By Eric Simons
It's the start of another hockey season, and Gerry Heffernan is out on the ice, skating around the rink, dodging figure skaters, crossing over like a man more comfortable in skates than shoes.
Heffernan, 87, says that's about right.
"Walking is difficult," he says, noting the rough pavement outside in the parking lot.
A Stanley Cup-winner with the Montreal Canadiens in 1944, Heffernan skates at public sessions roughly once a week at Dublin Iceland. Age and an operation have slowed his walk, his golf game and his beloved inline skating. It takes him several minutes of struggle to get his new Bauers on and off, "the most difficult part," of skating, he says.
But when he's on the ice, age is forgotten. Heffernan skates gracefully, smoothly, skimming around the rink with an impish grin and beaming encouragement at young skaters.
When Heffernan was young, hockey was a different game. Players growing up used the Saturday Evening Post as shin pads, because they couldn't afford to buy equipment. Once, when the Canadiens lost a game to Detroit, the coach made them walk home from the rink. "It was a hell of a long walk," Heffernan remembers. "We didn't lose 10-0 after that, I can guarantee you that."
Goalies didn't wear facemasks until Canadien Jacques Plante -- a player Heffernan remembers as a deep thinker who often knitted in the locker room - pioneered them in 1956. Players didn't wear helmets, although, Heffernan says, "we weren't all that concerned about our heads." The one player who did wore it to cover up a bald spot.
The biggest difference between then and now, however, is the speed, size and strength of the players. In the 1940s, Heffernan's line got away with being small.
"We played like the Russians," Heffernan says, referring to the style of play characterized by graceful passing and fancy puck handling. "We had to. We didn't barge through like The Rocket did, carrying two men to the net. We were lucky to stand up with a defensemen on us."
Born in Montreal in 1916, Heffernan learned to skate at age 4. He started playing hockey by age 9 and claims his first disappointment was losing the Bantam (under-14) championships.
He played junior hockey in Montreal and played with his future Canadiens line mate, Hall of Fame center Buddy O'Connor, while playing senior hockey in the late 1930s.
In 1943-44, Heffernan, O'Connor and left wing Pete Morin made up one of the Canadiens' most productive lines. Heffernan scored 28 goals in a 50-game season, just four less than the 32 scored by Maurice "Rocket" Richard. In a Christmas article, Time magazine wrote that when Heffernan's line got off, "an equally powerful line of Richard, (Hall of Famer Elmer) Lach and (Hall of Famer Toe) Blake got on."
The next year, The Rocket scored 50 goals in 50 games. Richard, Lach and Blake would combine for 994 goals in their regular-season careers. Heffernan hung up his skates in 1945 with 33 in two seasons.
O'Connor, after one game, asked him, "Heffernan, what kind of a shot have you got? I can read the writing on the puck as it goes by." Heffernan doesn't deny it. "I was a borderline hockey player," he says. And he saw that he could make more money outside of hockey. When he left hockey, Heffernan sold insurance in Montreal, before moving to California in 1978. He's lived in Moraga since 1981. In 1996, the Canadiens owners helped pay for every living ex-Canadien to fly back to Montreal for the final game in the legendary Forum and the first game in the new Molson Centre (now renamed the Bell Centre).
Heffernan wanted to skate on the new ice, so he could say that he had skated in both places. The only problem: He didn't have any skates. He found the locker room equipment manager and asked him for a pair from one of the players.
The smallest player on the team at the time, the equipment manager said, was 5' 10" center Mark Recchi. Heffernan borrowed a pair of his skates.
After turning them back in, a security guard stopped him. "If that was me," the guard told him, "I'd keep those skates." Heffernan turned around. "They get so many skates," he says. "They can't use them all."
The equipment manager said OK, and Heffernan skated away with Recchi's boots to add to his souvenir collection. It's a collection he gladly brings up, particularly the Stanley Cup part. Heffernan makes new friends with wide-eyed young figure skaters and pick-up hockey players almost every time he arrives at the rink. He sits down to talk the game, leans over to show off his ring and talks about skating with the Rocket.
And then, as if to prove he's not bluffing, he puts on his gloves, covers up the ring, and glides around the rink, 80 years of experience guiding his skates across the ice.