New stuff that's been added to this site!

1/2/2012
FOR ANYONE who didn't already know- I was sort of put out of action on Oct. 28, 2011 by having surgery on my left shoulder for a torn rotator cuff and a torn bicep. I'm just now regaining enough use of the arm that I can sit and type for any length of time. I've been using Dragon software for other writing, but, aside from the Holmes interview this site was put on hold for a while. MORE stuff is, however, on the way Gears fans- but for another few weeks, I'm still benched.
11/2/11
in the 1977-78 season: NOW THIS IS HOCKEY! An interview with Gears centerman Warren Holmes.
10/8/11
In the 1980-81 season: An interview with Ron-Jay Scott- Gears radio announcer. IMO- VERY cool stuff!9/15/11
ARTIFACTS: Ron-Jay Scott was nice enough to share some of his collection with us. I've started posting them. Check the first season and the 80-81 season and the 82-83 season and others.
6/11/11
In the 1975-76 season "There's a 76 Olds in the parking ramp..."
6/3/11
In the 1975-76 season "What's that in the driveway?"
5/27/11
In the 1972-73 season "KILLER... an interview with Dennis Desrosiers"
5/2/11
In the 1976-77 season "There Came a Goaltender"
4/29/11
In the 1973-74 season "A popcorn box full of confetti, a stolen uniform and Wren Blair's secret fear"
4/14/11
In the 1975-76 season area: "We no fight tonight"
3/25/11
In the 1976-77 season section: I donno' where the f#&kin' cup is.
2/12/11
Message for Cal Hammond
2/5/11
WALLY SHAVER- Oh how I remember the Gears.
1/20/11
In the 1974-75 season section- An interview with Gears enforcer and later Toronto Maple Leafs player KURT WALKER!
12/27/10
In the 1975-76 section... a short Gears game home movie
12/9/10
Cal Hammond stopped by
11/16/2010
An interview with PAT SHETLER, Special Assignment Director and Gears play-by-play broadcaster in the 1972-73 season

WELCOME to Saginaw Gears dot com!

From 1972 to 1983 the IHL was represented in the city of Saginaw Michigan by the Saginaw Gears hockey club. In that period of time, the team went from a local curiosity to a staple in the fabric of life in the Tri Cities. In fact, the Gears did much more for the community than simply play hockey- they added to the fabric of the lives of everyone who ever bought a ticket. They were a vehicle by which many new friendships and relationships were formed. Indeed, they did much more than just play hockey.

For those of you who were fans of the original Gears, this site will be a sort of cyber time machine to take you back to those days at the the Civic Center (now called the Dow Center) and the games that became social events as well as sporting events. Above all this site will serve to kindle memories and document events as they actually happened. Events such as the infamous "streaker" and what really happened will be published here for the very first time. We will look at the Gears and the games from an insider's perspective and discover some things that even the most faithful season ticket holder has never known. Additionally, fans will have the chance to give their input to the stories and accounts that are displayed on this site. From a walk through Zamboni alley to an away game in mid winter to ending the evening in the Blue Line Club, this site will take you back. Thus, if you miss "Those games" all you have to do is visit this site for your Gears fix.

For folks who know nothing about the Gears, or their games, this site will provide an interesting look into aspects of another time and a place where a minor league hockey franchise found its way into the heart and soul of an industrial Midwest community. It will be a look into how events beyond hockey influenced the team, its growth and its demise.

This is NOT a "stat.s" site! Persons seeking player and team statistics should look elsewhere. So far as records or statistics for the Saginaw Gears, we will show very little here.

There are a lot of stories to be told concerning the Gears. For that reason, this web site will be constantly growing and new cool stuff will be added. It has been the author's experience that once a site such as this is opened and the public views it, tons of interesting items come cascading in from people who were also involved with the team. So, it is fully expected that this site will sprout new and interesting pages as time goes on. Readers are thus advised to keep checking in.

So, if you are a Gears fan, a Gears former player or just someone looking for an interesting web site, welcome to Saginawgears.com! Let us start the time machine.

Early team decisions

Some of the early decisions that Wren Blair and company made concerning the early development of the Saginaw Gears would turn out to be way beyond "good." One of the first was the selection of the team's head coach and general manager. For that position, Don Perry was picked. Perry had been involved in professional hockey for over two decades most of which had been spent as a defenseman playing among the killers in the old Eastern Hockey League. Under Perry's leadership, the Saginaw Gears would make a remarkable impression on the IHL and rapidly become a driving force in the league.

There also needed to be a public relations crew that were handy at the art of selling hockey to a local population who, up to that point, thought of Canadians as those strange, quiet people who live on the other side of the lake. The crew that could do that job for the Gears were Pat Shetler (seen here on the left in the photo) and Al Blade (seen here on the right in the photo). These two gentlemen came to town with more tricks of promoting hockey up their sleeves than most teams have pucks. They knew that for the Gears to flourish the keys would be exposure and the building of fan loyalty. This was the same ideal that was held by Wren Blair, and it worked.

The Roots of the GEARS

THE ROOTS OF THE GEARS

The beginnings of the Saginaw Gears and professional hockey in the Tri Cities took place not in the Saginaw area itself, but in the great white north of Duluth, Minnesota in the autumn of 1970. While conducting a pre-season NHL game at the Duluth arena, Minnesota North Stars General Manager, Wren Blair had a brief, but very important conversation with building Manager, Bill Fifer. Essentially, the conversation consisted of little more than a "See ya' next year" from Blair followed by Fifer telling him that he, in fact, would not be in Duluth next year because he had taken the job of building manager at the Saginaw Civic Center. Fifer also mentioned that if Blair knew of anyone who wanted to place a minor league hockey team in Saginaw, Blair should contact him. Although finding new tenants was a part of Fifer's job description at the Saginaw Civic Center, what he did not know was that he had just planted the seed that would later become the Saginaw Gears.

A little bit about Mr. Fifer here from my own memory. My mom was hired as one of the employees who opened the Civic Center in the winter of 1971-72. At the time I was a 14 year old who stood 5 foot 5 and weighed in at about 80 pounds. I met Fifer on an early visit to the arena. He was a mountain of a man, with a deep voice that resembled thunder and there was no doubt that he was fully in command. To borrow a phrase from country and western comedian Jerry Clower, "I was about as afraid of him as I would be a bear." When Mr. Fifer spoke, I jumped... even when he wasn't speaking to me. He was THE right person to be the first manager of the new facility, because lots and lots of self-important blow-hards in the city of Saginaw had notions of exerting influence over the Civic Center, and all regretted the day they crossed wires with Fifer. My first job was as a vendor selling soda pop and popcorn in the arena and thus Mr. Fifer was my first boss. He stood up for his people... but he always scared the crap otta me.

RIGHT CITY, RIGHT MOMENT IN TIME

Following that chance conversation Blair, who knew little about Saginaw other than it was someplace near Flint, turned his hockey eye toward the area. It is likely that no one knows the business of hockey the way that Wren Blair knows it, and what he saw in the Saginaw area really turned on his goal light. The city of Saginaw itself was a densely blue-collar place with no less than three huge factories that ran 24 hours a day and clothed and fed the core of the city's population. A thriving industrial support economy surrounded those factories. The new I-675 interchange expressway now also put the nearby communities of Bay City and Midland, each with its own industrial heart, within 20 to 25 minutes drive from the Civic Center. The demographics were perfect for a minor league hockey team to take root. To frost the cake, the IHL towns and franchises of Flint and Port Huron were each within easy driving distance from Saginaw. In this the era before most of the area residents had cable television and before the era of VCRs, DVDs, video games and the Internet, there was not a lot to do in places such as Saginaw during the long dark months of winter. The time and place were ripe for a minor league franchise to catch on.

The Roots of the Gears Part 2

...SO, THE STORY GOES...

The story goes that Blair let Fifer stew until early 1972. The two had apparently stayed in touch on and off after Fifer left Duluth, as one of the very early events at the Civic Center was the winter game between the 1972 U.S. Olympic hockey team and the Minnesota North Stars, and that had to be arranged between Fifer, the building manager, and Blair, the North Stars general manager. Finally Blair contacted Fifer concerning a hockey franchise in Saginaw and arranged a visit to Saginaw and a lunch meeting with Fifer. Taunting Fifer, Blair told him on the drive from Tri City (MBS International) Airport that he knew of someone who could put a professional hockey team in Saginaw. Of course Wren Blair eventually let on that the person in question was himself. Later that day Blair and Fifer met with the Civic Center Board of Directors and the proposal to create the Saginaw Gears was made. Wren Blair had even gone as far as to have some early team logos made up and presented them to the board. Later the concept was approved and the team became a reality.

Still, there were some who were not sure about the name. In a special edition of the Saginaw News that covered the dedication of the Civic Center, reporter Jim Buckley thumb-nailed some doubt as to if the name "Gears" would actually work. Odds are that a decade after that writing and with the Gears having had their moniker scribed on two Turner Cups... the doubts were gone.

The Roots of the GEARS Part 3

A NAME THAT FITS

Exactly who came up with the name "Saginaw Gears" is somewhat of a confused subject that depends largely on the memory of the individual person who is relating the story. The story that rings with the most likelihood of accuracy thus far, credits Wren Blair with having designed the logo prior to making the proposal of bringing the franchise to Saginaw. It is said the he needed a catchy logo to present to the people in Saginaw with the power to approve or disapprove the team, and he came up with the stylized logo. Yet another story says that the team's special assignment director, Pat Shetler gave birth to the logo. This version of the story says that Blair, needing a logo and already having contact with Shetler concerning the team asked him to come up with a design. Shetler found that the Flint Generals were named in honor of that city's major employer, General Motors. This was done in order to tie the team closely to the community by way of the city's industry. Shetler used the same logic and developed a name and logo that would tie Saginaw's team the city's major employer, Saginaw Steering Gear. Another version of this story has the team's public relations director, Al Blade coming up with the name and Shetler coming up with the team's logo. Still another version of the story has a wife of one of the team's staff coming up with the name. If anyone out there has another story, please contact the author of this web site- I'll be happy to publish it. The one thing that everyone agrees upon is that the namesake of the team was the Saginaw Steering Gear plant.

Where the team colors came from is another, and more easily answered, question. The official Saginaw Gears colors are tangerine and turquoise. Those two colors are the same colors used in the original seating of the team's home, Wendler Arena, and made the uniforms of the Saginaw Gears the most colorful in all of hockey. No doubt, that to this day, the gears uniforms stand the test of time and are more colorful than any others. A disagreement with that conclusion, however, can be found in Wren Blair's 2002 autobiography "The Bird." There in, the writers claim that the Gears colors were adapted by Blair from the Miami Dolphins football team, thus implying that the seats in the Saginaw Civic Center took their colors from the Gears. Of course, like many of the facts about the Gears that are covered in that book- such as dates of events that are consistently off by a year, this statement ignores one fact. The seats of the Civic Center were installed a full six months before Blair ever proposed the team- thus the designers would have had to decide on and order the seats in those colors nearly two years before the building was completed in late 1971. So, there is no way that the seat colors could have been taken from Blair. I would advise buying and reading "The Bird" (hell, I have an autographed copy) but take what it says about the history of the Gears with a grain of salt. Mr. Blair's ghost writer should have taken a bit more time and better connected the facts where the Saginaw Gears are concerned.

The one problem with the tangerine and turquoise colors is that they are truly blinding to try and display on a computer and the colors sometimes do really funky stuff when published on the Internet. Here you will see my best try at it.

The First games

THE FIRST SEASON

1972-73
Port Huron, Michigan was the site of the very first official Saginaw Gears hockey game. After a string of pre-season victories, the team faced off against the Port Huron Wings on the October evening of Friday the 13th. The first goal ever scored by a Saginaw Gear in an official IHL game was popped in by Mike Hornby at 16:13 of the first period. By late in the third period, the Gears were ahead by a score of four to three, when two minor penalties, one to Raynald Tessier for interference followed by another to Russ Friesen for delay of game gave the Wings a five on three advantage. Two Port Huron goals followed and the Gears lost by a score of five to four. It was a pattern that would repeat itself through the entire first season of Saginaw Gears hockey.

Just two days later, on Sunday, October 15, 1972 the Saginaw Gears played their first home game at the Wendler Arena. The Des Moines Capitals faced off against the gears in this home opener and for the first time the folks of the Tri Cities saw their brand new hockey team!

The early hockey games in Saginaw were a bit awkward. Most of the folks in the area were strangers to hockey as well as to all of these forigeners who were coming here from Canada to play the sport. Of course you had your true sports fans whe were happy to any professional sport come to town. Yet with the failure of a pro-football team to take hold, many were skeptical abot the Gears and if they would survive. Among those true sports fans were some heart and soul hockey fans. They were delighted to see the Gears come to town.

PHOTOS... pre-season 1972-73

Hockey?... in Saginaw?... oooooookay.

For people who were already hockey savvy, that first season of Gears hockey was a real grinder. As with any new franchise, the wins were few and the mistakes were plentiful. For the majority of folks in the Tri Cities area, however, the Gears were something of a new novelty. Saginaw, in 1972 was a place of very heavy industry and it was a time when anyone who wanted a job could get a job- or two. The factories or "shops" as they were called, ran 24/7. As a kid I recall getting up in the middle of the night and walking out into my back yard on the East Side of town. Standing there I could hear the constant "thrum" of the industry while the horizon to the north glowed an unending orangeish red from the foundries exhausts. The only thing breaking the "thrum" was an occasional train's horn echoing in the distance. Everyone was working- working all the time, first shift, second shift, third shift, time-and-a-half, double time some days and triple time on holidays- working at jobs that had always been there during my lifetime and I was sure would always be there forever. Like many of my generation, I thought that this was what it was like- everywhere.

When the Gears moved into town, many local folks just did not know how to properly participate in hockey and I was among them. Being an asthmatic from birth I rarely participated in organized sports of any sort. Most sports involved a lot of running as a part of training and that simple activity always landed me back home wheezing and near death. I could skate because every winter dad would turn our back yard into an ice rink, but for the most part I was consumed by my passion for aviation and spaceflight. I couldn't tell you the difference between a football linebacker and a tailback, but I could tell you, in detail, how a Saturn V moon rocket worked. My sports world, however, was forever widened considerably on October 20, 1972. That was the evening when my dad took us all to the Civic Center where he and mom were working the hockey game. Dad and I had been going around for weeks leaving game posters at assorted retail establishments around the city as a pay-as-ya-go task that he'd picked up from the Gears. In place of some payment, he'd gotten us kids some "comp." tickets to the game. That evening the Gears were playing the Flint Generals and I went- figuring I'd be bored... hell, I'd rather have been home with my rockets.

Although Canadian kids grow up with hockey, what I witnessed that Friday night at Wendler Arena was something I'd never seen before. The speed and precision of the game completely captured me... of course seeing a Flint player get clobbered with a Sherwood was pretty cool too. About all I really knew about the sport of hockey that evening was that our guys were in white and the other guys were in blue and the object of the game was to put the puck into the net. Later, all three of us kids chattered about hockey all the way home then through the weekend and then all week at school. It was the most exciting thing we'd experienced since one of my rockets set the field behind our house on fire the previous summer. On the evening of my first Gears game, the crowd was slim with most of the arena's seats being empty, but by the end of December, hockey had hooked the residents of Saginaw just as it had our family and attendance at Wendler Arena was breaking records with more than 5,000 people attending a game.

Hockey did not simply "catch on" in the Tri Cities, hockey spread like a wildfire. Oddly, it did not matter one bit that the Gears had a dismal losing season in 1972-73. No matter how the TV sportscasters criticized the team, the fan base continued to grow exponentially. In our house we'd turned into hockey nuts to the point where just two months after our first game, my dad had to dish out a punishment for a combined misbehaviour of us three kids and rather than grounding us for the month of January, he simply said "No Gears games for a month!" We really felt that one too. For Christmas 1972, my list departed from the normal "Rockets, books about rockets, models of rockets" and instead included hockey skates, hockey gloves and hockey sticks." I'd finally found a sport that scrawny asthmatic like me could play. In our neighborhood we played street hockey in deep-freeze weather and skated and shot pucks on any patch of frozen water that we could find. Overnight we'd become hockey people- and we liked it.

Any shred of first season playoff fantasies that the Gears or their fans may have had evaporated on Sunday, February 11th when they suffered a 1 to 0 loss at home to the Toledo Hornets and were thus mathematically eliminated from post season play. Although the sports reporters were still critical of the team, the Gears lost that game in front of nearly 4,000 fans while established teams, such as Columbus, were playing front of less than 800 paying fans. The final home game of the first season was played on March 13 in front of a near sell-out crowd of 5,503 fans. With the Flint Generals in town the game turned into a goaltender's nightmare and a goal scorer's dream. By the end of the game the Generals had more than enough goals to have won with a total of 7. Unfortunately for Flint, the Gears had a lot more with a total of 12 goals and easily won the game. There were penalties a plenty in the game because the two teams had mixed it up a month earlier in Flint and now they were both looking to even some scores. The biggest burr was between Dennis Desrosiers and Flint's Rod Cox. Cox had spent most of the previous game taunting Rosie into fighting and tried to do the same in this game, but Dennis was not taking the bait. Finally, at the urging of the crowd Don Perry sent his bruiser Mike Legge out to polish off Cox- which he easily accomplished. While Cox was in the box, Rosie skated by and tossed a rubber chicken in with him. That drew Dennis a game misconduct, but for a guy who had scored 60 goals that season- it was worth the laughs. The star of the show was the same guy who had scored the Gears very first goal- Mike Hornby. He nearly scored a double hat trick lighting up the red light 6 times. Hornby's 6th goal, however, was disallowed, but it's likely he really was not disappointed. Oddly, he was the second Gear to score 5 goals in one game- Dennis Romanesky had accomplished the same feat back on November 10th. Hornby did get a reward for his effort- from a local fan who offered to give any Gear who duplicated Romanesky's 5 goals in one game accomplishment a new car. Keep in mind that this was 1973 when a new car cost just over $3,000. The rumor was that Hornby, Dennis Desrosiers and Stu Irving conspired that if any one of them won the car, he would sell it and then the three of them would split the profits three ways. I never heard if that actually happened or if Hornby just got in the car and split town. You see he was immediately headed to Florida to join the Jacksonville Barons who were finishing their season. One would hope he kept the deal with the guys- because Hornby would be back with the Gears next season. Rosie, on the other hand, had just been signed to a North Stars contract and was reported by the Saginaw News to have "...earned a one-way ticket out of Saginaw and the IHL..." and into the AHL for the next season.

No sooner had the players started to clear out their apartments and head back home than plans were being made for the 1973-74 season. Blair and Perry were content with the first season but far from satisfied. Changes would be made, but still the hockey madness had taken good root in the Tri Cities. The crowds were growing and with a slightly better record in the next season, it was thought that the franchise could go far. In the 72-73 season the Saginaw Gears franchise set an IHL record for highest average attendance in a first season- averaging just over 4,200 fans per game. It also had the best "wins" record in 9 years for an inaugural IHL season with more than 30 victories. Of course, Blair knew from experience that although the Gears had to get better, he did not want them to get too much better. The one kiss of death for a new franchise is to win a championship in the first or second season- because from there the only place to go is down. No doubt, Blair could not have imagined how close to that kiss of death he would come.

An interview with PAT SHETLER

November 16, 2010


In researching the Internet for content to add to this site I checked on Pat Shetler who, along with Al Blade was the inaugural season's radio announcer for all of the Gears games. For those of you who may be wondering- Pat is doing very well these days and has been the color commentator for the Norfolk Admirals since 1989 where he's know as "The Red Whistle" mainly because of his hair color. Pat was nice enough to do a phone interview with me today, most of the content of which follows...

Saginaw Gears Dot Com (SGDC): I understand that you had a career as an NHL linesman that lasted for 600 games, what inspired you to leave the striped sweater behind and pick up the radio microphone?

PAT: I was doing back-up officiating for a Stanly Cup playoff game in Montreal and I started talking with with the Montreal announcer Danny Galvin. I told him I was thinking of doing some broadcasting. Danny gave me a tape (recorder) and told me to go over into a room and call the game... do the play-by-play for the last two periods. So I did. I played him just a bit of the tape and he told me I should take that exact tape and play it for the people in Philadelphia who were looking for a TV play-by-play broadcaster. I got the job in Philly thanks to Danny. He said I had what it took to be a pro. broadcaster. Philadelphia was a tough place in those days- it was pretty rough hockey.

SGDC: How did you come to be involved with the Saginaw Gears?

PAT: In the summer of 1972 Wren Blair approached me and said that he was getting together a group that was starting a team in Saginaw, Michigan and asked if I wanted to be a part of it. I said "Sure." Of course I didn't even know where Saginaw, Michigan was so I had to go and get out my map and look it up. I'd worked with Wren as director of his summer hockey camp for a few years and I knew that he had started Bobby Orr's career, so I thought this would be good. When I got to Saginaw Wren made me Special Assignments Director for the new team.

SGDC: What was your impression of the Wendler Arena when you first arrived?

PAT: Loved it. It was the perfect size for hockey. It seated, I think, about 5,700 and it was brand new. It was just right. The people of Saginaw really supported the team. The people there were great to get along with.

SGDC: Saginaw was a very industrial, blue collar town in 1972, a far cry from the big cities of the NHL, it must have been quite a change from your previous haunts.

PAT: Not really, you see I'm from Sydney Nova Scotia, and it's a lot like the Saginaw area was. We had a steel mill and some industry and the people are very similar- hard working, very close and very warm, real friendly, real good people. So I felt real at home in Saginaw- I loved it, the close atmosphere. The big cities of the NHL have no personality.

SGDC: I'm always amazed at what a small world hockey really is, especially among the professionals such as yourself. Do you still cross paths with former members of the Gears hockey club?

PAT: Here's a good one- when I first came to Norfolk to start the team, there really was no league. So to keep into hockey I started to referee in Hampton. I got a game to do in Johnstown, where the Johnstown Chiefs were playing. I got there and went out on the ice to start the game and while I was skating around I looked up at their broadcast booth. That's a small building and so the booth is pretty close to the ice. Anyhow, I looked up and who's doing the Johnstown broadcast, but Al Blade! He saw me first as I was coming onto the ice and so he was waving and smiling. I waved right back. Later he came down between periods and we laughed and talked- it was great.

SGDC: The Gears played road games in some real barns in those days, the worst of which was Columbus. I recall your broadcast from one game there, I remember that Leon Stickle, the NHL linesman was working as an IHL ref. that night and a fight turned into a riot with fans invading the ice. I'm sure you knew Leon, and we could hear it in your voice that you were pretty disgusted with how the fans were acting. What is it like to broadcast a situation like that?

PAT: Yes I knew Leon we worked a lot together.

SGDC: Columbus was the last rink in the IHL to have chicken wire instead of glass. That's how the fans got into it.

PAT: Yes, that right, I remember that was awful. You can't have fans on the ice. I'd be more critical of the coaches for letting it get that far. No one should be on the ice except the players and officials. In Detroit, for example, the only fan that was ever allowed on the ice was the octopus. We (linesmen) were not to fond of the octopus, because we had to clean the damned thing up. I'd usually kick it over to the guy with the shovel and let him take it away.

SGDC: What about Don Perry?

PAT: Don and I did not always see eye-to-eye perhaps because I was a ref. and he was from a player's background. We had some hot conversations on things I'd see one way and he'd see another way. He was old-school and took that into coaching. He was the kind of guy to yell and scream in the room- kick wastebaskets and get real mean. That's how they did it back then. These days a coach almost needs a counselor with him to talk to a player. You can't set them straight like the old coaches did. Also Perry did not like to lose. Wren Blair had warned me that "Whatever you do, don't talk to Perry right after a loss."

SGDC: The fan base in Saginaw seemed to grow like wildfire. In your opinion why did that take place?

PAT: It was good, the fans really took the team to heart. They were just the right people for hockey and the winters in Saginaw were just right for for the hockey season.

SGDC: There have been a lot of interesting and colorful "characters" who have come and gone in hockey. Can you tell us about any who stand out in your mind?

PAT: I knew Bobby Orr very well and he really changed hockey. When I played on the blueline the defensmen just got the puck out of your zone as fast as you could, abused anyone in front of the net and stayed back on the point. Orr changed all of that.
I got to know a lot of guys in the NHL, like Howe and some of the other greats. Those guys were something else. One night I was working (as a linesman) in Detroit and I got hit real hard at the Red Wings bench. So hard that I got knocked over the rail and ended up on the floor. So here's these guys like Howe, Delvecchio, Mahovlich holding me down on the floor and laughing. And the game just keeps going! After a while the referee looked around and said "Hey, I've only got one linesman!" So he blew the whistle and then they let me up.

SGDC: I'd heard a long time ago that Pat Shetler was the guy who designed the Gears logo. I know you have an extensive art background so I figured that is true... is it?

PAT: It was more of a team effort with some other people putting in ideas including Wren Blair, so I'd say it was actually a team effort.

SGDC: What about the name "Gears?"

PAT: Same thing, it was mostly a team effort. Considering the factory nearby with the same name, I figured it was a good match. But I did do most of the design work in the magazine (the Gears game program). It had about 90 ads in it and I did most of the graphics work. We had a lot of sponsors, especially from Frankenmuth- I can't recall the name of that restaurant...

SGDC: The Bavarian Inn.

PAT: Yeah! That's the one. My wife and I loved Frankenmuth.

SGDC: I assume you used your officiating background in the team's start-up process as well.

PAT: Yes, I got the minor officials together. The statisticians, the goal judges, guys like Gordie Mefford.

SGDC: Oh yeah! I remember Gordie- a terrific guy.

PAT: Don McLoskey, Fred East, Charlie Archibald, Bill Carter, Gene Ayotte...

SGDC: Gene was a referee in the high school league and suspended me for three games when I gave him a raspberry over a call.

PAT: Ha! Anyhow, that was a big part of getting the team going- the minor officials.

SGDC: I hear you have a story about the organ in the loft.

PAT: I wanted an organ for music, I'd seen how well it worked in the NHL, so I got a hold of the Davis Music Company and we got the organ. One night, when I was working in the NHL we came onto the ice and as we did the organist started playing dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah, from "Three Blind Mice." Bill Friday (the referee) heard that and he says "Okay you guys- back into the room." and we left the ice and went back into the (official's) locker room. After a while this guy from the team comes in and asks what's the matter- and Friday says "were not gonna go out there and be called three blind mice by your organist." The guy from the team quickly agreed that from then on the organist would only play real nice music for us. So I tried to make sure that in Saginaw we always had real nice organ music.

SGDC: You departed from the Gears organization at after the 1973-73 season. Can you share with us what motivated that move?

PAT: I was contacted by a group that wanted to start a team in Winston-Salem, North Carolina- the Polar Twins was the team. They'd never had hockey in that entire area before so I saw it as a great challenge. Again I had no idea where Winston-Salem was, so again I had to get out my map and look it up. Still I'd say it was the challenge that drew me away.

SGDC: Pat, I consider you to be a real hockey icon, and I have honestly been thrilled to talk to you today. Thank you so much for sharing your time with Saginaw Gears Dot Com.

Pat: It was great talkin' to ya'.


Pat and I talked for nearly an hour- and the time really raced by. A book could be written about his hockey experiences as he played both in Canada and overseas. He was very egar to hear about what happened to the gears after he left Saginaw- of course he was talkin' to the right guy. I spent the first part of the phone conversation just filling him in of the history of the team that he was instrumental in starting. He kept saying "No, keep talkin' I'm lovin' this stuff." Once Pat started talking, however, I was the one lovin' the stories he was telling me, much of which I could not transcribe fast enough to capture in whole. The guy is a real treasure, and he played a big role in changing the Saginaw and the Tri City area as a whole. He also helped add a whole new dimension to my life- and it is hockey!

There's no cheerleaders in hockey!

It did not take a season for the Gears to gain a rabid fan base, it took about a month and a half. The Gears booster club formed shortly after the first season began and by December there were some 500 booster club members. Such a rapid explosion in popularity for the team led to some little anomalies. One such oddity was the Saginaw Gears cheerleaders.

Pro hockey, and all levels, had a very standard formula for how a game event should take place. 1) The players arrive, 2) the fans trickle into the arena, 3) the teams come out and skate a warm-up while the organist plays some delightful music to skate by... of course, never "Lady of Spain." 4) the Zamboni resurfaces the ice. 5) officials come out. 6) both teams come out. 7) National Anthem. 8) first period- skating, shooting, checking, fans booing, fans cheering, perhaps a penalty or two. 9) between periods- fans mill around, Zamboni resurfaces. 11) second period- skating, shooting, checking, fans booing, fans cheering, perhaps some blood and some stitches- either in the crowd or on the ice- both being equally likely. 12) between periods- fans mill around, Zamboni resurfaces. 13) third period- skating, shooting, checking, fans booing, fans cheering, several fights. 14) the end- someone wins and someone loses, fans go home awaiting the next game... PERIOD. That has always been the way it was done- pure hockey. There were no cheerleaders in hockey- there never had been any cheerleaders in hockey. Just like there's no crying in baseball, there's no cheerleaders in hockey... but someone forgot to tell the Gears booster club that.

Cheerleaders first appeared in the second week of December 1972. Dressed in bluejeans and orange sweaters they took up a position at ice level below section 10. In a line the young girls- all of whom were high school age- stood and did some clapping, jumping and cheering. At first, most fans and players simply gave a "what's up with that?" sort of notice. At the next game, however, the girls appeared dressed in classic cheerleader outfits and wearing Gears colors. This time they were moving around and cheering at assorted locations- mostly at ice level. It appeared now that the Gears had some sort of official cheer leading squad. Of course it was not the case- these young ladies were simply enthusiastic members of the booster club who thought this was a fun idea. Most long-time hockey fans and especially the Canadian hockey purists, thought otherwise.

Season ticket holders immediately began to complain loudly about the cheerleaders, players were getting crap from the opposing players about the cheerleaders and to the Gears front office, and most importantly, to Wren Blair, having cheerleaders at a hockey game was like scratching a blackboard. It had almost nothing to do with the girls or their cheers- it was the concept. After all, there's no cheerleaders in hockey.

As complaints from season ticket holders increased, Blair had quickly heard enough. He pulled the plug on the cheerleaders and the booster club was politely, but firmly told that this was a bad idea and it needed to stop. Just a few games after they had first appeared, through no fault of their own the cheerleaders were gone. The season ticket holders and the hockey purists could now go back to the traditional formula for having a hockey game in Saginaw... that is, until a half dozen years later when someone dreamed up the Gear-rilla skating mascot.

Oh yeah... like we can't figure out who this is from...

We got this message on December 9, 2010... interestingly, the web site's server has it listed as having been posted by "Anonymous." Of course the server also posts my comments as having been done by "Anonymous." Still, it took just a single read before I figured out who this was... even though he had a tendency to wear a mask.

HELLO, THERE. I HAVE A LOT OF FOND MEMORIES FROM MY YEAR IN SAGINAW. THE PLACES THAT WE LIVED AT AND THE PEOPLE WE MET AND THE FUN WE HAD. I REMEMBER GETTING A PHONE CALL FROM JOHN POZNELL SR. IN 1992. I WAS RAKING LEAVES AT MY COTTAGE IN FLIN FLON, MB - MY HOME TOWN - AND THE GUY AT THE OTHER END SAID "WHERE WERE YOU 20 YEARS AGO TONIGHT?" AND I SAID "WELL, PROBABLY SAGINAW, MI." AND HE SAID "NO, YOU WERE OPENING THE SEASON IN PORT HURON." WE HAD A NICE CHAT. I KNOW HE HAS PASSED ON BUT I ALWAYS WANTED TO COME BACK AND SEE THE ARENA AND HAVE A GAME OF GOLF WITH DENNIS DESROSIERS - MAYBE I WILL THIS SUMMER - AS LONG AS ROSY PAYS FOR MY GREEN FEES, I'LL BE THERE! SIGNED, NUMBER #1 (72-73)

December 9, 2010 6:58 PM

Hi Cal!!!

Shoot me an e-mail by way of saginawgears (the "at" symbol) ymail.com. I want to do an interview with you! Wes

2/12/11: Cal! I spoke to Rosie and gave him your golf message... e-mail me for his reply to you!

"KILLER"... an interview with Dennis Derosiers

As a fan, when I attended my first Gears game my dad pointed out one individual player. "Ya' see that big guy there?" he said. I looked at the player and saw this guy who, from my scrawny perspective, looked as if he'd been raised by wolves in the deep woods of northern Ontario, fed raw bear meat and chopped his way through the wilderness to civilization with a hockey stick. My dad told me, "They say the players call him Killer." I swallowed my mouthful of popcorn and mumbled "I can see that."

That Gears player was Dennis Derosiers, and although the "Killer" moniker circled through the fans for most of that first season it was easily blotted out by his actual hockey nick-name. The name that both his team-mates and his fans affectionately call him by to this day... "Rosie."

Kirkland Lake, Ontario is a small mining town located about 200 miles northeast of Sault Saint Marie. Most geography teachers will tell you that the town is famous for its gold mines, but in fact there is something that anyone who knows hockey will tell you that Kirkland Lake is far more well known for producing... hockey players. Looking through the record books you will find tons of Canada's finest and toughest hockey players have been released onto civilization from Kirkland Lake. It was from that town that Dennis Derosiers was delivered onto the sport of professional hockey. On March 23, 2011 Rosie was kind enough to grant Saginaw Gears Dot Com an interview. Frankly doing the interview was a remarkable and fun experience. I could bring up the most obscure event that I had witnessed and he would immediately remember the event, in great detail, and add an entire back-story that went far beyond my own recall. We talked a lot about his days playing on the team and Rosie gave me so many stories, and so much information that a lot of it will go into individual stories that will appear later on this web site. Thus, this interview will be more of a Cliff Notes version of what Rosie and I talked about. Frankly, he had me laughing so damned hard that I could hardly take notes. It is important to point out, however, that in his professional hockey career no one actually tagged Dennis with the nick-name "Killer." The details of that will come to light during the interview....

SGDC: Rosie, you were in the EHL playing for the Clinton Comets in the 1970-71 and 1971-72 season. At the same time that Don Perry was coaching for the EHL's New Haven Blades. Did that have anything to do with your being asked to come and play for the Gears?

Rosie: Oh that had everything to do with it. Don knew me, he knew my style of play and that was what he wanted on the new team.

SGDC: So, Perry was your connection into Saginaw?

Rosie: Well, Wren Blair was also the General Manager of the Clinton Comets and that helped too.

SGDC: Did you know that when you first started playin' in Saginaw, the word circulated around the fans and among the boosters that the other players called you "Killer?"

Rosie: Whoa! You knocked me off my seat with that one! Is that for real?

SGDC: Yep. That was one of the first things I was told when I went to the early Gears games.

Rosie: Man, you really caught me off guard with that one. I'll tell ya' why, no one on the team ever called me killer. In fact no one in my professional career ever called me that. But, that name goes all the way back to when I played in the Midgets! That's what they called me then. Boy- that takes me back! I'm amazed you came up with that one.

SGDC: Don't be too amazed- it was actually just coincidence rather than research.

(Laughter)

Rosie: Well then it's an amazing coincidence.

SGDC: Speaking of Midgets and Juniors and those sort of leagues I've always been amazed at the difference in attitude between the vast majority of US kids playing in those leagues and the Canadian kids. The Canadian kids always have this look of fire and desperation in their eyes about the game while US kids, like I was, are just sort of out there for the sport. I've never been hit as hard as I was hit by a Canadian.

Rosie: Ya' know, that reminds me of a story. I was playin' in the juniors and we were up against some American college team. They had this one guy who was sort of dumpy and not a very good skater. So I picked up the puck and went to run it up the ice and there's this guy. I could've just run it around him, but I said to myself "I'll just go right through him and make him look bad." That's the kind of attitude I had in those days. So, I lined this guy up and I hit him square on. It felt like I hit a brick wall! He didn't budge an inch and I just splatted up against him and melted like a cartoon character. It was like the guy had rocks in his pads and pockets. I learned a lesson that night; don't underestimate anyone.

SGDC: So then you came to Saginaw. What did you think of the place?

Rosie: Oh Saginaw was a great place to come and play. The fans really warmed up to us quickly. We were treated like rock stars. You'd go the store or someplace and you find yourself signing autographs. They (the Gears management) had us going to car dealerships and sitting to sign autographs for kids- it was great, especially for guy from Kirkland Lake. The fans were mostly blue collar working class folks and they were real loyal. There were lots of great places to go and hang out in Saginaw too. I remember Larry's bar was one that we all went to a lot.

SGDC: You got to play in three Turner Cup finals three times in the 70s, what was that like?

Rosie: That was great. The first time against Des Moines we were just lucky to be there, so it wasn't that bad to lose. The next year against Toledo it was different. We had a great team and we were sure we'd go all the way...

SGDC (interrupting): As I recall in the 1975 playoffs you guys went down 3 games to 0 to Muskegon and then came back, won 4 straight and advanced.

Rosie: Yep. We had the right attitude, the right frame of mind and just took it one game at a time. Anyhow, the Toledo series, in the finals, went 7 games and we lost in game 7 in Saginaw.

SGDC: Yeah- I was an usher in the orange coat and stationed at the press box door at the time.

Rosie: We actually lost it on a penalty. It was a bad call I thought. Gordie (Malinoski) stuck his butt out and hit a guy and Sam Sisco called it a trip. Every now and then I see Sam and I remind him of it.

SGDC:That was a heartbreaker, but you guys made up for it in the 1976-77 season.

Rosie: That year we knew all along that we had the team that could do it. Toledo thought that they were gonna repeat the 75 series, but we knew better. They kept winning in their building, but we kept beating them here.

SGDC: That building of theirs was a real barn. I was there for 2 of those 3 games in that series- it was a real barn.

Rosie: I liked it there. It was a smaller ice surface, it was easier to get into a good scoring position- I liked it. When you went there you knew that you were either gonna be fighting or hit hard... and I'm not talkin' about the game, I'm talkin' about walkin' from the ice to the room.

SGDC:(major laughter)

Rosie: In those days just to play in that league you had to be tough.

SGDC: In the 1981-82 season you left the Gears, how did that come about?

Rosie: The Gears left ME, I didn't leave them. They weren't playin' me, they just weren't playin' me. Starting back in the 79-80 season they just weren't using me. I had a bar back then so I figured I'll just run my bar, so what. Then Ted Garvin called from Flint and asked if I'd like to go there and play and I said "sure." That was pretty much it.

SGDC: What was the name of your bar?

Rosie: The Sports Page Lounge. It was a pain in the ass too. It's a lot easier to be on the other side of the bar.

SGDC: And after one half season and one full season with the Generals, Flint was where your coaching career began.

Rosie: Yeah. I was really enjoying myself in Flint. First I played that half of a season and then a full second season, but I was out for 7 or 8 weeks with a broken cheek bone. After the end of the season I started considering hangin' 'em up. They asked me if I had any interest in coaching, which I did. But my only experience had been a season coaching Bridgeport High School. They (Flint management) asked me to come and have dinner with Frank Gallagher. He really raked me over the coals for about 5 hours or so and in the process they told me that Ted Garven wasn't coming back as their coach. That night I drove home, got in around 2:30 in the morning and my phone rang- they said I got the job.

SGDC: You actually ended up with 13 seasons as a professional player and 19 seasons as a professional coach.

Rosie: That sounds about right I had two seasons with Flint and then the team moved to Saginaw and I had two seasons there with the Generals and one with the Hawks.

SGDC: After that season with the Hawks you sort of dropped off the map for a season- what happened?

Rosie: I was the General Manager for the Fort Wayne Komets for a season.

SGDC: When was that?

Rosie: 89-90.

SGDC: How'd that come about?

Rosie: The Komets owner had a rookie coach, Al Sims, and they wanted someone there who already knew about coaching. So they hired me as G.M. and I also acted as assistant coach. So sometimes I was Sims' boss and sometimes he was my boss.

SGDC: And from there you went to Cincinnati.

Rosie: Actually I was hired to coach in Nashville. I was really lookin' forward to it- had my cowboy boots all shined up and my hat- I had my heart all set on coachin' in Nashville. The guy who owned the Nashville team (the Knights) also owned the Cincinnati team. They were having some discussions with the building management there and they asked me to come out and get into it. I knew they were gonna ask me to coach there and I didn't want any part of it. Well, I got there and sure enough Doug Kirchhofer, who owned both the Nashville team and the Cincinnati teams, asked me to coach there. I said "no way" because I really wanted to go to Nashville. But Kirchhofer told me that Cincinnati would be a much better place for me- and he was right. I spent 5 of the best years of my life there. I still have friends in Cincinnati. Most people think of that city as just a place you drive through on your way to Florida, but it's really one of the best kept secrets in the Midwest. We were filling that building every night for hockey- great hockey town, great hockey fans- probably the best I've seen since we started the Gears in Saginaw.

SGDC: You came back to Saginaw to and joined the Wheels for the 1995-96 season.

Rosie: Yep, Tom Barrett was the coach and I was sort of the half-assed assistant coach. It was a real bad situation, the team wasn't run well, half the time we didn't have sticks, it was bad. Anyhow about half way through the season the team got a new owner and first thing he did was fire Barrett and then he asks me to coach. He said he wouldn't give me a contract because he "didn't trust anyone in hockey."

SGDC: Did ya' punch him or just stuff him into his waste basket?

Rosie: Ya' know that's what I thought right away, but in that micro second I came to another conclusion. I told him that having no contract was fine, but he should remember that the door swings both ways. As the season went on things got worse under this new owner. Then Kirchhofer called me up and asked how I'd like to go to Birmingham and coach there? I told him "Kirch, your timing is impeccable."

SGDC: So, you left the Wheels and coached the last 22 games for the Birmingham Bulls that season, and then coached there another 4 seasons- why'd ya' leave?

Rosie: Same old story, ownership change, their way of doing thins wasn't mine, so it was time to go.

SGDC: anyone who know hockey knows that story. So then it was two seasons with the Kazoo Wings and finally the Saginaw Spirit.

Rosie: Right. I knew Dick Garber pretty well and he and Wren had been talking about bringing a Junior team into Saginaw. We just connected. But I found out that coaching a Junior team just wasn't for me.

SGDC: I can understand that. Still the Spirit are a great team- I had season tickets for their first season.

Rosie: Oh yeah, the Spirit are a great team, they put on a great show and have developed a great fan-base.

SGDC: And that does it for your coaching days eh?

Rosie: Lookin' back at coachin' over those years I really don't know how I did it. When you're a winning coach you don't sleep a lot, when you're a losing coach you don't sleep at all. There's a lot of pressure and I couldn't take that these days especially with that aneurysm thing I had that nearly did me in.

SGDC: Yeah, back in 2007- we were all pullin' for you there. How are doin' these days?

Rosie: Oh I'm just fine. I have a lot of trouble with my short term memory, but that's about it. Now I just carry a little notebook and I write things down so I don't forget them- works just fine. Considering what it could have been, I'll take that.

SGDC: So now you're doing color on the radio broadcasts for the Saginaw Spirit on 100.5 FM. I tune in and listen to the games on my computer.

Rosie: Yeah, it's great for me. I get to travel with the team, throw in my 2 cents worth on the radio and I don't have any of the pressure. When the game's done I just go to my room and get some sleep.

SGDC: Well Rosie, we've come full circle here. You have given me so much information and so many stories that I'm afraid the web site could turn into the Dennis Desrosiers site if I'm not careful.

Rosie: Oh please, DON'T do that!

(Laughter)

SGDC: It's been great talking to you Rosie and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Saginaw Gears Dot Com.

Rosie: Anytime. I just love talkin' about those days with the Gears.

"Smash"

Raynauld Tessier appeared early in the Gears first season appearing in every game for most of the first few months. Standing 5 foot 8 and with his baby face, muttonchop sideburns and prince Valiant hair he was an instant favorite, especially with the female fans. Add to that the fact that Montreal native spoke French and very little English and you had a package that made the bubble gum school girls and the grown up adult girls squeal alike.

Following every home game, the girls would line up outside the Gears locker room door waiting to get a Tessier autograph on their program. About midway through the season the team leaked the information out that the other players had nick-named him "Smash" and the girls squealed even more.

When he came to the Gears from the Verdun Maple Leafs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, Tessier was one of the lowest paid players on the team. In fact one player stated that he had such a small paycheck that he could not afford to to eat and pay his rent too. A couple of the players eventually went to Gears management and pleaded on his behalf- Tessier got a raise

Although a hit with the fans, Tessier was not so popular with those who made hockey their business. Being a defensman, he had a habit of trying to play offense and very often left his zone. The Gears were a team badly in need of solid defense- they had plenty of score mechanics up front already, and the last thing they needed was a blueliner looking to do a Bobby Ore. One Canadian born hockey veteran associated with the Gears snarled his opinion over a drink when Tessier was mentioned. "That yellow little bastard, he only hits guys when their back is turned." Tessier may have had his fans, but he also had his detractors.

In spite of his detractors inside hockey, Tessier was easily voted the Gears "Most Popular" player for the 1972-73 season. Programs with a Tessier poster in the centerfold always sold out and by the end of that first season there were a lot of little girls and quite a few grown-up ladies with his poster hung up someplace. Inside the IHL, however, Tessier was monikered as the Gears "least improved" player.

Tessier returned to the Gears roster for the 1973-74 season, but did not stay. Early in the season he was traded to the Fort Wayne Komets. The following season he was traded to Columbus and during that season was traded again to Kalamazoo. The following season he was sent down to the USHL where he played for two seasons. Following that he moved overseas to Germany and played in the European Lower Leagues until 1991. Today, somewhere out there in the Tri Cities area, it is a sure bet some lady or some ladies still have one of those "Smash" posters.

This custom made mug from the first season was not sold to the general public, but these were given to players and staff.

ARTIFACTS

There were tons of assorted Gears "souvenirs" sold at folding tables set up in the arena's concourse. Over the years I've made an effort to collect some of these as "artifacts" of the team. The one seen here is one of my favorites, because it is so "70s." Yes- Saginaw Gears coasters! Note two things- first, the dazzling, dropped acid in the previous decade, Brady Bunch looking box. Note second- you get exactly TWO of them in a box! Wow, good for you and exactly one friend to rest your glass in while you listen to Wally Shaver and Al Blade calling a game on WSAM. I'm not 100% sure that this item was actually sold at Gears games because I do not recall ever seeing them being sold. Yet the age and appearance of the box and cheap-O quality of the item, both scream "Gears Souvenirs!" If any of you reading this can confirm these actual Gears souvenirs- please post a message here.

PHOTO 73-74 season

Second season

By the time that the Gears began to gather once more in the city of Saginaw a lot had changed. From my perspective, my folks had sold our house in Sheridan Park on Saginaw's east side and bought a new house in the town of Freeland. This was due to the fact that I was supposed to start Saginaw High in the fall of 73 and everyone was sure that a scrawny smart ass like me would get knifed within a week there. I found that the infection of Gears fanisum was everywhere in the Tri Cities- including Freeland. But, when all of us fans finally saw the Gears again, we saw a very different team. That evolution would continue into mid season and would turn out to be as favorable as my not getting knifed.

Returning from the inaugural season were names such as Tommy Thompson, Russ Friesen, Stu Irving, Marcel Comeau, Mike Hornby and Raynald Tessier- and that was it. Out of the 18 players who finished the first season, only 6 returned. In very short order, however, that number was down to 5 as Tessier was released to the Fort Wayne Komets. Wren Blair and Don Perry had gone shopping at the meat market and come up with some very tough beef to help fill the Gears bench. On the blue line, Doug Marit at six foot three, 205 pounds then Jerome Engele at six foot even, 197 pounds. Although by today's standards these guys would be average at best, by 1973 standards they were big. Out front the Gears added plenty of beef as well. Brian Bowles at six foot even and 185 pounds and Rejean Beaudoin at six foot even and 195 pounds plus Dave Cressman at six foot one inch and 180 pounds. Then for speed they added Jean Marie Nicol at five foot ten, 185 pounds, Jimmy Johnston at five foot eight 157 pounds and Pierre LeBlanc at five foot ten and 176 pounds. For stability and savvy among these kids they added hockey veteran Borden Smith who had been playing in the stitches leagues like the EHL since 1959. In goal, the Gears got two goaltenders at different points in their careers and going in two different directions. Sam Clegg was at the beginning of his pro. career and Jim Armstrong, who had been a pro. since 1959 was at the end of his. Armstrong, with his short, square haircut resembled the goalie you'd get with your marble hockey set, while Clegg made the bubblegum girls swoon in the absence of Tessier. Of course he had to share that role with Lowell Ostlund.

The biggest addition, however, was a stubby defensman who could easily punch his way through a brick and not break his stride skating. He had previously been with the Dayton Gems for a full five seasons and in the 1972-73 season had set a new penalty minutes record for the IHL at 375. In the IHL he was THE player that everyone loved to hate when the Gems came to town He was officially listed as Gord Malinoski, but would come to be know by all Gears fans as "Gordie." Some in Saginaw were stunned when the Gears traded the rights to Dennis Romanesky for Gordie Malinoski. But Romanesky retired from hockey at the start of the season while Malinoski would go on to play for the Gears for four seasons- Blair and Perry had indeed made a good trade deal. It only took about one game before the fans in Saginaw started to love this dark little killer. Muscle and mean, however, were not all there was to Gordie. He had plenty of blue line savvy and a shot from the point that I always expected to go right through a goaltender's body and end up in the net covered with entrails.

Still, there was one thing that was missing from this new Gears team. Missing was the one player who would soon be found to be the heart and soul of the Saginaw Gears- missing was Dennis Desrosiers.

A "home-opener" to remember

When Gears owner Wren Blair flew into Saginaw with his wife and daughter for the 1973-74 Gears home opener game, he was counting on a pleasant, relaxing night at Wendler Arena. He figured on speaking a few words along side Mayor Wendler and then retiring back to his VIP seat owner's seat and watch his team play some fine hockey. In fact the last thing on Blair's mind that night, as he watched 4,422 fans fill the seats at Wendler Arena, was to find himself coaching the Gears while being shorted four of his best players.

Opening ceremonies delayed the start of the game by some 30 minutes as the Saginaw Community Youth Band played all of the songs needed to get a home-opener started. Waiting to get things going was Referee Kerry Fraser. Having just joined the NHL's official's association on September 1st and now working the minor leagues for "seasoning" Fraser was about to find himself getting well-seasoned on the evening of October 18, 1973. On that night the Gears were hosting the Dayton Gems and although the game began as a celebration, the atmosphere would soon change. From the opening faceoff, Gems enforcer Dave Simpson was doing what he did best- making trouble. His job was pick and poke at the Gears, make them mad, get them focused on him rather than their positions, distract them, sucker them into retaliation and the resulting penalties. And it did not matter how many penalties Simpson drew in the process. He had taken 332 minutes in the box the previous season, so he knew exactly what he was doing.

By the start of the second period Simposn's game plan was working well... perhaps too well. John Fraser had gotten the games only goal in the first period and scored a second one just 2:30 into the second period. Simpson had singled out Saginaw sharp-shooter Dave Cressman and tried just about everything to to draw Cressman into either a penalty or a fight. It was quite apparent that Referee Kerry Frasier was allowing a lot of stuff to get by- on both sides. Finally, at 10:19 of the second period, Simpson must have gotten bored with just chasing Cressman because he pulled him down and started to beat on him. Although Cressman did not get a single punch in, he was given a 5 minute fighting penalty and Simpson was given the same plus a 2 minute minor for high-sticking. Simpson had pulled the same number on Marcel Comeau in the first period and as he was locked up in the box he started inviting the Saginaw players with some "You wanna be next?" trash talk. Although it is not recorded in press accounts of the day, I recall that he subsequently reached out and actually grabbed Mike Hornby by the jersey as he went past. That's when all hell broke loose.

Hornby went after Simpson in the box as the players on the ice swarmed in that direction dropping gloves and squaring off. In less than a heartbeat Dayton's Peter Fleming leaped off the bench to join the fights and that was all it took. The Saginaw and Dayton benches both cleared and the brawl was on! It wasn't long before goaltender Sam Clegg, who'd been taking a lot of pokes, shoves and slashes from Simpson all night, decided to get into it and he too charged the penalty box. Clegg's move inspired Dayton goalie John "LaVasseur" to leave his crease and start taking shots at Saginaw players. LaVasseur, however, did not drop any of his equipment other than his stick. Enraged by this cowardly act Clegg faced LaVasseur challenging him to take off his mask and gloves and "fight fair." Instead, LaVasseur, still in his gear went after Clegg looking to do some damage. That served to make Don Perry's head explode- having spent so many years in the stitches leagues, Perry had seen a lot of fights and plenty of bench brawls, but LaVasseur's actions now were way over the line. Perry and Gunner both went out after "the little coward." Gears minor official Ken Schueler, who was tending the Dayton penalty box, was forced to climb over the glass in order to escape the riot. Now the Gears players, coach and trainer were all in a tooth and nail brawl with the Dayton Gems. The fight was so violent that they actually broke the penalty box. ("I'm tellin' you Broom County is just visibly upset by this display... come on down and buy tickets for the home games, bring the kids, we've got entertainment for the whole family!" -Jim Carr "Slapshot." )

It took more than a half hour to get the fights stopped and get the penalties sorted out. It took almost that long for the fans to sit down in their seats too. For the Gems Simpson got a game misconduct for goon-like behaviour and Fleming got a game misconduct for first man off the bench. On the Gears side Clegg got a game misconduct for leaving his crease, Dave Cressman was given a game misconduct for leaving the penalty box and Mike Hornby was given a game misconduct for going into the box after Simpson. Coach Don Perry was also ejected from the game for being "really, really grumpy." He was also looking at a suspension and fine.

This whole situation left Wren Blair with half of the home opener still left to play and no one to coach the team! Blair, who had formerly coached the North Stars, was the only professional coach in the arena besides Tom McVie of the Gems, and it was a sure bet McVie wasn't going to help. Thus, Wren Blair, who had come to town to relax, suddenly found himself behind the bench picking up the pieces after a brawl- and he was NOT happy about it. Still, as Blair came onto the ice and headed to the Gears bench the Saginaw fans went nuts- they knew that the team was in steady hands

Jim Armstrong took Clegg's place in the net for Saginaw, but for reasons unexplained LaVassaur was allowed to remain in the game for Dayton. John Gaw scored for Dayton at 15:57 of the second period and Juri Kudrasovs got Saginaw's first goal of the season exactly 4 minutes later. The third period was very quiet with Lowell Ostlund at the final goal for the Gears at 12:31. The game ended with the Gears losing 3 to 2.

In the wake of the home-opener bench brawl IHL Commissioner Bill Beagan traveled to Saginaw to visit local TV stations and review news video of the brawl. In the end Don Perry ended up with a 5 game suspension which conveniently covered the Gears next meeting with the Gems on November 2nd. There was also a hefty fine applied, but the amount was not made public. Both Blair and Perry blamed Referee Kerry Fraser in the media for "losing control of the game" but no one blamed the Gems for losing control of their players (one who reached out of the box and another one who was first off the bench as well as a goalie too chicken to remove his mask and fight like a hockey player) or Perry for losing control of himself. In their book it was all put on the newbee ref. who let 'em keep playing. During his suspension, Perry was replaced behind the Gears bench by Ted O'Connor the chief scout for the Minnesota North Stars. O'Connor had been scouting in Toronto when he go the call from Wren Blair to come to Saginaw. The Gears skated to wins in 4 out of 5 games under O'Connor including the next Gems game, but went into a slump upon Perry's return. What a way to start the season.

Wally Shaver: "Oh How I Remember The Gears."

(Editor's Note: Following the 1972-73 season, the Saginaw Gears were minus one announcer as Pat Shetler departed. The beginning of the second season brought a new voice added to that of Al Blade as the WSAM radio broadcasts were tuned in by Gears fans. For the next four seasons we would hear the voice of Wally Shaver when the team of "Shaver and Blade" gave us the play-by-play and Gears action. Many winter nights would find countless Gears fans with an ear glued to their AM radios as the Gears played and Wally gave us every move in detail. In making this site I contacted Wally and asked him to please recount a few of his memories of those days and he was nice enough to take the time to respond- the text of which is seen here...)

Oh how I remember the Gears. After all, it was my debut into the hockey business – one that I am still enjoying 38 years later. I presently broadcast the hockey games for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and handle the publicity for college hockey’s top individual prize, the Hobey Baker Award.

Just after Labor Day of 1973, I was hired by Wren Blair for the Gears second season and joined Al Blade on the marketing staff and shared with him the radio broadcasting duties of all Gears games. I remember my first meeting with sports writer John Poznell. He honestly thought it was a stage name. “Blade and Shaver doing hockey games – c’mon that can’t be real can it?” After whipping out my driver’s license, he was convinced we weren’t pulling a fast one.

My Debut
It had been my dream to broadcast hockey. Growing up in Canada, our family moved to the U.S. in 1967 when the NHL expanded by six teams. My dad Al Shaver was hired to broadcast the Minnesota North Stars games and did so for all 26 years of the franchise before their 1993 move to Dallas. I wanted to follow in his footsteps and hopefully make it to the NHL some day myself. (I finally did in 1981 and worked for the North Stars for eight years handling corporate sales, marketing and broadcasting the TV games).

However, after my first two broadcasts in the “I”, thoughts of a different career path crossed my mind. The first game was in Flint and the Gears beat the Generals 8-6, a wild scoring game in an era when five goals was a big night. Our home opener the next night was against the Dayton Gems. That is one game I’ll never forget. Tempers soared as the game progressed and finally erupted in a fight that led to a bench clearing brawl. Everybody entered the fray and the Dayton goalie, Louie Lavaseur, was roaming around with his gloves and mask still on and taking pot shots at guys who were engaged in tussles of their own. That was all it took for coach Don Perry. He ventured out on the ice and went right after cheap shot Louie. After that weekend, I’m thinking, “what the hell have I gotten into?”

Rock N’ Roll Part II
I haven’t relayed this story very often but I certainly don’t mind letting everyone know that I made Gary Glitter more famous than he ever could on his own. Back in the 1975-76 season, we had a game in Toledo. I can’t remember the outcome, but what stuck in my mind was the electric atmosphere the Goaldiggers had created in that dump of an arena. Occasionally during stoppages in play, they piped in music over the P.A. system. This really inspired the crowd with a good hand-clapping, foot stomping beat. It was pretty cool. The crowd responded with great enthusiasm and it certainly jacked up the team.

On the bus ride home, Al Blade and I were commenting on the atmosphere the music created. We decided to research doing that ourselves. The arena said no problem; they could play music over their system. We decided we didn’t want to use the Goaldiggers theme song and needed to search for our own identity. I was giving it a lot of thought and listening to a lot of music to find something that would fit. I called my good friend Bill Courbier with WSAM radio, our broadcast outlet to enlist his help.

At the time, Gary Glitter had a song that was getting some airplay called “Rock N’ Roll Part II.” It got into the top 20 hit parade but not much higher. I told Bill, “We’re looking for something like that with a catchy beat; something fans can clap to; something with a lot of instrumentals that would allow a longer shelf life.” We discussed a few titles and decided he’d put a few songs on tape and get them over to me.

We listened to the selections in the office. Then I played them for the team on the bus on our next road trip. Rock N’ Roll Part II had a slight edge over the other tunes, but I had already decided this was going to be the one. We introduced it to our crowd and it was accepted right away. Thus, Rock N’ Roll Part II became our theme song. Visiting teams to Wendler Arena loved it, often complimenting us on how it revved up the crowd.

There was a marketing guy working for the Kalamazoo Wings, Kevin O’Brien, who left the K-Wings to join the Colorado Rockies of the NHL. He readily recognized what a crowd motivating tune this was and called to ask me if they could use it at their games. I said sure. From there, Rock N’ Roll Part II blossomed into one of the all-time great sports theme songs used in almost every arena and sport at all levels.

My only regret is I didn’t get a cut of the royalties Glitter gleaned from the sudden sports stardom and that he turned out to be such a sexual deviate in his later years.

Turner Cup
My fourth and final year with the Gears was the memorable 1976-77 season. We had a really good team and I could sense this was going to be a great ride. And it certainly was. Although, it was close. "Sagy" made it to the Cup finals and a Game 6 in Toledo resulted in a loss to even the series at 3-3. Returning home for the final, we beat Toledo to capture the Cup. The celebration in the Civic Center was fantastic. The party in the ballroom was so joyous to see the players and fans all having an unbelievable good time. No one wanted it to end.

But it did. I figured, here I am just 25 years old, we just won the title and surely more would follow. That’s not the way things work. My future moves took me to Flint for three years, Wichita, KS for one year, eight years with the North Stars, a couple years with the Minnesota Moose and finally the Golden Gophers. I would frequently look at my Turner Cup ring from ’77, savoring that league championship and wondering if it would ever happen again. Winning it all is a very difficult task – there are plenty of opponents who want it as well, regardless of how good you think your team is. It wouldn’t be until the back-to-back national titles for the University of Minnesota in 2002 and 2003 that I would taste season-ending victory again.

Winning it all is even more elusive in college hockey. There are 57 other opponents who are trying to accomplish the same thing, yet only one is left standing. Championships are rare – enjoy them when they happen.

I’ve absolutely loved my career in hockey – something I would never trade. I’m really glad I didn’t let that first wild weekend in Saginaw convince me otherwise.


(Editor's Note: First off, thank you Wally! You have really sparked the motor of the memories machine among Saginaw hockey fans. I recall many a night of working at the Civic Center, ushering, sweeping floors or guarding doors with the radio plugged into one ear and your voice calling a Gears game on the other end of the wire. You probably have no idea how many folks spent how many evenings, snowy afternoons and hours listening to you and those Gears games when we should have been "working."

I recall, while down in Florida doing flight training in the mid 1980s, I tuned in ESPN for a Northstars game. They were having a blizzard up there that night and the ESPN announcing crew could not get in. Wally Shaver picked up the broadcast. I excitedly called my dad up in Michigan and told him to tune in. Then I got my roommates and dragged each one in to watch- none of them were hockey fans, but I really got a thrill of watching the game that night.

You have plenty of fans out there Wally, and I can say from all of them, we would very much like you to drop a memory or two upon us again. You will ALWAYS be welcome here at Saginaw Gears dot com.

PS- Sorry about the picture... it was the best I could find from "back in the day.")

A special comment

I'm getting a lot of comments here from Gears fans and players, but I'm also getting a few that I consider to be very special, because they come from folks that are good friends of mine that I've not heard from in decades. This one comes from Bruce Cech. Bruce and I went all through Nelle Haley Elementary school together. We were in the 3rd grade together when he advanced and was wisely flunked and then ended up a year behind him. As it turned out, Bruce became (if I recall correctly) the Captain of patrol boys in the 6th grade and then ended up training me to be a captain the next year. So to say that Bruce and I go way back would be an understatement. It is Bruce's story, however, that I find must be elevated beyond the "comment's" area- so here it is. Bruce, it is GREAT to hear from you after all these years.


“ I was an usher at the Civic Center in the early days of the Gears..Then a season ticketholder...I broke into broadcasting having worked at WSAM. And it was Al Blade that inspired me to get into play-by-play hockey broadcasting. My first gig was calling Alaska Gold King mens senior hockey in Fairbanks, Alaska. Dennis Desrosiers hired me to call Saginaw General/Hawks hockey for two seasons...Alaska called again and I returned to call University of Alaska Nanook Hockey...Just completed my 23rd season as voice of the Nanooks, members of the CCHA!!! BRUCE CECH(Saginaw High 1975) March 29, 2011 2:50 AM”

"Bobby... open the window"

Trades and releases are all a part of professional sports at any level. Sometimes such trades and releases take place for reasons that are totally subjective and often to the players involved, such events are a bit painful and seem quite unfair. Even superstars get the treatment. Phil Esposito once recalled a night in a hotel room during the 1975-76 season when he was summoned to coach Don Cherry's room with Bobby Orr. Cherry bluntly told Esposito that he was being traded. "Don't tell me it's New York," Espo' said deadpan, "or I'll jump out that window." Cherry turned to Orr and said "Bobby... open the window."

In the early part of the 1973-74 season the Saginaw Gears made a number of changes in their roster- some of which seemed unexplainable to Gears fans. Some fan favorites such as Mike Legg, Steve Lyon, Murray McNeil and Elgin McCann were suddenly sent to to the newly formed Columbus Owls with the only explanation being that they were traded for "future considerations." Gears fans responded with a collective "Say What!?" After all, Columbus had won just 10 (yes TEN) games in the previous season as the Seals and only five more games than that the season before! What possible "considerations" could the new Owls franchise offer the Gears that would be worth four of our best players? To the players, being told that they were being sent to Columbus where their home rink, the Fairgrounds Coliseum, did not even have glass on the boards- instead it had "chicken wire" was probably a lot like telling them they were being sent to hockey hell. Aside from having to skate in that barn, they were also being added to a team that was newborn out of the thankfully dead Seals franchise.

Bobby... open the window.

In the end of October, 1973 the new Columbus Owls were slated to meet the Saginaw Gears for the first time. The game was scheduled to take place in Saginaw's Wendler arena, where the rink did have glass instead of "chicken wire." The day of the game, John Pozenel, who was at the time one of the lead sports reporters for the Saginaw News ran an interview with Steve Lyon. The piece was titled "Lyon, Ex-Gears Looking Forward To a Reunion." In it the former Gear was asked if he and his fellow Gears expatriates were indeed looking forward to the game. "You bet your (bleep) I'm looking forward to playing in Saginaw" When asked if playing against his friends and former teammates would be a problem he said, "I always like to knock people on their butts. If they happen to be friends, that's even better." Lyon also said that he thought this new Columbus team was a lot like Saginaw's team the previous season, "We've got a big young team. Maybe we don't stick handle and stuff as well as some of the other teams, but everybody knows we're going to be physical. We only have seven guys who played in this league last year and four of them are from Saginaw." He added, "I think we all feel the same way. We have something to prove to Saginaw." Pozenel concluded the article with a question of his own to his readers "Did the Saginaw Gears make a mistake in letting the four go? Tonight's game may begin to answer that question."

What a lot of fans have never witnessed is the players hanging out before the game- and I mean before the doors open, when the players had just arrived on the bus and the Gears were just coming into the building. Very often, the players from each team would stand together and joke and talk- because many of them knew each other. They had played together in other leagues, in the juniors and on other teams in the past. One night before a game that was billed as a big grudge match as their had been brawl in the previous meeting between the teams, I stood and listened to a Gears player and a player from the other team joke about the big brawl with one another. "Why'd ya' have to hit me in the ear like that?" the one player snickered, "my f#&kin' ear was ringin' for two f#&kin' days." The other player just smiled and said, "Ya' had my f#&kin' jersey over my head, I couldn't see where I was hittin' ya'." The secret is that these guys are all about playing the sport and they don't take it personally. Tonight they may be your opposition, tomorrow it may be "Bobby...open the window," and they may be doing their job on the same team.

So it was that the new Columbus Owls came to town, and appeared to carry on where the Seals left off as the Gears rolled over them 7 to 0. Before and after the game I saw the four former Gears hanging out with their former teammates. Talking, joking and not taking the game results nearly as seriously as the fans took them. The fact is that in this, their initial season as the Owls, the Columbus team was indeed just as Steve Lyon had said in the interview with Pozenel, much more like the 72-73 Gears than like the 72-73 Seals. They were actually building the foundation for a good hockey team. They went on to win 40 games in the 1973-74 season, 10 more than the Gears won in their first season and 2 more than the Gears would win in the current season. Thus, perhaps the four former Gears did actually prove something to Saginaw- it just took them more than one game to do it.

Bobby... open the window.