This Day in Hockey History – August 8, 1927 – Great Gadsby

Aug 8, 2019

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Born ten years after the formation of the NHL, Bill Gadsby played 20 seasons during the Original Six era, retiring the year before the 1967 expansion. He was born at Calgary on August 8, 1927, but the defenseman never played for a Canadian NHL team. He did, however, live a long life of over 88 years before he passed away on March 10, 2016. Gadsby put it succinctly, “I think being a pro hockey player, especially in the NHL, is a great life.”

Growing up in Canada, naturally Gadsby skated as often as he could, including sneaking out at night. Eventually, his exasperated father asked if he planned to continue school or just become a professional hockey player. Judging by his success, Gadsby chose wisely when he chose the latter.

However, before he could do either, the tough defenseman twice almost came to the end of the line. At 12 in 1939, he and his mother barely survived a German U-boat torpedo attack that sunk the S.S. Athenia, killing over 100. Then, at 14, a “huge piece of concrete” nearly fell on him from four stories up.

Gadsby followed through with leaving school to pursue hockey, when at 17 he joined the Edmonton Canadians junior team. Two seasons into his time there, he was noticed by a scout for the Chicago Black Hawks. Signing with Chicago as a free agent, they paid him over $10,000 with a $3,000 signing bonus. According to Gadsby, “Before my father, Bill Sr., sent me off to play in the NHL, he offered me one piece of advice that I’ve always tried to follow: ‘Never bring the game home with you.’” Furthermore, his father asked him to keep his good reputation. “To me, what that meant was setting high standards for myself on and off the ice.”

Those high standards came at a cost. In his very first NHL game, he found himself needing 12 stitches. He ended up taking out an insurance policy that paid him $5 per stitch. It paid off mere days later when a puck split Gadsby’s lip. “The final tally was 30 stitches. It was the ugliest gash of my career. My diet consisted of tea and toast for about three weeks. I lost 11 pounds. But I had to laugh at the poor agent who sold me that stitch insurance. In less than two weeks I had paid for the policy. I had gotten back all my money, plus a $50 profit. I think they stopped offering that policy not long after that.” His wife Edna kept a log of stitches, and by the end of his career, he had an unofficial record of about 650 stitches.

In addition to stitches, Gadsby contracted polio during training camp in 1952. He still somehow made the All-Star team that season. To add to his troubles, Gadsby’s nose was broken 11 times. His motto was, “If I have a pulse, I believe I should play.” He further explained why he put himself out there for his teams, “As an athlete I felt as if I owed my coach, my teammates and the fans my best every night. As an athlete I felt I had to stand up for my teammates and myself. As an athlete I felt I couldn’t cheat the talent I had been blessed with.”

Early in his ninth season playing hard, on November 23, 1954, Chicago traded Gadsby to the New York Rangers. He blossomed offensively there. His 46 assists during the 1958-59 season set an NHL record for a defenseman.

At the end of the 1960-61 season, the Detroit Red Wings finally worked out a deal to obtain Gadsby on June 12. GM Jack Adams had wanted him since the season before, thinking he might be the right player to lead them to the Stanley Cup. For Gadsby, “Coming to Detroit, I thought it was going to be a chance to win it all. We had some tremendous teams.” However, he also admitted his original plan. “I was going to come here (to Detroit) for a year and then go back to Edmonton where I lived in the off-season. I was going to coach the farm team there. Instead, I got a new life and I lasted another five or six years with the Red Wings.”

Detroit made it to the Stanley Cup Final during three of his final four seasons there. Sadly, they lost the first two to Toronto and the last to Montreal. Reflecting back, Gadsby advised, “You can’t dwell on the disappointment. I had a wonderful career and got to play with some great players.” Still, after the 1966 disappointment, he retired. “I could have played a couple more years but the body was talking back to me. When the body starts talking back to you and you can hardly gets the legs out of bed next morning, it’s time to quit.”

Instead of leaving Detroit, Gadsby took over coaching the team through the next two seasons. Under his guidance, the team went 35-31-12 for 82 points. Gadsby then worked at a Detroit-based crane-rental company until his 1986 retirement. He kept ties with the Red Wings by raising money for Detroit children’s charities and by attending games at Joe Louis Arena.

Gadsby’s legacy was in going the distance. He was the first to skate over 300 games for each of three NHL teams, and he was the first defenseman to earn 500 points in the NHL. He played over 1,000 games (like teammate Gordie Howe), 1,248 to be exact. His 568 points (130G, 438A) was the highest for a defenseman of his era, and he also led in penalty minutes (1,539). “In reviewing my career, I’m proud that I left the NHL as the highest scoring defenseman in NHL history. I’m more proud of the fact that Gordie Howe and I were the first players to play 1,000 games. In the days of Original Six hockey, to play through injury, pain and discomfort was expected as much as it was admired. The tradition passed down from generation to generation.”

The Hockey Hall of Fame inducted Gadsby in 1970. In a 1988 list of 100 Greatest Hockey Players, Hockey News ranked him 99th. Gadsby put it perfectly when he commented, “It’s been a good life. I had to scratch and claw for everything I got but, you know, I’d do it all over again. In a minute.”