Gilles Bilodeau; 'Bad News' was a feared enforcer at the height of on-ice goonery
Hyfler/Rosner
'Bad News' was a feared enforcer at the height of on-ice
goonery
In the minors, he racked up 451 penalty minutes in 58 games,
assaulted a pair of rink-side policemen and broke a goalie's
neck. He joined the WHA as a thug, winding up in the NHL as
a Quebec Nordique
TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
November 25, 2008
A tough and fearless hockey player, Gilles Bilodeau created
mayhem whenever he stepped onto the ice. He punched like a
heavyweight and wielded a hockey stick like a woodman's axe,
tripping faster rivals and clubbing tough opponents but
seldom putting the puck in the net.
An extensive rap sheet included a ridiculous number of
fights and misconducts. To suit up against Mr. Bilodeau
demanded a gut check. Early in his career in his native
Quebec, he earned such nicknames as Tarzan and Zombie. When
the Toronto Toros of the World Hockey Association promoted
him from the minors, the team unveiled him as Bad News
Bilodeau, a fitting nickname for a hockey enforcer.
In hockey's lexicon, a goon can also be known as a
policeman, for it is his responsibility to protect smaller,
more skilled players by enforcing the sport's code of a
slash for a slash, an elbow for an elbow.
As is so often the case, Mr. Bilodeau was a kind and
law-abiding presence as long as he was not wearing a hockey
sweater.
The third of nine siblings, he was the son of dairy farmers
at St-Prime, Que. Even in winter, his mother locked the door
to the farmhouse, forcing her rambunctious sons to either
play in the barn or skate on the frozen ponds of their
Saguenay farm.
As a young man, the 6-foot-1, 220-pound left-winger played
major junior hockey for the Sorel Eperviers, a team whose
fans, many of whom laboured in the shipbuilding industry,
preferred a robust style of play. Mr. Bilodeau's muscular
presence was reflected in frequent appearances on the
scoresheet, more often than not for time served in the
penalty box.
In 1975, the Toros selected him No. 122 overall in the
amateur league draft. He made his pro debut with the
minor-league Beauce Jaros at Saint-Georges, Que. His name
soon became synonymous with fighting in the North American
Hockey League, a circuit known for bench-clearing brawls and
mayhem both on and off the ice.
Mr. Bilodeau led the league in penalty minutes, accumulating
a stunning 451 minutes in just 58 games. He spent the
equivalent of more than seven full games contemplating his
transgressions in the penalty box. The eight goals and 17
assists he recorded, the highest season totals of his
career, seemed like an afterthought.
He had been with the Jaros for a little more than a month
when he became embroiled in a fight that would land him in
court. Prevented from playing by yet another suspension, he
was sitting in the stands at War Memorial Arena at Syracuse,
N.Y., when Wally Weir, another suspended teammate, rushed
from his seat to shout outraged obscenities. When a police
officer intervened, the two scuffled. An off-duty officer
came to aid his fellow officer, and Mr. Bilodeau and another
teammate joined in the melee.
The fight in the stands attracted the attention of the
Jaros, who rushed across the rink to join in. The fight
ended only after Mr. Bilodeau and others were subdued with
mace. Two policemen were treated at hospital with head
injuries caused by blows from hockey sticks.
Police charged Mr. Bilodeau with second-degree assault, as
well as misdemeanour charges of disorderly conduct and
resisting arrest. He was one of seven Jaros charged.
Unrepentant, he later broke the neck of Syracuse's goalie
with a cross-check from behind, ending the netminder's
season and the Blazers' playoff hopes. It was said to Mr.
Bilodeau's worst offence since biting a chunk of ear from a
Mohawk Valley player during a fight. Outraged sports
columnists urged that he be suspended for life. Instead, he
was promoted.
The success of the Philadelphia Flyers, an NHL team
nicknamed the Broad Street Bullies, had created a boom in
roughhouse hockey and the Toronto Toros, struggling on the
ice and at the gate, decided to acquire him. His antics
might not win games, but they would at least attract a
certain clientele for a team without much of a following.
"We know he's not the complete hockey player," coach Gilles
Leger said.
Writers on the hockey beat agreed. "Bilodeau was built like
a giant redwood and skated like one," Al Strachan wrote in
The Globe and Mail.
In 14 games of spot duty, Mr. Bilodeau recorded a single
assist. He got 38 minutes in penalties, rather tame
behaviour compared to his minor-league mayhem.
The Toros franchise then shifted to the Deep South for the
1976-77 season. Home games of the Birmingham (Ala.) Bulls
began with the playing of Dixie. Early in each game, fans
more accustomed to seeing ice in their tea than on the floor
of an arena began to chant: "We want goons! We want goons!"
Referees assessed Mr. Bilodeau 133 penalty minutes in just
34 games, an impressive array of wrongdoing until compared
to his minor-league mark with the Charlotte Checkers that
season. He managed to be charged with 242 penalty minutes in
just 28 games.
He was back wearing Birmingham's blue sweater (featuring a
snorting bull) when he started a game against the Cincinnati
Stingers on the evening of the American Thanksgiving holiday
in 1977. The Bulls carried a grudge into the game, which
Cincinnati's coach somehow failed to realized. He sent his
five most skilled - and smallest - players onto the ice to
start the game.
The Bulls lined up three brutes -- a forward line of Mr.
Bilodeau, Steve (Demolition Durby) Durbano, and Frank
(Seldom) Beaton, whose nickname hinted at his success as a
pugilist. The clock ticked just 24 seconds before gloves
were dropped. Mr. Durbano decked a Stinger, a signal for his
teammates to jump in. Mr. Bilodeau squared off against Jamie
Hislop, a hockey Gandhi whose penalty total for the entire
season (17 minutes) were matched by his tormentor in a
single shift. Later in the game, Mr. Bilodeau cut another
Stinger with a high stick.
The Thanksgiving Massacre marked the nadir of ruffian
hockey - or the apex, depending on one's preference. In a
game at Winnipeg that month, Mr. Bilodeau earned a $1,000
fine and a three-game suspension for leaving the penalty box
to engage in several fights.
Despite such shenanigans, Mr. Bilodeau was only the
third-most penalized Bull that season, his 258 minutes
overshadowed by Mr. Beaton's 279 and Mr. Durbano's 284. Dave
(Killer) Hanson completed the club's rogue gallery with 241
minutes.
The Quebec Nordiques signed him as a free agent in 1978. In
a game against the Edmonton Oilers, he made the mistake of
picking on a slight centreman. The bullying caught the
attention of the Oilers' Garnet (Ace) Bailey.
"One night during my rookie year, we were in Quebec City,
and this huge guy, Gilles Bilodeau, kept running me,
knocking me around," Wayne Gretzky told Sports Illustrated
magazine seven years ago. "I weighed around 146 pounds, and
Bilodeau must have been 220. Ace didn't get a lot of ice
time that night - in those days you didn't use fourth-line
players much - and he was getting angrier and angrier at
Bilodeau. Finally, Ace told me, 'Next time you have the
puck, get that guy to chase you and skate in front of our
bench.'
"So I did that, and a second after I went by, I heard the
whistle blow and I looked back. Bilodeau was flat on the
ice, and Ace and the other guys were all looking into the
stands as if someone had thrown something at Bilodeau and
they were trying to figure out what had happened. Ace had
clocked him with his stick when he skated past."
The following season, the Oilers and the Nordiques were
among the WHA teams absorbed into the NHL. As unlikely as it
seemed, Mr. Bilodeau had reached the pinnacle of pro hockey.
He skated in nine NHL games, gaining a single assist and
recording just 25 penalty minutes.
Mr. Bilodeau settled in Birmingham after retiring as a
player. He had married a secretary whom he had met at a bar
across the street from the hockey arena called,
appropriately enough, The Place Across the Street from the
Civic Center. They played the Bobby Orr PowerPlay pinball
machine.
Mr. Bilodeau worked for former teammate and fellow Quebecker
Jean-Guy Lagace as a painter and deck builder before
becoming a self-employed contractor.
He watched Slap Shot, the 1977 Paul Newman movie that
featured such real-life hockey brawlers as Mr. Hanson, every
chance he got. He would have been forgiven for mistaking the
comedy for a documentary.
Away from the ice, he was a lawful, pleasant, even kind man.
In 1999, he was enjoying a day with his family at Panama
City Beach, Fla., when a sudden thunderstorm surprised
beach-goers. A man from Georgia and his teenaged daughter
were felled by a lightning strike. Mr. Bilodeau performed
CPR until an ambulance arrived. The girl suffered minor
injuries, but her father was declared dead on arrival at
hospital. Mr. Bilodeau's wife said Bad News thought often of
the unfortunate man and his family.
GILLES BILODEAU
Gilles Bilodeau was born July 31, 1955, at St-Prime, Que. He
died of undiagnosed pancreatic cancer on Aug. 12, 2008, at
his home at Birmingham, Ala. He was 53. He leaves Debbie
(Powell), his wife of 28 years, two sons, two grandsons,
five brothers and three sisters.
Hyfler/Rosner
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:gggv7e$f8j$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> GILLES BILODEAU, 53: ATHLETE AND CONTRACTOR
>
> 'Bad News' was a feared enforcer at the height of on-ice
> goonery
> In the minors, he racked up 451 penalty minutes in 58
> games, assaulted a pair of rink-side policemen and broke a
> goalie's neck. He joined the WHA as a thug, winding up in
> the NHL as a Quebec Nordique
>
Here's a good example of his "on-ice goonery"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHRjhn0fCUo
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Hyfler/Rosner <rel...@rcn.com> wrote:
> Here's a good example of his "on-ice goonery"
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHRjhn0fCUo
Old-time hockey!
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
islanders
Hyfler/Rosner
"islanders" <islan...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:9a64dc44-d063-44d9...@h5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
> This guy died in August, those Brit papers don't waste any
> time.
>
Canadian. Not surprised you can't tell the difference,
though.
Hyfler/Rosner
>
>
> TOM HAWTHORN
>
> Special to The Globe and Mail
>
> November 25, 2008
>
>
>
> A tough and fearless hockey player, Gilles Bilodeau
> created mayhem whenever he stepped onto the ice. He
> punched like a heavyweight and wielded a hockey stick like
> a woodman's axe, tripping faster rivals and clubbing tough
> opponents but seldom putting the puck in the net.
Loved this opening. Wonder if he would have loved it, too.
>
> The third of nine siblings, he was the son of dairy
> farmers at St-Prime, Que. Even in winter, his mother
> locked the door to the farmhouse, forcing her rambunctious
> sons to either play in the barn or skate on the frozen
> ponds of their Saguenay farm.
Another great visual.
islanders
> Canadian. �Not surprised you can't tell the difference,
> though.
Same shit different smell
Bill Schenley
>
> > Special to The Globe and Mail
>
All the way through. Man, this was *great* obituary ...
Brigid Nelson
have read more of this one.
Speaking of old-school, ultra-violent hockey, why do the Mariners and
the Yankees hate each other *so* much?
brigid
Bill Schenley
> Yankees hate each other *so* much?
As if denying Yankee legend Don Mattingly his only shot at playing in the
world series wasn't enough ...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/bremertonian/baseball/onlmzo28aug96.jpg
