Saturday morning’s news hit especially hard.
Dryden the goalie, a six time Stanley Cup champion.
Dryden the writer and filmmaker, penned “The Game” considered by many, present company included, as sport’s finest memoir.
Dryden, the Canadian, the Citizen, a public servant who proudly served his country in many official and unofficial capacities.
Oh, and he was a member of the Summit Series champions following his Calder Trophy season of 71-72 and was between the pipes in Moscow when Paul Henderson scored the winning goal.
He was at, or near the top of the list of Boston’s all-time most respected opponents along with Joe DiMaggio, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, and the Manning brothers.
My brother Robert , McGill ’72 and I saw him play his first or second game in March of ’71 at The Forum on the same day we saw him gamboling across the
McGill quad clad in a full length fur coat wearing eyeglasses that may have contained the largest sheet of moving glass not requiring an inspection
sticker in the Province of Quebec.
Somewhere, Swifty Lazar was jealous.
As standing room attendees ($2. Canadian!!) we got to the Forum just as the doors burst open, and soon saw a very lonely law school student skate out for his pre game warmups.
Not only did Dryden beat the Flyers that night but over the next six weeks he helped upset the heavily favored Bruins while leading Montreal to their 16th Stanley Cup.
His book “The Game” is, to my thinking, the best memoir written by an athlete. I re-read it every five years.
I even learned some French-Canadien swear words.
Tabernac!!!!
It, Bill Russell’s “Second Wind”, Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four”, Jim Brosnan’s “The Long Season, and Bill Bradley’s “Life on the Run” are all a notch above other sporting memoirs.
For six weeks in 1971 he rose from third string to becoming a legend.
Years later, when he was named President of the Maple Leafs I’ll admit that I laughed out loud.
The Leafs?
Sacre Bleu.
He loved Boston and was a 1964 Bruins draftee (14th overall), a fact he’d forgotten until being reminded years later. Having played many ECAC tournament games for Cornell at Boston Garden
(back when the Big Red was the Canadian B team with slide rules) he considered the old Garden his home away from home.
His last visit to Boston came on December first of last year when he participated in a ceremonial face off with Johnny Bucyk marking the Bruins centennial game against the Habs.
You tube him and you’ll find him discussing everything from the genius of Scotty Bowman to the nuances of the educational system of Canada. He has no American equivalent, though
fellow Ivy Leaguer Bill Bradley and Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White come close.
Dryden could and should have been Prime Minister.
A state funeral is in order.
As a friend and fellow boomer observed this weekend the tall timber of our youth are now falling with a jarring regularity.
(NOTE/Dryden played varsity basketball for his suburban Toronto high school while also playing Junior B hockey prior to matriculating at Cornell.
Who knew? A polymath in everything. His son Mike played baseball at Harvard)
