UNH Hockey 2023 Off Season Thread Turn and Face the Strange

[Chuck Murray]

For me, the Dave Forbes - Henry Boucha (R.I.P.) incident was my biggest test as a lifelong Bruins fan. I stopped following the Bruins that season because of Forbes. Of course, several Bruins players (ex., Teddy Green, Marc Savard) also have been on the receiving end of essentially career-ending, goon-inflicted injuries.

I was doing a lot of on-line research on the Boucha-Forbes incident earlier this week, and I'm not sure if it's mentioned on the videos and links I used on this thread ... but one of the videos mentioned that Forbes was actually involved as the instigator in another stick incident when he was playing at AIC in a game against Northeastern. Back then in the CHDA (College Hockey Dark Ages) there was never a chance of that being on video somewhere - it's a minor miracle the amazing C-H-C 3 goal explosion still exists on video FWIW - and I guess the only question I had on that purported alleged prior incident was whether there was evidence introduced at Forbes' criminal trial in the summer of '75 that established the existence of this prior incident? I think Cherry (and Forbes' defense attorney) got a lot of mileage out of the "first time offender" narrative, so I'm left to guess that news of the Forbes AIC-NU incident didn't surface until sometime after that trial.

It sounds like there was a small block of jurors who just weren't going to move off the concept that what happens on the ice doesn't belong in a courtroom, so it may very well be moot. Maybe the Boucha legal team in his civil case did some digging into the AIC Athletics archives, located Forbes' history of major penalties, and started asking questions of former teammates and opponents? Hard to believe, in these days where the video of virtually anything is accessible if you ask and preserve soon enough, but this is how private investigators used to do their work. And you would be left to go on the contemporaneous accounts from eyewitnesses drawing on their memories. Hardly precise, but in Boucha v. Forbes it sounded like they got testimony from the two combatants, nearby players, the refs, the penalty box attendant(s) and the local PA announcer, so combining the various accounts should have painted a pretty clear picture.

I also encountered another very interesting follow-up from later in 1975 - a year where earlier, the Broad Street Bullies had just won a second straight Stanley Cup - which touched on another NHL scrape that ended up in the courts ... here is another piece from the SI Vault which serves as an aftermath of the Forbes case, and an intro to Glennie v. Maloney ...

WANTED: AN END TO MAYHEM - Sports Illustrated Vault | SI.com

[tylerzx2002]

Beats the he11 out of "Champions of November" that's for sure.

Great banner, BTW - throwback to the USCHO glory days! Bring it on - force MS7's firing!!

BTW tyler, has Barr's corpulent assistant coach "broken the ice" up at Alfond recently?

LOL I thought Fortier was looking rather svelte the last practice I was at. Your comments must be getting to him.

[Scott]

Some more "feel good" news about UNH:

https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/2023/09...-best-colleges

[Snively65]

OK, so here is a long form feature on Henry Boucha, a 60 minute per game player for Warroad (MN) High School.

The cruelty of his twin eye injuries both at the Met Center (now the site of Mall of America), weird parallel ...

For me, the Dave Forbes - Henry Boucha (R.I.P.) incident was my biggest test as a lifelong Bruins fan. I stopped following the Bruins that season because of Forbes. Of course, several Bruins players (ex., Teddy Green, Marc Savard) also have been on the receiving end of essentially career-ending, goon-inflicted injuries.

[Snively65]

Beats the he11 out of "Champions of November" that's for sure.

Great banner, BTW - throwback to the USCHO glory days! Bring it on - force MS7's firing!!

BTW tyler, has Barr's corpulent assistant coach "broken the ice" up at Alfond recently?

Love the banner! Nice work, tyler.

Maybe Larry Mayer could be our next men’s ice hockey coach?

[Chuck Murray]

OK, so here is a long form feature on Henry Boucha, a 60 minute per game player for Warroad (MN) High School.

The cruelty of his twin eye injuries both at the Met Center (now the site of Mall of America), weird parallel ...

[Chuck Murray]

Since we're technically still in the offseason/pre-season stage of things at worst, I wanted to take the liberty of mourning the passing earlier this week of the great Henry Boucha at age 72. Probably not a familiar name to most modern-day hockey fans, but for anyone who even loosely followed hockey 50 years ago, this was one unforgettable player - an Ojibwe who led his Warroad (MN) high school team on an improbable trip to the State Finals (think Hoosiers on ice) in the late '60's, drafted #16 overall by the Red Wings in the '71 draft, spent 3 seasons skating for the US National team and earned a silver medal with Team USA in the '72 Winter Olympics in Sapporo before turning pro ...

Minnesota hockey legend Henry Boucha dies at age 72 | MPR News

... then went straight into the NHL in late 1972 on an early "Dead Wings" era squad that also featured two-time 50 goal scorer (and famous DRW color man for almost a half century) Mickey Redmond at the height of his career, a very young Marcel Dionne in his soph season, a very old Alex DelVecchio in his last full season, Red Berenson, the ill-fated Ace Bailey, Gary Doak, the maskless goalie Andy Brown, and (so very briefly) Robbie Ftorek. In retrospect, it was a pretty good team by "Dead Wings" standards - actually had a winning record, and missed out on the playoffs by two points, when they'd have finished in second place in the West. It was their only winning season in 18 years (1969/70-1987/88). Any Henry Boucha retrospective would not be complete without a photo of the man in his iconic headband - a fashion statement we shall never see again ...




After a solid second season, Boucha was traded to Minnesota the following year for Danny Grant, returning to his home state for what would turn out to be his fateful '74/'75 season. While Grant was on his way to his only 50 goal season in Detroit, and had established himself as a reliable 30 goal guy in Minnesota ... Boucha was at 15 goals at midseason (on pace for 30 goals) until "The Incident". I'll invite you to skip down to the linked video, which is the Bruins' TV38 feed. That Boucha was held in high regard as a developing young player can be noted when Fred Cusick mentions the Boucha-Grant trade. For further context on where the Bruins were at the time ... they had lost in the SCF in six games to the "Broad Street Bullies" era Flyers the previous season, and this was Bobby Orr's last full season in black & gold (46G/89A for 135 pts. with a +80 - not bad for one knee?), while it was the first season in charge for a lifelong minor league player ... Don Cherry.

Anyway ... the six minute video shows the prologue to "The Incident", which was a skirmish between B's bottom-six forward Dave Forbes and Boucha, which apparently started when Forbes tried to take a run at Boucha in the B's attacking end, Boucha took exception, and basically dropped Forbes with a single overhead right (described by Cusick as "the best right of the year so far"), leading in turn to a very young Terry O'Reilly jumping in to get the 3rd man in DQ. But it's what happened seven minutes of game time later that was the main story ...

A NONDECISION BEGS THE QUESTION - Sports Illustrated Vault | SI.com

This was a HUGE story in the sports media at the time ... a criminal charge against a player for in-game conduct. Things I'd forgotten over the years were the "pep talk" allegedly provided to Forbes while in the sin bin by the infamous stick aficionado Bobby Schmautz (beloved by Cherry) and the fact that it was a hung jury in the end (a retrial was never pursued). Of interest, Forbes retreated that summer to a hockey school in Rochester NH ... Boucha tried to return from injury with the Stars for 10 games with poor results, ended up signing the next year for the WHA's Fighting Saints to play with one of the most notorious teams in history, including the Carlson (a/k/a Hanson) Brothers and a few other goons, went to the Kansas City Scouts the next season for their one and only NHL season, and was never the same promising player.

Boucha's post-retirement life was a rocky road, and I've provided enough links and visuals on this email already, so I'll just leave it at that, and if you want to explore further ... it's a pretty cool story of redemption and forgiveness. I believe there was also a civil case against Forbes and the B's for the assault, which settled out of court for a pretty big figure at the time I'm told? For me, Boucha was a colorful player at a time when hockey was still pretty rough and tumble, and bench-clearing fights were not uncommon (John Wensink would set off a new B's-Stars war a couple years later, another story for another day). Him, and this story were close to the intersection of my soon-expiring B's fandom, and my switch to the Dead Wings when Orr was forced out of town. Godspeed and rest in peace, Henry ...

[Chuck Murray]

Beats the he11 out of "Champions of November" that's for sure.

Great banner, BTW - throwback to the USCHO glory days! Bring it on - force MS7's firing!!

BTW tyler, has Barr's corpulent assistant coach "broken the ice" up at Alfond recently?

[tylerzx2002]

Yeah, take THAT, all you BU, BC, NU, PC, UMass-Flagship, UML, U Maine, UVM, Yukon, and Mac fans. We may no longer be any good at ice hockey, but we got it over all of ‘em in ocean mapping!

Lets get you guys a banner you can hang proudly!

[Snively65]

I thought this was an interesting development, from out of the blue, kind of not too far removed from some of the "outside of the box" thinking that's been going on here in our very own little UNH thinktank/business incubator ...

https://www.seacoastonline.com/story...m/70893295007/

Have those who dare to dream returned to Durham?? One can only hope ...

Yeah, take THAT, all you BU, BC, NU, PC, UMass-Flagship, UML, U Maine, UVM, Yukon, and Mac fans. We may no longer be any good at ice hockey, but we got it over all of ‘em in ocean mapping!

[Chuck Murray]

I thought this was an interesting development, from out of the blue, kind of not too far removed from some of the "outside of the box" thinking that's been going on here in our very own little UNH thinktank/business incubator ...

https://www.seacoastonline.com/story...m/70893295007/

Have those who dare to dream returned to Durham?? One can only hope ...

[Snively65]

James Richmond was a three time captain in 84-87, during the last fallow period before Coach Kullen rebuilt the program. He was a gregarious leader, telling lots of tales about his summer involved in filming Youngblood in Toronto. He returned to Canada and quickly climbed in the coaching ranks, and for the past decade has been GM of the OHL team.
https://chl.ca/ohl-steelheads/missis...act-extension/
https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/...y.php?pid=4560

Always good to see a smiling Coach Umile.
https://***********/UNHMHOCKEY/statu...261641/photo/1

Looks like James Richmond was not Captain his sophomore season, but was a Co-Captain with Peter Herms his junior season (the "All Is Lost" season, starring Robert Redford), and a solo Captain his senior season. Here is a link, in the FIIW Department: https://unhwildcats.com/sports/2015/...702150510.aspx

Two other Captains during their junior years from the list appear to be William Johnston in the 1953-54 season and Douglas Cowie during the 1956-57 season, who were both interestingly Co-Captains during their senior seasons. So, with Graham Bruder in the 1967-68 season, James Richman as Co-Captain in the 1985-86 season, Patrick Foley in the 2002-03 season, and now Alex Gagne this coming season, that gives us six Captains or Co-Captains during their junior seasons, in case HR is keeping score.

[Snively65]

The Gov, whose family owns a ski area, proposed a gondola for Cannon.

I was surprised by Sununu’s gondola-for-Cannon suggestion, as he being a lifelong skier in Cow Hampsha should know as well as anyone the historical importance of Cannon’s aerial tramway, with the original version built in 1938, a first in the country. The $18 mil retrofit is a boondoggle of epic proportions, as the current tramway rebuilt in 1980 only needed a $3 mil maintenance servicing that was scheduled for 2020 (40 years, half its projected lifespan) just as the pandemic shut everything down. Think what could be done for the Whit with that excess $15 mil, such as a larger Jumbotron, which would bring in da blue chippahs for MS7.

[Chuck Murray]

Deep pull of that Lambert name. Back in the days all you had was "5th rounder by Stanley Cup champs Edmonton" and "over 100 points" at Henry Carr. Now you see a tough nosed kid who probably muscled his way into assists on a really good team, but with little skill.

https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/...y.php?pid=7590

With the benefit of seeing stats now, you see Andy Gribble, Brian Meharry and Scott Mellanby were the stars (which Jerry York saw for Bowling Green)

The slightly-over-four-minutes-per-game PIM's were certainly notable. That's not too far off Dave Schultz's career rate!!

[After the Whistle]

T-Hall is kinda a long walk. I usually park much closer to da Whitt, in a secret area where I have yet to be ticketed.

Maybe if the steps up/down to the bridge were widened about fourfold, everything would be fine for walking between A Lot and the Whitt. That should cost much less than $4 mil.

Snivley, you are so right about the steps! You can spend 10/15 minutes if the crowd had any size. In the old days you would get frost bite.