When a lot of hockey people didn’t think Val James had the wherewithal to be a professional player, John Brophy did.
John Brophy (Photo/ Robert Shaver/Hockey Hall of Fame)
Brophy knew James had a hockey hunger because he saw it up close when Brophy was a fiery player for the Long Island Ducks and James was a youngster whose dad worked maintenance for the Long Island Arena, the barn where old Eastern Hockey Leagueteam played in the 1970s.
James’ dad had the keys to the arena, so young Val could skate whenever he liked. Brophy would watch James and his friends play in a local league at the arena and give them a little coaching.
“He thought I had the right stuff,” James told me recently. “I was just starting out so I wasn’t that much of a skater, or even a hockey player, for that matter. But he stuck with me and taught me a lot of things that did lead, eventually, to me going out and getting to where I got in hockey.”
John Duncan Brophy, a colorful career minor-league player who went on to become North America’s second winningest professional hockey coach, passed away earlier this week at the age of 83 following a lengthy illness.
Brophy is hockey history. His 1,027 wins is second only to Hockey Hall of Fame Coach Scotty Bowman’s 1,224 victories. He accumulated a record 3,822 penalty minutes in an EHL playing career that spanned from 1955 to 1973.
He’s the only ECHL coach to lead a team, the Hampton Road Admirals, to three championships.
The two-fisted Brophy was dubbed as the “Godfather of Goonery” and was thought to be Paul Newman’s inspiration for the goon-it-up player/coach Reggie Dunlop in the seminal hockey movie “Slap Shot.”
But Brophy is also black hockey history. He helped steer the careers of James, a tough-guy forward who became the National Hockey League’s first U.S.-born black player, and Bill Riley, who was the NHL’s third black player behind Willie O’Reeand Mike Marson.
Forward Val James, who became the NHL’s first U.S.-born black player when he joined the Buffalo Sabres in 1981-82, said John Brophy treated him like a son.
“Broph, he didn’t see color,” James said. “As a matter of fact, he and my dad were friends. To see them talk to each other, you’d swear they were enemies, but they were actually really good friends. Broph was always swearing – he couldn’t talk without swearing. My dad would be swearing back. You’d look at them and you’d say, ‘man, these guys are about to go’ and then they’d be laughing it up.”
Val James and Brophy also struck up a friendship rooted in mutual respect. When he coached in the American Hockey League, Brophy didn’t hesitate in sending out his enforcer to battle James, who was regarded as one of hockey’s most-feared fighters.
He also thought highly enough of James to add him to his St. Catharines Saints AHL squad in 1985-86. James rewarded Brophy’s faith with 3 assists and 162 penalty minutes in 80 games.
When Brophy coached the Toronto Maple Leafs for 2 1/2 seasons, he called James up from the minors for four games in 1986-87 to add toughness to the team. He responded with 14 penalty minutes in those games.
“He said to me ‘All the years you played with me, for me, against me, I had nothing but the best in mind for you and, you know what, you performed better than I ever expected,'” James told me. “‘I just wanted to let you know that you are one of my boys.’ I was very emotionally overtaken by that. He treated me like a son.”
Many players viewed Brophy as a tyrant – a white-haired, red-face temperamental task-master with a fondness for bag skates and yelling until he was hoarse.
But James saw Brophy’s rough ways as tough love from one of hockey’s best teachers. Still, he was an acquired taste: Think Bobby Knight in basketball or Billy Martinin baseball.
“He made sure I did things right,” James said. “If I didn’t get things right, he’d explain it to me, maybe not the way a regular person would – he’d be screaming a lot – but that’s ‘Broph.'”
Bill Riley, the NHL’s third black player, had his pro career extended when John Brophy got him a contract to play for Nova Scotia in the AHL.
Riley, who was a forward for the Washington Capitals in the 1970s, skated for Brophy’s Voyageurs toward the end of his playing career in 1983-84. Brophy made Riley team captain and the player responded with 24 goals and 24 assists in 78 AHL games.
“Not only did he give me a contract, he paid me $5,000 more than what I was making in Moncton and he didn’t have to do that,” Riley said at a 2013 event in Amherst, Nova Scotia honoring his hockey accomplishments. “He really, really took care of me.”
Riley went into coaching and found himself going up against Brophy in a crucial minor league contest.
“We needed one point to clinch first place overall, and John didn’t give us anything. He played us hard, right to the wire,” Riley recalled. “I think the game ended up 3-3. When I got the point and the game was over, John looked over at me and saluted me. I considered that one of the greatest honors in hockey.”
When last we checked in with Damon Kwame Mason and Everett Fitzhugh they were busy chasing separate hockey dreams. Mason was attempting to make a documentary chronicling the history and growth of blacks in hockey and Fitzhugh was trying to land a gig as a professional hockey play-by-play announcer.
These days, Fitzhugh is proudly calling goals and hockey’s rough-and-tumble action at home and road games for the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL, his latest stop on a journey that he hopes will lead to a National Hockey League broadcasting career.
And after nearly four years, spending about $200,000 of mostly his own money, and shooting more than 50 hours of footage, Mason can finally call himself a filmmaker – and a pretty good one. His “Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future” won a People’s Choice Award at the Edmonton International Film Festivalearlier this month.
“I knew I was going to finish. Did I know when? No.” Mason told me recently. “There were times I was frustrated – the lack of money, sometimes the lack of support – but I knew, eventually, I’d get it done only because I started out on that mission and I don’t like giving up.”
Damon Kwame Mason (right) interviews Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Trevor Daley for black hockey history documentary.
Making the doc was business and personal for Mason, who hopes the movie will help him make the transition from working in radio to a career in film. As a Canadian, he felt a duty to tell the stories of black players from back in the day and today who sometimes faced racial cruelty and even death threats just for trying to pursue their passion.
“Especially the guys in the 70s and the 80s who were the only ones in the dressing room or the ones that would go to an arena and everyone is yelling ‘nigger’ or ‘spook’ at them,” said Mason, a Toronto native. “They had a choice: Do you want to give up or do you want to continue to do something that you love. And that’s what they did, they continued doing something that they loved. And that’s what I did in making this film.”
The film features chilling footage of a CBS News profile of Val James, the NHL’s first U.S.-born black player, enduring chants of “Spook! Spook! Spook!” as he’s playing a minor league game south of the Mason-Dixon line in Salem, Va., in 1981. One proud “fan” carried a watermelon to the game in James’ honor.
Mason covers the waterfront of black hockey history in his documentary, from the all-black league that played in the Canadian Maritimes from the 1890s to the 1920s, to the great Herb Carnegie’s heartbreak from being unable reach the NHL because of his race, to Willie O’Ree finally cracking that color barrier, to the Subban family having three boys drafted by NHL teams.
He crisscrossed North America to interview a bevy of current and former NHL players of color and their families including James, who played for the Buffalo Sabres, O’Ree, who broke into the NHL with the Boston Bruins in 1958, Mike Marson, who became the league’s second black player when he joined the Washington Capitals in 1974-75, and Grant Fuhr, the all-world goaltender who won five Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers.
Joel Ward of the San Jose Sharks, Wayne Simmonds of the Philadelphia Flyers, P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Blackhawks’Trevor Daley are among the current black NHLers who appear in the film.
James says he’s no film critic but he gave Mason’s effort five stars are seeing it at a private screening in Toronto earlier this month.
Vancouver Canucks defensive prospect Jordan Subban prepares parents Karl and Maria for their close-ups in “Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future.”
“Kwame has put together a piece of history,” he said. “It was very enlightening and filled in that gap that most people ask: why, when, and where did (these players) come from. Anyone who’s interested in this type of thing, it’s like candy.”
Mason’s finished work on the film but the work of getting “Soul on Ice: Past, Present & Future” to a theater or television network near you has only just begun. He’s searching Canada and the U.S. for a buyer that will show his product. If one doesn’t materialize, Mason says he’ll still be at peace.
“There were a lot of sacrifices,” he told me. “I’m in the hole – all my money is going out. I hope that some money will come back in. If it doesn’t, I can rest my head and say I accomplished something for my nation and for black Canadians as a celebration.”
Former Washington Capitals forward Mike Marson shares his experience as the NHL’s second black hockey player in the documentary.
It seems fitting that Fitzhugh is living his hockey broadcast dream in the city associated with the television classic “WKRP in Cincinnati.”
“It’s awesome, I still can’t believe it,” Fitzhugh told me. “Everything has happened so fast. I’ve been fortunate to move up the ladder so quickly.”
When we visited with Fitzhugh in March 2014 he was working public relations in the Chicago headquarters of the United States Hockey League, a Tier I junior league that sends many of its players on to NCAA Division I college hockey careers.
He was thrilled to be working in organized hockey but yearned to be behind the microphone calling games like his heroes, Detroit Red Wings broadcaster Ken Kal and NBC’s Mike “Doc” Emrick.
A Detroit native, Fitzhugh called 120 hockey games while he was a student at Bowling Green StateUniversity and thirsted to do more. He got his chance last season broadcasting for the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms.
At 26, Everett Ftizhugh rocks the mic as play-by-play announcer for the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones.
“If I had to name one person who I may take some tips from or take a little bit from is Jim Hughson who does the “Hockey Night in Canada” broadcast and did the NHL video game series for quite a while,” Fitzhugh said. “Very, very deep voice, very technical, which I love. He’s fun to listen to.”
When the Cyclones came calling with an offer to work the team’s home and away games online, he jumped at the chance to move one rung closer to an NHL broadcasting career.
“I thought I was going to be in Youngstown for three, four, five years, have to struggle, scrap and all that other stuff,” he said. “To be able to make it to the ECHL at 26 and get back on the path I thought I would be on when I left college – the two previous radio guys at Bowling Green before me, they all went straight to the ECHL from Bowling Green. I couldn’t even get a radio job out of college. So to be on this path is a really good feeling.”
But there are still dues to be paid. Fitzhugh’s official title with the Cyclones is Director of Public Relations and Broadcasting, a lofty handle that means he does everything. He writes the press release, tweets the tweets, works with Cincinnati sportscasters in arranging interviews with players, handles web content, and maybe even helps load and unload the team bus – all before and after putting on the headset and calling the game.
And, like Cyclone players whose action he describes on air, Fitzhugh travels to road games minor league-style on the team bus.
“I think this year our longest bus ride in terms of mileage is going to be down to Allen, Texas, that’s got to be about 17-18 hours from here,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be taking planes until I get to the NHL.”
Hockey wasn’t easy for Val James – from picking up the game as a young Long Island rink rat, to literally fighting his way through the minor leagues, to trading punches with some of the toughest enforcers in the National Hockey League.
But for James, the NHL’s first American-born black player, the roughest opponents often weren’t on the ice. They were in the stands.
“Think about going on the ice, 40 games a year on the road, and every three seconds of a 60-minute game, you’re getting a racial slur thrown at you over a 10-year period,” he told me recently.
Val James writes about the bitter and the sweet in his hockey career (Photo/Kwame Damon Mason)
James and co-author John Gallagher recount the hostility he endured and the good times the left wing experienced in hockey during the 1970s and 80s in his book, “BlackIce: The Val James Story,”which goes on sale Feb. 1.
He writes honestly about his career as an enforcer – not a goon – whose punching power instilled fear in opponents. He unflinchingly describes the racial abuse he endured during a professional career that spanned from 1978-79 with the Erie Blades of the old NorthEastern Hockey League to 1987-88 with the Flint Spirits of the International Hockey League.
“You’d get depressed every now and then over it, thinking ‘why are these people doing this, they don’t know me.’ I’m just out to entertain them, to give them a night out with their families, their girlfriends, whoever,” he told me. “It can work on your psyche if you let it. I was lucky enough to have a lot of good people around me. My teammates supported me totally.”
James, the NHL’s first African-American player, appropriately played for the AHL’s Rochester Americans (Photo/Rochester Americans).
Canadian-born Willie O’Ree became the NHL’s first black player when he debuted with the Boston Bruins in 1958. James, 57, was the league’s first U.S.-born black player and probably the only NHLer born in Ocala, Florida.
His path to hockey started when his family moved to New York and his jack-of-all-trades father took a job at the Long Island Arena.
“He started out being a night watchman there, fixing things when they needed to be fixed,” James told me. “Then he ended up getting into the operations of it all.”
With dad working in the arena, young Val James got freebies for every major 1970s rock & roll act when they played the Island – the Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, Burton Cummings.
He also regularly watched the EHL Long Island Ducks play and practice at the arena, fascinated by the speed and aggressiveness of the game. When James got his first pair of ice skates at 13, and with his dad owning a key to the stadium, the Long Island Arena became his practice facility.
“I’d grown up watching the Canadian men play hockey for the Long Island Ducks skate on this same ice,” James and Gallagher wrote. “I imagined myself as one of them.”
James developed into a good enough hockey player to be a 16th-round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings in 1977, though he never played for the team. He cracked the BuffaloSabres’ roster in 1981-82 after signing as an unrestricted free agent.
He appeared in seven games for Buffalo that season and found it hard getting a lot of ice time with a Sabres lineup that featured tough guys like defensemen Lindy Ruff and Larry Playfair.
“The top guy was Larry Playfair. He was a heavyweight, I was a heavyweight. So that spot was already filled,” James said. “The second line was Lindy Ruff. They all had multi-year contracts at the time because they never expected a guy like me to come along.”
After five seasons in the American Hockey League with the Rochester Americans
James enjoyed NHL tours with Buffalo and the Toronto Maple Leafs (Photo/Graig Abel).
and the St. Catharines Saints, James returned to the NHL for four games with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1986-87.
His NHL career stat line: No goals, no assists and 30 penalty minutes. But it’s the minor leagues where James had his greatest impact. He played in 630 games, tallied 45 goals, 77 assists and accumulated more than 1,175 penalty minutes – most of them with the AHL Americans.
A lot of those minutes were fives for fighting.
“It was something I was really good at,” James said.
Mike Stothers, head coach of the AHL’s Manchester Monarchs, can attest to that. He and James fought 13 times during a seven-game playoff series when Stothers was a defenseman for the Hershey Bears and James a winger for the St. Catharines.
“He was very good, probably one of the toughest at the time in the American Hockey League. He might have been the toughest ever in the American Hockey League,” Stothers told me. “He was a big man, very strong.”
Stothers paid James the highest compliment one enforcer can give another: “He was an honest fighter.”
Mike Stothers fought James 13 times in one AHL playoff series (Photo/Philadelphia Flyers)
“There was never any extra stuff: no cheap shots or stick work involved,” he added. “He never took liberties on skilled players.”
But that never stopped so-called “fans” from taking liberties on James. Objects and racist taunts were routinely thrown his way.
“At that point in time when I was coming up, it was always bananas, pictures of people from Africa with the bone in their nose, spear in their hands, the shields,” James told me. “People would make 8-foot, 9-foot signs like that and display them. At that time, there was no governing of behavior, players or fans, by the leagues.”
It was so bad that when CBS followed James in 1981 for a segment for “CBS News Sunday Morning,” the public address announcer at the Salem-Roanoke County Civic Center felt compelled to remind game attendees that use of offensive language was prohibited – something he’d never done before.
“Either way, neither the announcement nor the presence of the news cameras could stop the slurs and, as usual, not a single soul got tossed out for playing the racist fool,” James and co-author Gallagher wrote.
But there were times when people took stands against the abuse aimed at James. When two Richmond Rifles fans cast a fishing line with a toy monkey tied to it into the penalty box where James was sitting, referee Patrick Meehan stopped the EHL game and demanded the ejection of the offending fans.
“He did something that could have possibly at that point got him killed or lynched after the game,” James said. “But, nonetheless, he stood up for something, and that means a lot to me.”
Meehan, now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, said he wasn’t trying to make a statement. He just trying to stop something that was “fundamentally wrong.”
“That’s not something that’s ‘fans just being fans.’ That can’t be tolerated,” Meehan
Former hockey referee-turned U.S. Congressman Patrick Meehan threatened to stop an EHL game to halt abuse aimed at James.
told me recently. “I did blow the whistle and skated over to the penalty box and I told (Richmond Rifles officials) that if those fans weren’t ejected from the game, I wouldn’t continue officiating that game and that game would be done.”
“I remember the owner came down and he was like ‘What are you doing?'” Meehan added. “I looked at him and said ‘That’s wrong.’ He said ‘You can’t do it.’ I said ‘Whether I can or can’t, I am because I will not skate in a game that condones that activity, so you make a choice.'”
The fans were ejected and the game went on.
On most nights, James took racial justice in his own hands – taking out his anger at the crowd on an opposing player.
“Since I couldn’t act on my fantasy of shoving a hockey puck down the throat of every big-mouthed racist, one acceptable way for me to respond to these attacks was to turn up my physical play,” James and Gallagher wrote. “If I could knock one of their hometown players into next week, then some of my anger might fade.”
James said he’s pleased to see the growth of players of color in hockey, from youth leagues to the pros.
He thought the sport had put its racial woes behind it until some Boston Bruins “fans” unleashed online racist tirades against Washington Capitals forward Joel Ward for scoring a game-winning overtime goal that eliminated the Bruins from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2012 and Montreal Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban for scoring a double-overtime game-winning goal against Boston in last season’s playoffs.
“It tells me that the state of hockey has advanced but hasn’t advanced, all in the same breath,” he said. “Those Boston incidents, they might be the same relatives of the people that tried to get me back in the 80s, right?”
Since hanging up his skates, James has traded hard ice for soft water. He works as a water park mechanic in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a short drive from Rochester and Buffalo – homes of his hockey glory days.
Rochester fans remember James not only for his fisticuffs but also for scoring the game-winning goal for the Americans in the deciding game of the 1983 Calder Cup championship against the Maine Mariners.
The Americans are holding a “Val James Legends Night” on Feb. 13 – the day before his birthday – at Rochester’s Blue Cross Arena. In Buffalo, he’s been invited to speak to the kids of Hasek’s Heroes, an inner-city hockey program founded by former Sabres goaltender Dominik Hasek.
James hopes the attention from the book will lead to opportunities to get back into organized hockey, perhaps in the coaching ranks.
“I think I can help the sport out more than I have,” he said.
