Patrick passed, my dad took me skating for the first time, outside of course. I fell in love with hockey at that early age, playing day after winter day on a frozen patch of Lake Ontario, which was only a few miles from our apartment. Because our family had limited means (we ate a lot of hot dogs or ketchup sandwiches for lunch), my grandmother, Helen Chatterton, bought me my first pair of skates. For a long time, we didn’t have a television, so I would watch Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights at her home. She was a special woman, very street-smart, a huge influence on me growing up. My grandfather had solid carpentry skills, and the two of them turned a con­demned three-storey building near downtown Whitby into apartments, which eventually housed all their children. My grandmother was also responsible for getting the grandkids involved in sports. Sadly, when I was in grade eight, Grandma was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It was agonizing to watch her decline, and I did my best to help my mom look after her. Grandma died at age 54, far too young, but she had a profound impact on me. My other grandmother, May, passed at the age of 69, far too young.
 
Because money was tight, you took good care of your hockey gear and your sticks. I was allowed two sticks a year. So, if one broke or cracked, it was nailed or taped back together. Play on. I was a good skater from a young age and played both defence and forward. My first season in organized hockey in Oshawa, at the age of seven and playing against kids two years older than me, I was named the most valuable player. I once scored 16 goals on 16 shifts, if I remember correctly, and the coach benched me, saying I had embarrassed everyone. I had a confident personality.
 
Someone who had a big influence on me as a young player and person was my coach and mentor Doug Williams. He had played for the Whitby Dunlops senior men’s team and was a high-school principal. Many times he talked with me about lead­ing the other kids because they looked up to me. His influence helped to build my confidence even more. Two of my father’s cousins, Tom and Ted O’Connor, helped teach me the game as well. Tom was a winger, Ted a defenceman with the Dunlops when they won the world championship in 1958. Harry Sinden, who went on to become a legendary coach and general manager and would one day hire me in Boston, was a teammate of theirs. In Oshawa and Whitby in those days, mentors were plentiful, and happy to help a talented young player. This included my uncle Bob, who coached me.
 
Both my parents had finished school after grade nine. Despite their lack of formal education, my parents were smart. And per­haps because my mom didn’t get far in school herself, she was determined that I would, and she made it clear that if my marks suffered the hockey (and other sports) would stop. This hap­pened once and caused another fight between my parents, who probably married too young (but you know why!) and argued a lot. Anyway, I respected what she was trying to do, got my nose back into the books, and I was playing again a month later.
 
And I was doing well. At various times, I was playing baseball (catcher), box lacrosse (centre), basketball (point guard) and hockey. When I was in grade nine at Archbishop Denis O’Connor Catholic High School, I was voted athlete of the year. But I always made sure my marks were just good enough that I could keep playing. On top of all that, I was working both part-time and summer jobs. At age 14, I was cutting grass and even hired kids to work for me. Because my dad and others in his family worked for General Motors, I was able to get a summer job in the plant. I also worked one summer in the Coca-Cola plant, and the next year on a delivery truck. When I was in grades nine and ten, I worked for the printer of the local newspaper and had a delivery route for the Globe and Mail.
 
As for hockey, at 15 I was playing for my high-school team, but also for the junior B Whitby Lasco Steelers. I was still split­ting time between forward and defence, and playing well against kids two or three years older than I was. That lasted two seasons before I was cut by the team, which was a very painful learning experience, the first time I had really failed as a hockey player. It was humbling. But I managed to earn a spot with their rivals, the Oshawa Crushmen.
 
Back when I was 13, the Boston Bruins had signed me to what they called a C-form. Before the NHL introduced the amateur draft, teams could sign players at a young age and essentially own their rights. The Bruins’ junior A team was the Oshawa Generals—the same team the great Bobby Orr played for—and it was coached by future Bruins coach Bep Guidolin (and a few seasons previously by Doug Williams). During my grade 12 year, the Generals called me up from my junior B team for a few games. The plan, or hope, was to play for the Generals during the 1967–68 season and hopefully get a scholarship to an NCAA school.
 
That was the path my mom wanted me to take. To clarify, back in the day, playing a few games with a junior A team, even though the players were paid a few bucks, didn’t prevent me from playing in college. And back then, high school went to grade 13.
 
Anyway, the best laid plans . . .
 
One of my Whitby junior teammates, Kevin O’Shea, earned a scholarship to St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. I knew about the school through a girl I had dated, who was the stepsister of Brian McFarlane, an All-American at St. Lawrence who would one day become an announcer with Hockey Night in Canada. Although Kevin had accepted the scholarship, he and another player, Jimmy Adair, were invited to join the 1968 Canadian Olympic team, meaning two scholarships at St. Lawrence were available. I applied and took the SATs and the school sent out a scout named Buck Moore to watch me in the junior B playoffs. My coach, Bob Dionne, played me heavy minutes. Moore was impressed, and I got the offer.
 
Talk about mixed emotions. It was a feather in my cap to be offered a scholarship by a really good hockey school, a prestigious school, but my dad and I were both keen on me playing for the Generals. Back then, junior hockey was the best path to the NHL, not college hockey. But, despite another argument between my parents, Mom ruled the day. All along she was determined that her kids get an education.
 
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, of course, but part of me was smart enough, mature enough, I suppose, to realize that the road to the NHL was long and without any guarantees, so school was prob­ably the better way to go. And believe it or not, I had it in my head that if I wasn’t going to be a hockey player, I wanted to be a doctor!