I began covering Hounds 40 years ago

By Randy Russon
September 22, 2015
Tweet

Share

The start of another Soo Greyhounds, Ontario Hockey League season has a way of bringing me back in time.

For me, covering the Greyhounds and the OHL began 40 years ago in 1975, coincident with my first media job as a part-time (as in seven days a week) sportscaster for what was the most-listened-to radio station in town, CKCY 920. (CJIC 1050, with a staff of stuffed shirts, liked to tout itself as the no. 1 radio station but in reality, it was the brazen bunch of dysfunctional personalties at CKCY that topped the listener charts.)

At any rate, the 1975-1976 season would be the fourth as members of the OHL for the Greyhounds, who had missed the playoffs in each of their previous three terms.

There was much anticipation in Houndtown for that 1975-1976 campaign with a new coach in Murray “Muzz” MacPherson, who quickly caught the attention of fans and media alike with his fast-talking, fist-pumping, hat-throwing, skirt-chasing ways of conducting himself in an outrageous manner.

Through the recruiting of MacPherson and the drafting and trading of legendary general manager Angelo Bumbacco, the Greyhounds made it known early on that they would be a playoff team in 1975-1976.

With fans clicking the turnstiles and packing Memorial Gardens on a regular basis, the MacPherson-led Greyhounds not only became the talk of the town but the scourge of the OHL as well.

Featuring an explosive first line of eventual scoring champion Mike Kaszycki (who had been acquired from the Toronto Marlies in an off-season trade for Cary Farelli), 19-year old rookie left winger John Tavella (a Wawa product who would go on to score 67 goals) and 19-year old right winger Doug Patey, the Hounds could fill the net with the best of the OHL, including the powerful, arch-rival, Sudbury Wolves.

A free-wheeling team that relied heavily on the goaltending of overage standout David Legree, the Hounds also became the OHL’s most-penalized and most-feared outfit led by a notorious goon squad that featured henchmen Mike Rusin, Tony Horvath, Tim Rose, Tim Coulis and Billy Roach.

The Hounds also had a prize rookie in future OHL top defenceman Craig Hartsburg, a skinny, long-haired 16-year old who to this day ranks as one of the very best all-round defenders to ever wear a Soo jersey.

Besides being a puck-rushing blueliner with a wicked shot who could go end-to-end in a flash and was a tough customer to boot, Hartsburg was a born leader and captain-in-waiting for MacPherson’s marauders of that ’75-76 season to remember.

Forty years later, I still communicate with Hartsburg from time to time.

Since leaving the Hounds as a star player and going on to become a world-class National Hockey League defenceman and captain of the erstwhile Minnesota North Stars, Hartsburg has returned here to twice coach the local OHLers. Now a veteran NHL associate coach, Hartsburg and his Soo-born wife Peggy are grandparents who maintain an off-season home just outside the city limits in Echo Bay.

If there ever has been a man other than the aforementioned Bumbacco and franchise co-founder Jim McAuley who define being a Greyhound through and through, I say that it’s Hartsburg. In fact, I can see ahead when Hartsburg’s NHL coaching days are over that he returns to the Greyhounds as a senior adviser or special consultant to the hockey department.

To be sure, thoughts of that ’75-76 OHL season remain clear in my hockey memorybank.

The Greyhounds were a treat to watch and their rivalries with the green-shirted Wolves of Sudbury and the Bert Templeton-coached Hamilton Fincups were full of thrills, spills and chills.

MacPherson and the Hounds captivated the success-starved OHL fans of the Soo with a merry run that carried through into the second round of the playoffs. Backed by the goaltending of Legree and a never-say-never decree of their fiery leader MacPherson, the Hounds season finally ended in a seven-game series thriller when the Wolves eventually pulled ahead led by a team of future NHLers that included Ron Duguay, Randy Carlyle and Mike Foligno.

Forty years later, I still have vivid memories of that 1975-1976 Greyhound team that fit into my radio debut as a $3-an-hour sportscaster at CKCY, which housed venerable play-by-play man Harry Wolfe and an on-air staff of much-younger whipper-snappers that included newscasters David Gazer, Joe (Big J.P.) Petrolo and Denise Daniels and disc jockeys Frank Kennedy, B.W. Martin, Robert E. Lee, Phil Parks and Tony Marziale.

Forty years later, I do not ask myself where the time went.

Instead, I think back, shake my head, chuckle quite a bit and thank God that I am still able to talk and write hockey — while advancing somewhat from those $3-an-hour, hazy, crazy days.

PHOTO: Craig Hartsburg went from star OHL defenceman with the Soo Greyhounds to world-class NHL defenceman with the Minnesota North Stars.