It was February 6, 1979, and the Buffalo Sabres had made a trade that flew in the face of the hockey team's tradition.
They had acquired noted enforcer Dave Schultz from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Gary McAdam. The deal was greeted a bit quizzically for a couple of reasons. First off, the Sabres generally were associated with players known for skill rather than their physical size and toughness. Schultz was definitely the latter. Second, Schultz was part of the Flyers' team that defeated Buffalo in the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals. It was simply odd to see a player like that in a Sabre uniform.
I was covering the Sabres for a radio station in those days, and I remember that I was surprised by Schultz's personality. Tough guys in hockey could be loud, but Schultz was rather soft-spoken. More to the point, he came off as shy. The forward also was so notorious for rough-housing at that point in his career that he couldn't even breathe on an opponent without picking up a penalty. Schultz played in 28 games for the Sabres that season, picking up five points with 86 penalty minutes. He hung around for one more year in the Buffalo organization, splitting his time with the Sabres and Rochester Americans of the AHL. And that was it.
Schultz was done at the age of 30, and he soon wrote an autobiography called "Hammer." It wasn't particularly memorable, although he was a little bitter about the way he was tossed aside when his usefulness as a fighter had run out. Now, more than 40 years later, he takes another stab at the book business with "Hammered." To his credit, Schultz is much more forthcoming about the details of his life here. That makes it a more interesting read that its predecessor.
Schultz had two strikes against him in life before he even became serious about hockey. He reveals that he was a victim of sexual assault by an older man when Schultz was 11 years old. Dave planned to be bury with that secret still lurking and unexplored, but went public with it here. He also had a father who was an alcoholic, and that trait was passed on to him.
Still, Schultz was a good hockey player, someone as a teen who could throw his weight around but had more of a scoring touch that you'd think. Eventually, he reached the point in which he had to make a decision. The only way he was going to reach the National Hockey League was to be a tough guy, and he took it.
There was a lot of that in hockey in the old days, especially back in the 1970s. Schultz's team, the Philadelphia Flyers, specialized in a brand of it. Yes, they had skill players like Bobby Clarke, Reggie Leach, Rick MacLeish, and Bernie Parent, but they had several bruising players who made it tough to play the Flyers on a given night. They didn't call them the "Broad Street Bullies" for nothing. Visiting players sometimes would come up with an injury out of nowhere in other to avoid playing in Philadelphia. It was called "The Philly Flu."
Philadelphia won two straight Cups, and Schultz was a very visible part of that team even though he seemed to spent more time in the penalty box than on the ice. Dave's personality seemed to change while playing, as he acted as if he had to live up to his reputation. Such players are always appreciated by teammates, since they were willing to get punched in the face while sticking up for others.
Schultz spent one more year with the Flyers through 1976, and then he was shocked that he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings for draft choices. Say what you want about enforcers, but most of them end up being on the disposable side after a while. Schultz comes across as still bitter about the deal, still not realizing that such moves are usually part of the bargain. From there it was on Pittsburgh and Buffalo before retirement from playing hockey.
If there's a recipe for problems in life concerning alcohol, Schultz seemed to follow it without realizing it. He married at a relatively young age, and then got caught up with the lifestyle that came with pro hockey at the time. You had to be one of the boys to fit in with the team in most cases, and then meant drinking after practice and games. Mix that in withe a great deal of travel, and the life is not exactly a formula for successful marriage and fatherhood.
Schultz here seems to have been lost for quite a while after retirement. He had some business opportunities, but probably was too inexperienced to separate the good financial opportunities from the bad ones. (Salaries were under six figures back then for most, which means Schultz didn't have much of a nest egg.) Coaching in the minors didn't work out either.
It didn't help along the way that he had a granddaughter and a brother die along the way. Eventually and almost inevitably, Schultz became divorced and tried to escape loneliness by drinking. That never works, and finally he was talked into joining a rehab program by another ex-hockey player. So far, at least, he seems to be well down the road to recovery, although there are always dangerous detours around the next turn.
Certainly fans of the way hockey was played back then - and the way Schultz in particular played it - will find elements of this book to like. There are plenty of details about bouts during those Flyers' years, even if it's been about 50 years since some of them took place. Schultz also writes about how there's still a place for teammates who are willing to hand out justice to opponents in a physical sense when necessary. There's some poignancy in that, in part because the role of fighting in hockey has faded dramatically in the 21st century. Teams need as much skill as possible these days, because the stakes and money have grown exponentially, and franchises can't afford to have anyone around with a limited skill set.
"Hammered" isn't a great deal of fun to read - stories involving additions and psychological issues usually are difficult. But Schultz deserves plenty of credit for writing it, and he's tougher on himself than he is about anyone else who comes up in the book. We don't know what the future might hold for him; he probably had some concussions along the way and CTE is lurking in the background for anyone with that sort of history. But there's always a hope that Schultz will find peace in the final years of a difficult life.
Four stars
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