1. THE NERVOUS WRECK: ROGER CROZIER Just four years after making his NHL debut, Roger Crozier retired. He left the Detroit Red Wings in November 1967 and retreated to his hometown, in Ontario. He found work as a carpenter and soon wielded, in his own estimation, "the fastest hammer in the north." For the first time in years, he was in good health. A teammate headed to Bracebridge, located 123 miles north of Toronto, where he found Crozier pounding shingles onto the roof of a house. But he wasn''t able to convince the goalie to return to the ice. "If I bend a nail up here, I don''t have 12,000 people booing me!" Crozier explained.
He unfastened his tool belt and rejoined the Red Wings six weeks later. But he continued to suffer from ulcers and bouts of pancreatitis, even while making headlines with his acrobatic performances. By the time he retired for good in 1977, he had established himself as one of the best goalies of his era--a remarkable accomplishment, especially for someone who was a bundle of nerves from his first game to his last. Crozier was born in March 1942 and raised in a working-class family. He was the fourth of 14 children--yes, you read that right, 14--in a family headed by Lloyd and Mildred Crozier. No sooner had he learned to walk than he took his first tentative steps on the ice. Crozier started playing goal when he was seven years old, primarily because he was small, but he soon grew to like it. When Crozier was 13 years old, a coach with a keen eye realized that the young goaltender, unlike most, was more comfortable catching with his right hand than his left, so he bought the boy a catching glove he could actually use--and it worked wonders.
A year later, the head of the town''s senior hockey team, the Bracebridge Bears, recognized the nimble goalie as a special talent and added him to their roster. Even though Crozier was just 14 years old, he excelled playing alongside others who were, you know, old enough to shave. Crozier grew a few inches, though not many, in the next few years and was good enough to play in the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), a major junior league that served as a breeding ground for NHL players. In the fall of 1959, he traveled 175 miles south to join the St. Catharines Teepees, which were sponsored by the Chicago Black Hawks. Crozier was a standout playing with future NHL stars such as Chico Maki and Vic Hadfield, and the fleet-footed young goalie helped the Teepees win the Memorial Cup in his first season. Crozier also developed an ulcer around this time, but the pain didn''t affect his play. He continued to excel and caught the attention of the Buffalo Bisons of the minor-pro American Hockey League (AHL), who needed a goalie to fill in for their injured starter.
Crozier played three games for the team in the 1960-61 season, recording two wins, before rejoining the Teepees. Over the next two seasons, Crozier played a handful of games for the Bisons and the Sault Ste. Marie Thunderbirds of the minor-pro Eastern Professional Hockey League (EPHL). But he spent most of his time with the Teepees and then with the St. Louis Braves of the EPHL. In June 1963, the Black Hawks traded his rights to the Detroit Red Wings, who sent the goalie to their AHL team, the Pittsburgh Hornets. In the Steel City, Crozier adopted an unconventional playing style. His coaches urged him to face the puck standing up, but he preferred to make saves on his knees with his legs extended like the beating wings of a monarch butterfly--and it worked for him.
He emerged as one of the best players in the AHL. Still, scouts weren''t convinced he could play in the NHL; he was only five foot eight and weighed less than 160 pounds. That was uncommon then and is unheard of today--the average NHL goalie is seven inches taller and 40 pounds heavier. NHL 1963-64 Crozier got a break when the Red Wings'' star goalie, Terry Sawchuk, got injured. Crozier made his NHL debut in November at Maple Leaf Gardens. Detroit was leading 1-0 when Toronto forward Frank Mahovlich fired a shot that struck Crozier in the face, shattering his cheekbone. One eloquent sportswriter noted that Crozier''s face was "mashed like chicken fricassee." The goalie left the ice for treatment but soon returned wearing a new contraption meant to keep his cheekbones intact and his teeth in his mouth.
It was called--wait for it--a mask. He made 23 saves in that game, which ended in a 1-1 tie. Sawchuk soon returned to the ice, but Crozier was back in net for a game against Chicago in December. He played well in the contest, which Detroit won 5-4, but he felt he would have played better had he not been wearing a mask early in the game. "That was a bad move on my part," he said, explaining that he had worn it, despite his misgivings, because his doctor had said another shot to the cheek would sideline him for the season. By the time the season ended, Crozier had played in 15 regular games and three playoff games for the Red Wings, including the seventh and deciding game of a semifinal against the Black Hawks. In that contest, he took over from Sawchuk, who was nursing a sore shoulder, in the third period. He stopped all seven shots he faced.
Detroit won 4-2 and advanced to the final against the Leafs, who won the Stanley Cup. When he wasn''t with the Red Wings that season, Crozier was honing his skills in the AHL. He played 44 games for the Hornets, winning 30 of them. That spring, he won the Hap Holmes Memorial Award, given to the goalie with the league''s lowest goals-against average, and was named the AHL''s best rookie. The Red Wings managed to look beyond his diminutive size--literally and figuratively--and decided the 22-year-old would be their starter. They left Sawchuk, who was 12 years older and nearing the end of his legendary career, unprotected in the intra-league draft in June. The Leafs claimed him. "It was a big boost for me to know the job in Detroit was mine and all mine," Crozier said years later.
"If Terry had still been on the team, I would have been on the spot every game. The fans would just have been waiting for me to make a mistake and demanding his return." 1964-65 Detroit''s decision baffled some people in hockey circles. Critics looked at Crozier flopping on the ice like a smallmouth bass on a dock in Lake Muskoka and predicted disaster for the Red Wings. Jacques Plante, the high priest of goaltending, said Crozier would never make it in the NHL. "One look at pale, self-conscious Roger Crozier when he is not in the nets would convince almost anybody that Plante was right," one journalist wrote. "He is small and wispy, filled with doubts about his ability, and he even has an ulcer. He is the despair of coaches who try in vain to cure him of the habit of flopping and falling all over the ice, often in attempts to stop shots that would probably never reach the goal anyway.
" The journalist noted that criticism upset Crozier and that his eyes "seemed almost to brim with tears" when discussing it. "People are sitting around, waiting for the big collapse," he quoted Crozier as saying. "They''re waiting to say, ''I told you so.''" Popular sports columnist Dick Beddoes described Crozier as "a splinter of bone and shred of gristle who resembles a dissipated jockey," and said he played "like a frenzied acrobat plagued with itch." Huh? But Red Wings coach Sid Abel was confident the franchise had made the right choice, and he praised Crozier for having "the fastest hands of any goalie I have ever seen." Abel was rewarded for his faith in Crozier. By mid-November, the goalie had the best goals-against average (1.75) in the NHL.
Thanks to his performance and that of star forward Gordie Howe, who poked fun at the pint-sized goalie by calling him "Muscles," the Red Wings sat atop the standings. "I''m glad we got off to such a good start," Crozier said. "If we hadn''t, everybody would be on my back." But the good times didn''t last. Two months later, the team was in a slump and sitting fourth in the six-team league. Abel decided that Crozier needed a break and dispatched him to Florida. He and his wife, Arlene, stayed in Miami, where they lounged on beach chairs, went swimming and played shuffleboard. "I just put on the sun tan oil and relaxed," he said.
"I felt as though I didn''t have a care in the world." He returned to Detroit for the team''s next game, to find sun lamps and a beach umbrella set up in the dressing room, compliments of his teammates. In the following months, the Red Wings got their groove back and climbed up the standings. They ended the regular season in first place with 87 points. Much of the credit went to three hotshots: Norm Ullman finished second in league scoring (83 points), while Howe finished third (76 points) and Alex Delvecchio placed fifth (67 points). But Crozier was the toast of Motown. He started in all 70 of his team''s games that season--the last NHL goalie to accomplish that feat--and led the league in wins (40) and shutouts (6). He also had the second-best goals-against average (2.
42), behind the Leafs'' Johnny Bower. To no one''s surprise, Crozier won the Calder Trophy as the NHL''s top rookie. Sportswriters marveled at his abilities that season--one stated that "his acrobatic movements were a thing of pure delight. On many plays around his goal crease, Crozier would be flat on the ice, his legs and arms flapping to reach the puck or cover as much space as possible." He was riding high when the team opened the playof.