I spoke most recently to Mike Bossy in late June when the Islanders were preparing for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup semifinals at Tampa Bay. Had they won, The Post was going to run a special section for the final.
Which meant another conversation with one of my favorite players I have covered throughout my career about arguably the greatest team in NHL history and another chance to write about the Dynastic Islanders.
It was not to be, as the Islanders lost 1-0 in Game 7. The next story about the dynasty remained in the notebook, the next story about Bossy remained unwritten.
Until now.
Bossy is, No. 22, among the bravest hockey players I have seen. He had the courage not to fight on the ice while cheap-shotted consistently by all manner of thugs as mayhem ruled at the tail-end of the Era of the Broad Street Bullies. He had the courage of his convictions.
Now, Bossy’s courage and bravery will be tested as he confronts the most meaningful fight of his life. The Hall of Famer revealed this past Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with lung cancer. This is one from which he neither can nor will turn away. This is the fight he will confront with every fiber of his being.
I have told you before that my relationship with Bossy is one of the great joys of my career. We have kept in touch for more than four decades, chatting about old times, yes, but just as often about the contemporary game, as we exchanged multiple emails with Bossy working for the Canadian network TVA as an analyst.
So last June, I asked Bossy whether he ever looked back and had regrets about the Islanders not being able to win their fifth straight Cup in 1984, when they were knocked off in the final by the Oilers, or whether the four straight and 19 consecutive playoff series victories were enough for him.
And here, months later, is what he said.
“Absolutely I have regrets. Absolutely,” he said. “To have gone so far, people wrote us off in that fifth run in the sense that they just didn’t think we could get there.”
Those Islanders overcame a 2-0 deficit in the semis to defeat Montreal in six on their way to a rematch against the Oilers, whom they had swept a year earlier. Edmonton was fresher and younger. The Islanders were beaten up and exhausted. The teams split the first two at the Coliseum, Edmonton taking the opener 1-0 before the Islanders won Game 2 in a 6-1 rout.
But then the next three in Edmonton … oh boy … 7-2, 7-2, 5-2, Oilers.
“I think back to that series and I just wonder why we were so bad,” Bossy said. “To me, it doesn’t make any sense other than the fact Edmonton was younger and better than us.
“I always go back and say, ‘Why didn’t I do more, why didn’t we do more?’ I still go back to the overtime when we won our first Cup [in 1980] and had a two-on-one and I didn’t score. I still think about that so yes, obviously, I go back and reminisce about things. And when I do, it’s probably more about what I didn’t do and wish I could have done than about happy souvenirs about what I did.
“And that’s probably unfortunate.”
What it is and what it represents is the mindset and mentality of a four-time champion who was about the best there ever was at what he did.
And I also asked Bossy about what might have been his favorite goal, if he had a “signature goal” among the 573 he scored in the regular season and the 85 he recorded in the playoffs. I mentioned two, the 50-in-50 goal he scored against Quebec in 1980-81 and the backhand goal he scored from midair off a rebound in Game 3 of the 1982 Finals sweep of the Canucks.
“My favorite? Oh, of course the backhand goal in Vancouver,” Bossy said. “I think the 50-in-50 is probably the signature goal of my career, but in my mind the pleasing goal for me was that goal in Vancouver.
“Just because of the context, being in the Stanley Cup Finals, scoring in midair on a backhand shot. I look at it and say, ‘Wow, that was pretty cool.’ ’’
Those were notes and quotes from our last conversation that had remained in my notebook. I’m emptying it now, waiting for the next set of quotes and the next story I will write after my next conversation with the great Michael Bossy.
The NHLPA and NHL have reached an agreement under which players are permitted to participate in advertising related to sports wagering, Slap Shots has learned.
A memo sent to all players and agents on Friday outlines the agreement that comes with several guidelines, the most pertinent being that players are not permitted to be depicted “engaging in betting activities” and that the player’s endorsement, “does not promote betting on NHL games.”
I don’t love it, not at all, but if all sports leagues and individual club owners are cashing in, then there is no reason the players should not get a slice of the pie.
It is an interesting wrinkle in the rule book, isn’t it, that an elbow to the face is not necessarily considered “an illegal hit to the head?”
So, when does the talk begin to kick in about Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, each with two years remaining on contracts with matching cap hits of $10.5 million per and no-move clauses, becoming available at the deadline in a trade out of Chicago?
Finally, a memo to Team USA: Are. You. Watching. Chris?