SLU hockey 1971-1979

[college pucks]

I was wondering if anyone would have some information of some of NCAA D1 hockey history at SLU. As you know 1971-1979 SLU competed in the CCHA (now defunct) as a varsity sport. I'm putting a template together with hockey pucks used by NCAA schools. If anyone would have information about these pucks, or might be able to add any information, please shoot me an email.

This is the link to the SLU template.

http://collegepucks.angelfire.com/st.-louis.html

Thanks again!

[email protected]

[slu72]

I was a Junior when it started, but was more a BB fan. I think it got started because the school was trying to capitalize on the popularity of the Blues who we're selling out the old arena every game. They recruited a whole bunch of Canadians, go figure, and were a pretty solid team right out of the box. I did see them play in Boston in 1973 at BC and they lost a close game. I'm not sure how they drew, since I just went to BB games, which weren't that well attended back then either, but lack of interest probably killed the program. I wished they'd put that money into the BB program as we went thru some pretty tough times from 1973 until the late 80s that set us back big time.

[MusicCityBilliken]

I had a bunch of those Canadians live on my freshman (70-1) year floor, 3 Gries. Good group of guys. Had Paradowski, Fisher, Reis and Dangos of the MBB team also, so it was quite a floor.

They started out slow that year, they were all freshmen, but each year improved. I forget the name of the coach other then his nickname, "the Monk". Recall he had NHL coaching experience. Team drew very well in the old Arena. A lot the St Louis locals who could not get in or afford Blues tickets kind of adopted them.

One the players, Bobby Francis, was the son legendary NY Rangers coach Emile Francis. I believe Emile was later GM of the Blues. All the Rangers resided in Long Beach, Long Island, not far from where I grew up and on one of the return flight from school to LaGuardia Airport with Bobby, Emile Francis gave me lift to my home. He was full of stories and spoke with a heavy French Canadian accent.

The hockey team most famous player was probably Mario Faubert who played 2 years with Bills. Faubert had a pretty nice career with the NHL Penguins till it ended with a injury in a game with the Blues.

[slu72]

Al, I was racking my senile brain trying to come w/ that coach's name. Can't raise it from the data bank. If I'm correct, he looked a little like Scotty Bowman. I thought they played pretty well, at least competitive, right from the get go, but I never really followed them.

[MusicCityBilliken]

Al, I was racking my senile brain trying to come w/ that coach's name. Can't raise it from the data bank. If I'm correct, he looked a little like Scotty Bowman. I thought they played pretty well, at least competitive, right from the get go, but I never really followed them.

He did kind of look like Scotty Bowman.

What I was told they recruited very well. It would be like MBB team getting only 3 and 4 star recruits. Talking with the players on what attracted them to Saint Louis U was the special relationship they had with the Blues.

[West Pine Jim]

Bill Selman was his name. Was evidently a very good coach. I was on 8 Griesedieck when the Canadian frosh came. Good guys, including big Carl Sapinsky, our goalie. We were pretty good, right off the bat. The games were fun and our attendance was pretty good too as I recall. One or two Bills made the NHL. I guess the program eventually got too expensive to maintain. Bonwich, any ideas ? Selman was recently inducted into the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame. The Billiken NHLer was a defenseman named Mario ???? .

[MusicCityBilliken]

The Billiken NHLer was a defenseman named Mario ???? .

Faubert

[Bay Area Billiken]

Taj79 is the man for this information.

I was a freshman at SLU the last year of Billiken Hockey, '78-'79. A number of the players lived on our 6G (Cellblock 6). Among them were Chris Valentine, Gus Gazzola, defenseman Bruce Wallace, Mike Denk, Pierre (aka Guy), Luc. Pierre was a Senior, Luc a freshman, and both of them were French Canadians. Wallace was from Vancouver.

Freshman Chris Valentine made the NHL with the Washington Capitals. He centered the #1 scoring line with Chuck Durocher on LW. Doug Butler was a big star on defense. Carl Bloomberg was the Goalie.

As noted above, Bill Selmon was the coach. The Billiken skated onto the ice leading the team. Ernie Hays played the organ up in the rafters at the then Checkerdome (aka St. Louis Arena and the Old Barn).

The A.D. then was **** McDonald, who came to SLU from St. Peter's. Fr. Drummond was the Interim SLU President that year, between his predecessor, Fr. Dan O'Connell, and his successor, Fr. Thomas Fitzgerald. Word was that SLU picked keeping the Basketball team over Hockey. We went to both teams' games. The Hockey team would have 2 game series on the weekends.

We wanted to keep both teams. I may have been in the minority in the dorm in wanting to keep Basketball if one of the two had to go.

There is one famous story of a blizzard, and fellow dorm mates from our Cellblock 6 manning the penalty boxes at the Checkerdome.

We also had SLU Basketball players Curtis Hughes and Henry Tiegs on our floor my freshman year, also Craig Shaver, as I recall, and LaTodd Johnson beginning my Sophomore and LaTodd's freshman year. Shaver would have these great starts to games, looking like a Dr. J out there for the first 5 minutes or so.

Among the powerhouse SLU Soccer team players that lived on our floor were Larry Hulcer and Don Huber my freshman year, and Mark Fredrickson, who was in my class. Ty Keough did not room on our floor, but was often present on the floor. Mark Fredrickson was a very good basketball player, who played guard on our floor intramural team. LaTodd Johnson played 2B and led off on our intramural softball team.

Those, my fellow Billikens, were the days.

[Box and Won]

Good hockey thread from the board: http://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17504

[Bay Area Billiken]

With all the freshman on that last SLU Hockey team ('78-'79), we often thought we would have had one great team had the program not been canceled.

In those days, there was always something. The SLU Basketball team (7-20 under Coach Ron Coleman in '77-'78) the year before my freshman year had the Metro Conference Freshman of the Year, #32 Ricky Frazier. By the time I reached SLU, Ricky was at Mizzou.

I actually mentioned this in a conversation last night. My first Billiken Basketball game in person was that '77-'78 season at the old Kiel Auditorium, as I saw one of the 7 wins that season, a Saturday night home court win over Tulane. When we were in the Metro, we were overmatched against the likes of Louisville (National Champs one of those years), Florida State, et al. But we could (sometimes) beat the Tulane Green Wave. We had our moments against the then Memphis State too.

Anyway, that night against Tulane, I remember being quite intrigued as the SLU Jazz Band, seated on the stage side, played "Three Blind Mice" at the zebras after questionable calls.

[bonwich]

Luc Berthiaume.

I was the arena announcer for the first final year and Taj did it for the actual final year. (In typical SLU style, they dropped hockey and brought it back for one year.)

I might have lunch with Coach Selman next week.

They basically had to drop it because it had been almost completely subsidized by the Salamons for the first five years.

I'll write more when I'm not on my phone.

[bills16]

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/display_players.php?tmi=8200

http://www.jcs-group.com/trueblues/teams/part.html

[slu72]

Bill Selman was his name. Was evidently a very good coach. I was on 8 Griesedieck when the Canadian frosh came. Good guys, including big Carl Sapinsky, our goalie. We were pretty good, right off the bat. The games were fun and our attendance was pretty good too as I recall. One or two Bills made the NHL. I guess the program eventually got too expensive to maintain. Bonwich, any ideas ? Selman was recently inducted into the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame. The Billiken NHLer was a defenseman named Mario ???? .

Selmon was his name. I didn't go to any games, but thought they did pretty well for a start up team reading about them in the UNews.

[MB73]

They out drew The Blues (per game), huge crowds for NCAA hockey, and were getting free ice time + other free considerations, but The Arena was sold to Ralston and Ralston then charged SLU for everything, the Arena (CheckerDome) and other items and the Jesuits shut the program down, just like that.

It was very good hockey, wide open (no red line) and no hard checking and grabbing and the kids were small back then so it was a high scoring finesse game. They played 2 game weekend series against good teams like Ohio State. No fighting allowed in NCAA.

The players were nice clean cut guys, drank some beer, showed appreciation for the opportunity to play for Selman in I think the largest NCAA arena in the USA. Selman went to work for AB for > 10 years after the Jesuits slammed the door. Selman was a good coach and a colorful character, to boot.

I am no hockey fan but the games were exciting and the players were good kids.

[bonwich]

The players were nice clean cut guys, drank some beer, showed appreciation for the opportunity to play for Selman in I think the largest NCAA arena in the USA. Selman went to work for AB for > 10 years after the Jesuits slammed the door. Selman was a good coach and a colorful character, to boot.

Fun fact: Bill Selman and D!ck McDonald, who dropped the hockey program when he was athletic director, shared an office at A-B.

(And the hockey team spent a good part of that drinking time at J&A's, on Laclede a few blocks west of campus.)

[Taj79]

Bonowich and I have slightly different remebrances of the PA announcer days but why split hairs (for the correct record, J&A's was on Newstead and I think the hockey team spent most of it's time at Pastori's on LaClede next to Calico's and Ballhooters over on Lindell).....

I know I covered the Hockey Bills for the Unews back in those days (75 - 79). I have never met a microphone I didn't like and met the then-current announcer George "Jud" Williams as a member of our frat, then Phi Kappa Kappa (now back to Phi Kappa Theta, maybe?). He was a junior when I was a freshman pledge and I did some subbing and then took over the gig for the most part my junior and senior year. I do remember Joe doing some games as I went back to PA during semester break but we also had another guy Mike Smith, a 6'6" redhead, do a few as well. Jud was like a lot of guys back then -- came to SLU from Minnesota, tried to play hockey, didn't stick, but stayed for school. A few Canadiens did the same --- Chris Hentgen and Michele St. Laurent (who's uncle Pierre was big with Toronto, I believe) were some others. We had a guy on our floor (16G) Steve Gianni who came from LA to play goalie and suffered the same fate. I rememeber hockey "camp' on campus starting welcome week, and they seemed to always have 50 or so guys in tow to start --- cuts were always made.

Coach was indeed Bill Selman, one mean SOB as I recall. A Woody Hayes clone on skates. I would walk across the ice into the bowels of the Arena and get both starting lineups to announce from each coach. Selman was kind enough then, but I never tarried too long. Gary Murphy was a star then, a centericeman from Ontario. Bastard dated the best looking girl in the dorm -- Sue Ann G (name hidden to protect the innocent). Doug Butler a tremendous defenseman also from Ontario. George Kryzer from Minnesota. The Major brothers -- Steve and Mark. The first goalie I recall was Lindsey Middlebrook who did have a minor stint with Rangers later. Carl Blommberg was the golaie-to-be, but could never seem to stay healthy ---- he would have his thumb explode in his cacthing mitt on slapshots at times. Wayne Ormson --- "The Worm" --- about 5'6" tall on skates even. Bundle of energy. Chuck Durocher. Lots of great guys, lots of great memories. Mike Dent. Luc Berthiume. Names long forgotten.

I believe we also had a freshman near the end, Mike Krushelnyski -- who later became the center for the third or fourth line of Gretzky's great Edmonton teams. Chris Valentine was smooth, even his only year with us. We played in the CCHA and the teams we faced included Lake Superior State (Soo Lakers), Western Michigan, Northern Michigan, Central Michigan, Ferris State, St. Lawrence (NY) University (SLU vs. SLU), Bowling Green, Ohio State and so on. We had a double exhibition game one weekend against the US Olympic hockey team that later made Al Michaels immortal at Lake Placid (we got creamed). The crowds had dwindled by the late 70's --- I think the largest one I did was before about 10K the game after the program closure was announced. Games were weekend double-headers -- Friday night followed by a 1 or 2 pm Sunday afternoon start. Calico's was a big sponsor trying to get the Sunday afternoon crowd in for after games. That failed.

In that game, we scored two goals late, the game winner by Chuck Durocher to beat Mike Liut and Ken Morrow's #1 Bowling Green team at the time. Talk about bittersweet. Liut had a decent career with the Blues; Morrow was an all-star defenseman for the Islanders.

I had a huge run-in with Ernie Hayes, the organist. No one ever explained the light switch in my booth, between the penalty boxes on the ice. Apparently, if you hit that switch, that clicked on a light on Ernie's keyboard, signaling him to stop playing because I had something to say. He only ever had to explain it once. But he was NOT happy he had to walk from the building's rafters down to the ice to tell me. The old Arena only had two escalators -- which were programmed to go up before games, and down after games. The rest was all walking. Ernie had to hoof it and waste some major play time. After that, even when I used the light switch, he took his good old time wrapping up whatever he was playing. I guess I deserved that.

The worst thing about the Arena and games were games that came the day after a concert was held in the venue. The blue seats in the Parquet section closest the ice were accessible by what could only be described as tunnels. The passages were so tight, two average-sized people could barely squeeze by. After a concert, the smell of puke, piss, pot and other fumers stayed in those hallways forever. While they did connect to the bowels and the lockerroms, walking the ice, while more dangerous and slippery, was the better was to go, lest one wanted to toss cookies from the stench.

As for Mr. College puck who started this, please change the name on the link to "Saint Louis" and not "St. Louis." Get it right from the get-go. J&A's on LaClede ... jeez ......

[bonwich]

Picky, picky. You'll be happy to know that J&A's is still there, believe it or not. At 10 North Newstead. Facing Newstead from a building (actually two or three connecting buildings wrapping around the two streets) on the corner of Laclede. (No cap L, by the way, Mr. Address Cop. ) Catercorner from the offices of architect Jeff Brambila, who designed my house. So there.

As for where the hockey team drank, I know that some of it was at J&A's, because they used to do so there with the members of the female "skate squad," the intermission entertainment, which I think was called the Billiken Blades. (Which also reminds me of how the dwindling attendance made it easy to shout insults/jokes and be heard. Especially Bill and Terry, two die-hard fans who always sat next to us -- it was open seating in the student section, in the yellow seats at center ice). One particular opponent had the novel concept of a female manager.

Bill: "Hey, they've got a stick girl. Do you suppose they let her in the locker room?"

Terry: "Only between periods!"

(Much better, and much more spontaneous, than the "Who cares?" "So what?" sequence from the current Band, or even the "Sieve!" chant the UW students used to do after every freakin' goal up there.)

Then there was the time that it was so empty that people were yelling requests up to Ernie -- I think that was one of the <500 attendance ice storm games -- and he was playing them.

Selman was a taskmaster to his players, but he was sweet as hell (in a persnickety Canuck kind of way) in person. Used to co-host an annual picnic at, I think, Herm Kriegshauser's house every spring. Actually, given his style, baldness and off-ice relationship with his boys, he was almost Majerus-like in many ways. When the program disbanded he moved to the Milwaukee Admirals of, I believe, the AHA. That was while I was in Madison, so I went over and did a "where are they now" feature for one of the St. Louis papers.

Gary Murphy. Sue Ann. Wow. I was trying to remember their names when this thread started. Sue Ann was my Oriflamme leader. Had a severe crush on her until I found out whom she was dating. (Sorry, can't do pix or GTFO from that far back, although there is an archive of yearbooks somewhere on the SLU site, so perhaps one exists.)

Before Middlebrook and Bloomberg, there was Ralph Kloiber, who if memory serves was left-handed. When the program first started, Selman quickly put a team together by scouring the Canadian junior leagues -- and he did it again after a bunch of people left when the team was disbanded and resurrected. (I think that's how Krush got to SLU.)

Doug Butler is still in St. Louis and his kid ended up starting in juniors here and ending up in the NHL (!): http://bit.ly/1gcwYXL

In the early days, St. Louis kids couldn't even dream of making the team, but as time went on, a few made the third or fourth lines. There was a kid from DeSmet, last name began with a Z, I think, who had an absolute rocket slapshot but was a little too small. (Edit: Greg Zielinski? Or was there also someone else? Steve P...?)

Edit: Stuff takes almost a full day to emerge from the back of my brain. The DeSmet kid was Dan Pupillo.

Jud was sports editor at the U. News before me and Taj took over that job the following year because I was graduating. The only reason I know I did the "first final" year of hockey was that I called the last period of the last game with the line "There is one minute remaining in the Billikens."

I think this was mentioned in one of the other hockey threads, but for the longest time, until maybe a decade ago, SLU held the NCAA single-game attendance record for hockey.

And it now occurs to me that I've been out of college for 35 years. Yikes!

[almaman]

They out drew The Blues (per game), huge crowds for NCAA hockey, and were getting free ice time + other free considerations, but The Arena was sold to Ralston and Ralston then charged SLU for everything, the Arena (CheckerDome) and other items and the Jesuits shut the program down, just like that.

It was very good hockey, wide open (no red line) and no hard checking and grabbing and the kids were small back then so it was a high scoring finesse game. They played 2 game weekend series against good teams like Ohio State. No fighting allowed in NCAA.

The players were nice clean cut guys, drank some beer, showed appreciation for the opportunity to play for Selman in I think the largest NCAA arena in the USA. Selman went to work for AB for > 10 years after the Jesuits slammed the door. Selman was a good coach and a colorful character, to boot.

I am no hockey fan but the games were exciting and the players were good kids.

Ralston Purina showing their Waspishness. One year SLU had coupons useable for soccer, hockey or b ball. The final day they expired was a hockey game and it either was or close to a sellout because everyone didn't want to eat their coupons.

[almaman]

Fun fact: Bill Selman and D!ck McDonald, who dropped the hockey program when he was athletic director, shared an office at A-B.

(And the hockey team spent a good part of that drinking time at J&A's, on Laclede a few blocks west of campus.)

Was great underage place back in my coming of age. Did those two do AB time before or after SLu hockey?

[bonwich]

Was great underage place back in my coming of age. Did those two do AB time before or after SLu hockey?

After. Both retired from athletics into the sports marketing division of A-B (although not at the same time).

[Taj79]

Much like our coaching moves, our AD's don't go on to much better either, Debbie Yow excepted. I know Levrick is now at Georgia State (I think) and there was that one guy who went to South Florida --- Doug Woolard --- who's still there.

[MB73]

The last year they brought in three St. Louis players for the first time, schollies for all three, it was a big deal it had always been Canuck-Cheesers-Eh holes.

The three then went through pre season only to find the Jesuits closed the program, so they were sh*t out of luck, no way Selman was going to play them at all, he had one year of hockey and wanted to win, not develop freshmen for the next year.