Al Strachan - Hockeys Hot Stove: The Untold Stories of the Original Insiders

ALSO BY AL STRACHAN

Go to the Net: Eight Goals That Changed the Game

Why the Leafs Suck and How They Can Be Fixed

Don Cherrys Hockey Stories and Stuff (with Don Cherry)

I Am Not Making This Up: My Favourite Hockey Stories from a Career Covering the Game

Over the Line: Wrist Shots, Slap Shots, and Five-Minute Majors

99: Gretzky: His Game, His Story

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Copyright 2020 by Alan Strachan

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This Simon & Schuster Canada edition December 2020

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Jacket images: Hockey Stick: Walik; TV: Spiderstock; Hot Stove: CBC

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Hockeys hot stove : the untold stories of the original insiders / Al Strachan.

Names: Strachan, Al, author.

Description: Simon & Schuster Canada edition

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200208160 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200208179 | ISBN 9781982147013 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781982147020 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Hockey night in Canada (Television program) | LCSH: HockeyAnecdotes. | LCSH: National Hockey LeagueAnecdotes.

Classification: LCC GV742.3 .S77 2020 | DDC 070.4/497969620971dc23

ISBN 978-1-9821-4701-3

ISBN 978-1-9821-4702-0 (ebook)

This one is for Penny, who I think of every day

W hen Hot Stove came on the air, the hockey world stopped. In every press box where Canadian teams were playing, there was a stampede towards the TV monitors. Columnists, reporters, and broadcasters left their laptops at their workstations and dashed to hear what was being said.

In the western Canadian arenas, where the teams had just warmed up for the second game of the Saturday-night doubleheader on Hockey Night in Canada, the players gathered around the dressing-room televisions. For a while, the timing and duration of pregame preparation had varied. But before long, players were demanding that pregame skates be coordinated with the TV schedule. NHL players, it seems, were as fascinated by hockey gossip as everyone else.

In the coaches rooms and in the general managers offices, it was the same story. Satellite Hot Stove was required viewing. It was the Hockey Night in Canada segment that could not be missed. Even the on-ice officialsthe referees and linesmenwere glued to the TV in their dressing rooms.

And most important, in living rooms across Canada, a cone of silence descended. It was time to catch up on the inside news from around the league. The younger kids had been put to bed, and the older ones could be counted upon to follow orders and keep quiet for eight minutes.

The show had various names. Sometimes it was Satellite Hot Stove or Hot Stove by Satellite, or simply, Hot Stove. Sometimes it was After 40 Minutes or just plain After 40. To avoid confusion, Ill generally refer to the show throughout the book as Hot Stove, even though, at the moment in question, the tall foreheads at the CBC might have decided to present it under another name. Whatever the show was called, the idea was always the same. In the second intermission of the first game on Hockey Night in Canada, media insiders would reveal to viewers what was going on in hockeys secret world.

Because the show aired once a week, the myriad Hockey Night in Canada employees who put it together (it was, after all, a CBC production in those days and therefore overstaffed) had plenty of time to try to justify their presence. Thats why there was always tinkering.

Names changed. Faces changed. Intros changed. The music changed. The sponsors changed. Even executive producers changed. People were fired [puts up hand]. People were brought back [puts up hand, again]. But for more than a decade, with only a few short-lived aberrations, the idea never changed. Tell the viewers what they didnt already know. Give them information they couldnt get anywhere else.

The move to Sportsnet in 2014 changed all that. The second intermission on Saturday became, for the most part, a few people discussing the news from Tuesday or telling you what you had just seen during the game. It gradually got better, but its early productions were not riveting, to say the least. A small part of the show might have involved breaking news, but that was no longer the primary focus.

Did the original Hot Stove enrage some hockey people? Yes, it did, without a doubt. But it was always my feeling that I didnt work for the people we were talking about during the telecast. We worked for the viewers, and as a result, I occasionally said things that were almost certain to create what might politely be referred to as feedback, but which often took the form of obscenity-laden phone calls.

But I always believed I was telling the truth, and if it angered some people, so be it. Thats the approach I intend to take in this book as well. There will be those who dont like what I say about them. My response is simple and the same as it was during Hot Stove: Im sorry, but at the moment, youre not my priority.

There are less delicate ways to phrase that sentiment, and in conversation I often use those four-letter words. Sometimes, they will pop up in this bookmostly when Im quoting someone. Hockey players have a language all their own. When they talk about sharking, it has nothing to do with fish. It refers to cruising around back and forth in the area in front of the net. When they talk about flow, its a hairdo. They have many others. But the one prevailing word in their language is the same one that is in common use almost everywhere these days: it is fuck.

Theres no sense bothering with asterisks. If I write s**t or a**hole, you all know what the word is. Why bother? So, Im going to use the words when they occur naturally. If you dont like that kind of language, I apologize. But the reality is that any reflection of the genuine hockey world has to include some words that were once considered reprehensible but are now standard parts of any movie, book, HBO documentary, or conversation involving teenage girls. If you have any doubts about the language that hockey players routinely use, go back and look at the postgame televised interviews with the St. Louis Blues after they won the 2019 Stanley Cup. Im just preparing you for it now.

To those who say, You didnt use that word on television, I have to say sorry, but youre wrong. You probably didnt notice because at the time John Davidson, one of my longtime compatriots on the show, was shouting over mea not uncommon occurrenceand nobody heard it. But it definitely did slip out once. I said, Oh, for fucks sake, during one of Davidsons proGary Bettman speeches. (I wasnt the only one thinking it, but I was the only one to say it.)