Don Ward

Don Ward may have only picked up 1 lonely assist in 34 career NHL games (3 with Chicago and 31 with Boston), but he too is a legend of hockey.

Especially in Seattle.

For most of the 1960s the 6'3" 215lb rugged blue liner was a key member of the Western Hockey League's Seattle Totems. He was the biggest of a group of giants on that back line. In fact, the defensemen were collectively dubbed the Jolly Green Giants.

Ward may have been rough and at times unforgiving, but he was no goon.

"It was fairly rough," Ward told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2006. "I didn't run all over the place, but if they came near me, I took them out. If they were looking for me, I wasn't too hard to find. It was not too bad at all. It was very enjoyable. I'd do it all over again."

"Wardie" paid a hefty price for his physical ways. He had both knees surgically repaired, broke an ankle, separated a shoulder, had three disks removed from his back, lost several teeth and was treated for countless cuts.


"I needed a few hundred stitches, all over my face and head," Ward said. "I got hit in the head with pucks and sticks. My wife says I don't have too many scars. The doctor sewed me up pretty good."

Despite all the blood and sweat, Ward never really had a chance to succeed in the NHL. Like so many journeyman players in the days of the Original Six, there was just not enough jobs and too many good hockey players.

But Ward had no regrets. Though the Sarnia, Ontario native was not even sure if people in Seattle even knew what hockey was when he first came out west, he quickly fell in love with Washington state.

And the fans loved him back. He played 11 seasons for the Totems, highlighted by consecutive WHL championships in 1967 and '68. He played 691 games, scoring 32 goals and dealing out 150 assists, while becoming the franchise leader in penalty minutes with 1,110.

Ward retired to Magnolia, Washington where he worked as a supervisor with a manufacturing company.

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Larry Regan

You could definitely say Larry Regan had a varied career in hockey.

Born in North Bay, Ontario, Regan grew up in Ottawa where he quickly earned the local reputation as a puck wizard. In the late 1940s he starred with junior and then senior hockey teams in the Canadian capital city, as well as with the Toronto Marlies.

He moved to Quebec in the early 1950s, skating for the Quebec Aces. Though he played well in Quebec, he remained buried in the pecking order of the Toronto Maple Leafs organization, the team that owned his NHL rights.

That all changed in 1956 when he joined the Boston Bruins. At the age of 27 he became one of the oldest NHL rookies of the year. He won the Calder trophy thanks to a strong 14 goal, 33 point campaign.

Described as a brash, cocky and confident individual who was not afraid to succeed, Regan played another season and a half. He enjoyed his time in Boston, and was said to be a good friend of baseball great Ted Williams.

Regan was sent back to the Leafs, playing for another couple of seasons before retiring in 1961. He met Jack Kent Cooke while in Toronto, and that would serve him well later in life.

He initially took a player-coach position with the Leafs farm team in Pittsburgh, but left after one season to head to Europe. The Austrian government hired him to develop their national hockey team in preparation for the 1964 Olympics.

When the NHL expanded in 1967 Regan returned to NHL, landing with Jack Kent Cooke's Los Angeles Kings. He was originally hired as director of player personnel. Soon enough he would become the team's general manager and coach.

"Larry was a fierce competitor both as a player and a general manager. His focus was always making the Kings competitive and successful," remembered long time Kings broadcaster Bob Miller.

Regan was the GM who landed such key pieces as Rogie Vachon, Juha Widing and Terry Harper, but he is probably best remembered for punching a referee!

Regan left LA in 1974. He moved to Montreal initially, coaching a junior hockey team before a series of back operations and a serious blood disorder sidelined him for three years.

By the 1980s he became the managing director of the Canadian Old-Timers' Hockey Association.

Larry Regan died in Ottawa on March 9th, 2009. He had a number of health problems, including Parkinson's disease.

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Johnny Peirson

"My career has been one of complete accidents."

That's how Johnny Peirson described his hockey career, both on and off the ice. The quote comes from Frank Pagnucco's 1985 book Heroes: Stars of Hockey's Golden Era.

Peirson was a student at McGill University in Montreal when the Boston Bruins organization gave him a pro tryout with their farm team, the AHL's Hershey Bears.

"I gave it an opportunity for a year or two," he recollected. "The money that was there was not very substantial but I could save some money and if I didn't get too far I could always quit and go back to school."

Peirson made the Bears team in 1947 and impressed immediately. He would end up splitting the first couple of seasons between the Bears and the Bruins.

By 1948 Peirson became a regular for the Bruins for the next decade.

Peirson adequately described himself as an "above average, not great" player.

"I would say I was above average because I was a better balanced player, a forward that knew how to back check. The only thing I wish I had done was to work more diligently on my upper body strength because I would've been a better player. I lost a lot of battles and wasn't able to do what I would like to have done from the point of view of strength. But I had some defensive skills as well as being able to find the net sometimes."

Peirson hit the 20 goal mark 4 times in his career, a very solid achievement in 1950s Original Six hockey. In 545 career games he scored 153 goals, 173 assists and 326 points.

He added another 10 goals and 26 points in 49 career post-season games, but the Bruins never would win a Stanley Cup with Peirson on the roster.

"Boston was never a powerhouse but we had some representative teams. Nobody blew us out of the building. There are some very bad teams today that would've been even sadder in our day."

Peirson retired in 1958, because his "legs sort of disappeared." He did not want to uproot his family just to extend his hockey career in some minor league city in the middle of nowhere. Instead he went to work at his father-in-law's furniture manufacturing plant, a job he would hold for many years.

Peirson also managed to remain in the Boston hockey market thanks to landing a role of colour commentator on Bruins television contests. Former B's coach Lynn Patrick got Peirson the gig, first in radio then moving to TV.

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Des Smith

Des Smith was a big and well-travelled defenseman in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Ottawa born and raised hockey star played with the Montreal Maroons, Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Black Hawks and Boston Bruins between 1938 and 1942, totalling 195 games played. But all of that happened only after he played a couple of seasons in Great Britain, first with the Wembley Lions and then the Wembley Monarchs.

Nowadays playing in Europe, even for North American players, prior to coming to the NHL is not unheard of. But back in the 1930s this was hardly the conventional way of making the big leagues. The Wembley teams were made up of all Canadian players. As such they were a power house. In fact they even played exhibition games against Canadian teams.

How Smith was recruited I do not know, but it was a good fit. He was considered to be the best defenseman in his two seasons in the BNL.

After his vagabond career in the NHL ended in 1942, Smith turned to coaching army teams in Ottawa and Montreal during World War II. After World War II Smith returned to the ice, but as an AHL referee for several seasons. By 1962 he became an announcer and public relations director at Carleton Raceway in Ottawa. He worked there until his death in 1981.

Des' sons Brian and Gary both would play in the National Hockey League.

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Don McKenney

For much of the 1950s and early 1960s, Don McKenney was a Dave Keon-like star with the Boston Bruins. Old time Boston fans compared him to Cowboy Bill Cowley, a Bruins star from the 1940s.

Tall and rangy, he was a clean and elegant center, winner of the 1960 Lady Byng Memorial trophy as the NHL's most gentlemanly player. He was noted for his excellence at both ends of the ice. He was a polished offensive talent, known for good speed and play-making ability. He was equally as brainy while defending, relying on great anticipation skills and strong positioning.

Donald Hamilton McKenney first made a name for himself as a junior hockey star, captaining the Memorial Cup champion Barrie Flyers in 1953. That power house team featured a number of future notable greats including Doug Mohns, Orval Tessier and a young Don Cherry.

After just a single season in the minor leagues (an incredibly brief apprenticeship in that era), McKenney graduated to the Boston Bruins in 1954-55. Over the next 8 years he would lead the Bruins offensively, scoring 20 goals each year except one. Seven times he would finish amongst the top 20 NHL scorers. And in 1959-60 he led all NHLers in assists.

McKenney's game improved come playoff time. Three times he was in the top 10 in Stanley Cup scoring, twice for goals scored. With the Bruins he was never more prolific than in 1958 when he and Fleming MacKell led the offensive charge in the memorably epic Stanley Cup final against Montreal, a championship series narrowly won by the mighty Montreal Canadiens.

By 1961 McKenney was named team captain of the Bruins, but midway through the 1962-63 season he was moved to New York in exchange for Dean Prentice. About a year later he was part of the big Andy Bathgate trade to Toronto. McKenney played a nice support role in helping the Leafs win their 3rd Stanley Cup in a row. For McKenney, it would be his only Stanley Cup of his career.

McKenney played another season in Toronto before continuing his career largely in the American Hockey League. He did make appearances with Detroit and St. Louis, but finished the decade playing for the Pittsburgh Hornets and Providence Reds.

All told Don McKenney scored 237 goals and 345 assists in 798 regular season NHL games. In 58 playoff games he scored 18 goals and 29 assists for 47 points.

He later went on to become a long time coach at Northeastern University.

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Fleming MacKell

Fleming MacKell joined his father as Stanley Cup champions. His dad, Jack, won two Stanley Cups with Ottawa in the 1920s. Fleming was part of the Toronto Maple Leafs championship teams in 1959 and 1951.

The Montreal-born Fleming was already a hockey hero in Toronto long before joining the Leafs. He, playing alongside Red Kelly (who played junior as a forward), was the St. Mike's Majors leading scorer in the 1947 playoff run which ended with the Memorial Cup as Canada's junior champions.

Though he would spend his first pro-season almost entirely in the minor leagues, MacKell did start the season with the Leafs. Believe it or not, his first NHL game was the NHL all star game!

"In those days the Stanley Cup champions played an All Star team just before the season began. The Leafs were the champions. I seemed to have made the team at their training campand they used me in the All Star game," explained MacKell, who at the age of 18 years, 5 months, and 13 days, remains the youngest player to ever play in a NHL all star game.

"They had all the players at a luncheon the day of the game. I walked in and couldn't believe the guys who were in the room. There was Milt Schmidt and Rocket Richard and Ted Lindsay, Doug Bentley, Bill Durnan. You name it, they were there. I was scared to death!"

So scared, that he ran away from the luncheon!

"Hap Day was the Toronto coach. I told him I didn't belong. He said I had to stay. I did, for a little while. But I felt so out of place I sneaked out and took a streetcar home. I ate my lunch at home. Then I got back on the streetcar and went to the Gardens for the game. I thought Day would be mad at me, but he didn't say anything. Maybe he didn't miss me at the lunch."

Despite the promising start, MacKell would be in and out of the Leafs lineup until 1951. Of course those were the days where the Leafs were the league's power house, regularly winning Stanley Cups. MacKell would spend a lot of time in the AHL with Pittsburgh. When he was called upon by the Leafs he was expected to be a defensive-minded winger with rugged intentions. He was considered by many to be the fastest skater in the league when he played, despite a bowlegged stance.

MacKell stood just 5'8" and weighed about 175 lbs, which was small even back in those old days. He learned early on he had to stand his ground.

"There was a lot of intimidation if you weren't big. If you weren't a rough, tough player, you could never show that you didn't like the rough stuff or they would run you out of the league."


In the 1951-52 season MacKell was traded to Boston where he found a home for nearly a decade. He became an importantpart of the Bruins attack, as well as a specialty teams specialist. He was a regular on both the power play and penalty kill units, thanks to his speed. He was also noted for scoring goals from the side of the net.

The Bruins were not a great team in the 1950s, as that decade was dominated first by Detroit and then by Montreal.

"We were a good team in Boston. Not a lot of stars, but a good spirit on the team. The guys played together."

MacKell, who teamed nicely with Don McKenney, was arguably the Bruins best player. In 1953 he made the NHL First All Star team. He was a strong playoff performer, never more so than in 1968 when his 19 points in 12 games led the entire NHL in post-season scoring. His performance in that memorable Stanley Cup showdown with Montreal would have been one for the ages had the Bruins somehow upset the mighty Canadiens.

By the turn of the decade, MacKell found himself farmed out to the Quebec Aces of the AHL thanks to a dispute with Bruins management.

"The Bruins and I had kind of a falling out. They thought they had better younger players to bring in. The Bruins themseles didn't do very much after I left, either. They went downhill pretty fast. They could never beat anybody. When I was with them we  never missed the playoffs except the year I had a bad knee," he said.

"They sold my contract to Quebec," he recalled. "I went to the Quebec Aces as a playing coach. That was a big mistake. It didn't work out at all."

MacKell decided to drop hockey after that sour ending, opting to go to work for Dow Brewerey in Montreal. He later moved to the car sales business.

For the record, Fleming MacKell played parts of 13 seasons in the National Hockey League with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins. In 745 regular season and playoff games he had 171 goals and 261 assists for 432 points.

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