John Ogrodnick, my last Hockey hero

[yave1964]

To be fair, my first hero was a guy named Danny 'Tuna' grant who won a cup with the Canadiens and then the Calder the next season and played very well for the North Stars before coming to the Wings for head band wearing Henry 'Chief' Boucha. Grant played with Marcel Dionne and Mickey Redmond and scored 50 goals in 1974-75 when i was ten and i saw him get a hat trick against i believe Kansas City. His back and knees soon ran him out and he was done after that one huge year though he hung around for four more seasons never coming close to his one big season.

 

  Johnny Ogrodnick broke in in 1979 when i had discovered girls but they had sadly not yet discovered me so Hockey mattered more to me than about anything. Three or four times a year my Grandfather and i would load up and go to the old Olympic and then the brand new Joe Louis Arena and watch the Wings play and i would listen as he reveled me with tales of guys like Gordie and boot nose Abel, Sawchuk and Glenn Hall and all of the rest. Hockey was the common ground between me and my first hero, my Grandfather.

  Anyway, Ogrodnick caught my eye and he replaced Danny Grant to me, i remember listening to Bruce Martyn booming out in his baritone voice the Wings games on 760 WJR to anyone willing to listen to the bad hockey they played back then. Johnny O was about all we had going, we lost badly, it was the height of the Dead things era and he was about all that it was worth listening to back then.

  Man could he score. over a four year period from 82-83 through 85-86 playing with young Stevie Yzerman Johnny O averaged 44 goals. I remember watching an All Star game with Reed Larson playing point and Ogrodnick on the Wing next to the great one. It gave me goose bumps.

  The Wings were putrid and as so often happens the stars end up getting the blame, Ogrodnick was accused of not playing with enough fire and was dealt to Quebec for Brent Ashton. I was a grown man with one kid and another on the way and in the Army stationed in Germany i got the box scores a week late in stars and stripes magazine but the first thing i always looked at after seeing how bad the Wings lost was whether Johnny O scored or not.

  He hated French speaking Quebec and did not hide it, he was dealt to the Rangers and had a couple of good goal scoring seasons including another 40 goal season before petering out. By then i was on wife number 2 and kid number 3 and in 1992-93 he signed for the stretch drive with the Wings and played well, if memory serves he even played in the playoffs that year. Then he hung up the skates except at alumni games.

  He is still in the Detroit area, a stock broker or something like that in Farmington Hills, i wrote for his autograph a decade ago and asked if he would mind sending me a few words about memories of his playing days. some players send simply the card back signed, others send a thank you note and not much else. Some never even bother returning the card. Johnny O sent me an eight page letter.

  I bought a Wings jersey a decade ago and took it in to be customized, i had the number 25 added and asked the lady to put Ogrodnick on the back. She did, but for some reason she spelled it O'Grodnick with the Irish ' and capital G. I smiled and thanked her and wore it to the Joe figuring nobody would notice. I wore it three or four times to Detroit and every time someone corrected me on the spelling. Every time. It hangs in the back of my closet now.

  The players since arent quite the same, of course anyone can say that after their childhood. I remember his wicked Slapshot, a dying art. He wouldn't fight, he might have been soft, my grandfather and I differed on our views of him, he loved the fiery Foligno while i loved the finesse of Johnny O.

  I have been accused of having a man crush on Kronwall (guilty) and admired many players on the Wings and even on other clubs but never really had a hero since the days of Johnny O. Now my twelve year old daughter has the same thing with Brian Dubinsky (!) and i tell her that he is inconsistent and a lousy shooter and takes dumb penalties and she just frowns at me and tells me she does not care. I look at the back of my closet and see the misspelled jersey hanging there and understand.

Edited April 23, 2014 by yave1964

[yave1964]

Not quite a hero but someone I regularly write to is Paul Woods, a mediocre left wing who spent his entire career with the Wings and then stuck around as an announcer. If you write to him you always get a hand written note back, he answers questions and is a generally great guy.