Armand (Bep) Guidolin; Speedy left-winger made history as youngest-ever player in the NHL
Hyfler/Rosner
Speedy left-winger made history as youngest-ever player in
the NHL
At 16, he and two other lads replaced the famed Kraut Line
on a war-ravaged Boston Bruins team, and were soon dubbed
the Sprout Line. Years later, he returned as coach
RON CSILLAG
Special to The Globe and Mail
December 11, 2008
He was too young to carry a rifle but old enough to wield a
hockey stick. Armand (Bep) Guidolin skated his way into the
history books as the youngest player ever in the National
Hockey League.
In an era when rules were a bit more relaxed, Mr. Guidolin
was all of 16 years and 11 months old when he made his NHL
debut for the Boston Bruins on the night of Nov. 12, 1942,
against the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Toronto won 3-1, at home.)
His record holds to this day and may stand forever - the
minimum age for NHL players was raised from 16 to 18 in
1965. "The watchdogs of the hockey establishment today would
snuff that out before it's even discussed," writer Brian
Costello observed on his Hockey News blog.
In the thick of the Second World War, the Bruins were in
dire need of players. Earlier in 1942, the team's famed
"Kraut Line" - Milt Schmidt, Bobby Bauer and Woody Dumart -
were lost to the war effort. Mr. Guidolin joined two other
wet-behind-the-ears forwards, 17-year-old Don Gallinger and
19-year-old Bill Shill. In no time, Boston fans christened
the baby-faced trio "the Kid Line," which became the "Sprout
Line."
"The reason is - and I still have pictures of the three of
us that would show you - we were all so young, none of us
older than 19," Mr. Guidolin recalled in a Boston Globe
interview in 2003. "Well, by midseason Shill was bigger ...
Gallinger was bigger ... and I was bigger. We'd all kind of
sprouted up - get it, the Sprout Line?How did Bep do on his
first outing?
"I hate to say this about myself," he said, recalling his
maiden NHL game, "but what the heck. I could skate - I mean,
I could really go, eh?"
On the other hand, this was the big time.
"I got out there, and boy, I thought I was still in junior
hockey, I was just flying. But [Leafs defenceman] Bingo
Kampman caught up to me - not a fast guy, either, Bingo -
and, boy, did he lay me out. Welcome to the NHL."
Recalled as a speedy left-winger with a crackling shot, Mr.
Guidolin went on to play nine seasons in the NHL, finishing
with 107 goals and 171 assists in 519 games with Boston,
Detroit and Chicago. After his playing days ended in 1961,
he began a long coaching career, including a stint behind
the bench of his beloved Bruins. He didn't talk about it
much, but few coaches could lay claim to having guided - for
two different teams - a brilliant young defenceman named
Bobby Orr.
"His whole life was hockey," said his son, Greg. "From the
time he was born, he was destined to be a hockey player. I
don't think too many guys in hockey knew as much about the
game as my dad."
Greg Guidolin recalled working as stick boy for his father,
who coached Mr. Orr and another future Boston Bruin, Wayne
Cashman, for the Oshawa Generals in the Ontario Hockey
League. "It was remarkable how he would change his lines to
outwit the other coaches. One coach said playing against him
was like playing chess."
Don Cherry, who succeeded Mr. Guidolin as the Bruins' coach,
recalled "a hockey man through and through. Hockey was his
whole life.
"I'll always remember how kind he was [despite] me taking
his job. That's the kind of guy he was. He said, 'Be your
own man. If you're gonna do it, do it your own way. Don't
let anybody sway you.' And I took his advice."
He was raised in Timmins, Ont., the last of six children
born to Italian immigrants, and learned to skate at the
relatively late age of 13. The nickname resulted from his
mother's torturing of the word "baby" into "beppy," and Bep
stuck. Good thing, too, because, as another story goes,
legendary play-by-play announcer Foster Hewitt couldn't wrap
his tongue around "Armand" and "Guidolin," so Bep came in
handy. (He later earned another nickname, "Buffalohead,"
thanks to long, wavy hair that flapped unencumbered by a
helmet.)
He was still a child when his father, who worked the gold
mines of Northern Ontario, was killed when a boulder fell on
his head.
Mr. Guidolin led the Oshawa Generals of the OHA junior
league to the 1942 Memorial Cup finals, where they lost to
the Portage la Prairie Terriers. Then came two glorious NHL
years with Boston, a highlight of which was scoring 42
points in 47 games in his second season. He also met his
future wife, Eleanor Meister. They were both 17; he was
playing for the NHL, she was touring with the Ice Capades.
The war eventually caught up with Mr. Guidolin, however. He
spent the 1944-45 season playing for three armed forces
teams: Newmarket Navy, the Toronto Army Shamrocks and the
Toronto Army Daggers. Then it was back to Boston for two
more seasons before a trade sent him to Detroit for centre
Billy Taylor. The next year, Mr. Taylor was suspended from
the NHL for gambling violations. Don Gallinger, Mr.
Guidolin's old Boston linemate, was also nabbed as an
accomplice.
Another trade shunted him to Chicago, where 1949-50 proved
to be his best year: 17 goals and 34 assists. It was as a
Blackhawk that he became an early supporter of a players'
union, which didn't go over well with the tight-fisted NHL
owners.
There are those who believe Mr. Guidolin was blackballed
from the league for his activism. After four years in
Chicago, he found himself out of the NHL, riding the
minor-league buses for the next nine years with eight
different teams, including the old Ottawa Senators of the
Quebec Hockey League. He reinvented himself as a
player-coach in 1958, winning an Allan Cup national
championship with the Belleville McFarlands.
He knocked around the minors for a few more years before
resurfacing as coach of the Windsor Spitfires. Mr. Cherry
recalls coaching against him for the Rochester Americans
when Mr. Guidolin piloted the Boston Braves in the American
Hockey League.
"When he wanted the lines changed, he whistled. He had a
really shrill whistle. The players knew when their time was
up. I tried, and couldn't do it."
In the 1965-66 season, Mr. Guidolin found himself coaching
his old team, the Oshawa Generals, and a 17-year-old Bobby
Orr, whose brilliance he recognized right away. Mr. Guidolin
took the squad to the Memorial Cup finals but lost to the
Edmonton Oil Kings.
But it was the coaching job in Boston he'd always yearned
for. "The first time I ever stepped onto the ice for the
Boston Bruins, I knew that some day I wanted to be their
coach," Mr. Guidolin said in a 1973 interview. "This feeling
never left me, even after I was traded to Detroit and
Chicago. Maybe it was only a kid's wild dream, but it
stuck."
While coaching the Boston Braves in 1973, he got a surprise
call from Bruins general manager Harry Sinden, who asked him
to take over the defending Stanley Cup champions, who were
struggling under Tom Johnson. He used his first cheque to
pay off his mother's mortgage. He also reunited with Mr. Orr
and coached the league's leading scorer, Phil Esposito, but
lasted just 104 games.
"Coaching Boston was his dream," his son Greg recalled. "And
his biggest regret was leaving. He wanted a longer-term
contract."
Instead, Mr. Sinden tried to convince him to stay two years
at a time.
"I loved Boston, loved every minute of it," Mr. Guidolin
said in 2003. "Only regret in my life is that I ever left
there. And for the rest of my life, I'll thank Harry Sinden
for giving me the chance to coach that team."
With three 100-point scorers (Mr. Esposito, Mr. Orr and Ken
Hodge), he took the Bruins to the Stanley Cup finals in
1974, but lost 1-0 in Game 6 to the Philadelphia Flyers.
"Hell, I blame myself for that," he rued. "I could see it
was going to be 1-0, and I was playing everybody. I should
have left Esposito out there for the whole second period,
and just kept changing his wingers. He'd have been okay. He
could have done it. But I didn't. I still blame myself. We
should have won that Cup."
Mr. Guidolin went on to coach the woeful Kansas City Scouts,
an NHL expansion club, from 1974-76, but tangled with the
general manager, his former Detroit teammate Sid Abel. Mr.
Guidolin quit when his boss wouldn't let him send a veteran
player to the minors.
He surfaced in 1976 as coach and general manager of the
World Hockey Association's Edmonton Oilers, and once got
into a fistfight with Bobby Kromm, coach of the Winnipeg
Jets. Oilers fans cheered every second, and a roar went up
when Mr. Guidolin landed a haymaker before the two were
pried apart. He lasted a year, and "thrust" the coaching job
on Glen Sather, reported the Edmonton Journal. "He told me I
could either sit in the stands or become coach," recalled
Mr. Sather, who'd played for the team until then and went on
to be the most successful coach in Oilers history.
Mr. Guidolin called it a career in 1982 after being replaced
mid-season as coach of the Brantford Alexanders of the OHL.
He never tired of watching the game, and "was just
fascinated with the speed of the game today and at the skill
level of some of the players and how they can make their
moves at such high speed," his son said.
As for anyone challenging his milestone, Mr. Guidolin said,
"Honestly, I don't see a kid that young ever doing it
again."
BEP GUIDOLIN
Armand (Bep) Guidolin was born in Thorold, Ont., on Dec. 9,
1925 and died in Barrie, Ont. on Nov. 24, 2008, of a stroke.
He was 82. He leaves Eleanor, his wife of 62 years; children
Greg, Barbara, Debbie and Cyndee; seven grandchildren; and
three great-grandchildren.