A Ride with Bruce (Bruce Hood)

In May 2017, I drove to Detroit to spend some time with ageless NHL superstar, Ted Lindsay.

He'd comfortably moved into his 90s and was feisty as ever.

When I was a kid I was forced to make the trip down the 401 on a regular basis to visit "Yank" relatives who lived near Seven Mile in Detroit. As a kid, I hated the long drive and when I got there the Red Wings, not the Leafs were the main topic of winter conversation. I became a Wing by osmosis and latched on to #7 as my favourite player. There was just something about him.

Through good luck or the alignment of the planets or some other such phenomena, he and I met, got to know each other and became friends.

But this isn't really about him.

It's about former NHL referee, Bruce Hood, the first ref to officiate a thousand NHL games. An official, who has been turned down by the selection committee of the Hockey Hall of Fame, twice.

As you may know, during his playing days, Lindsay hated referees -- every one of them. It's a fact that he threatened Hall of Fame ref, "Red" Storey's life twice following games that didn't end in Lindsay's favour.

Lindsay didn't actually meet referee, Bruce Hood until after Hood had retired from the game. Their careers never intersected which may explain why Lindsay never threatened the ref with #1 on his sleeve. 

Ted was bewildered. He told me on several occasions when we all attended a charity event together, "You know, it's very strange. I really like Bruce ... and he was a ref"!

Again, through that strange force mentioned above, Bruce and I became pals in the 1980s - maybe a little more than just pals. Lorraine and I were honoured to be a part of his wedding to Daphne and he and I developed a close bond.

I suggested to Bruce that we should go to Detroit to visit with Ted.

For six or seven years, I met Ted at his home in Detroit on a Saturday, we'd go to Mass at his local church. Ted was a devote Roman Catholic. 

Once on a visit to Toronto, I suggested we meet for lunch. "I can't today, Michael, I have to go to the cathedral at lunchtime ... it's the feast of the Immaculate Conception".

Following regular Saturday Mass visits , we'd retire to his favourite Italian restaurant, Lino's, and sit at the same table he and his wife, Lynn shared every Saturday before she'd passed away.

When restaurant patrons were finished their dinner and were about to leave, they'd hold back and wait for a moment to stop at Ted's table to wish him well. He looked at each fan, straight in the eye and thanked them "for paying my salary and allowing me to play hockey for the great fans and the city of Detroit."

He always told me, "Michael ... hockey is the greatest game in the world". On one such Saturday, there were a group of 20 high school graduating girls all beautifully dressed and very obviously enjoying their accomplishment. Ted insisted on stopping by their table and congratualting each student and wishing them well. We couldn't leave until the graduating class had their photo taken with one of hockey's greates players. His smile was even bigger than theirs.

I still play hockey and one day Ted and I were talking on the phone, Ted was 90, I said I'd been gifted with an authentic Ted Lindsay #7 jersey. I said ... "When I play in my game today ... I'm going to put one in the top corner for you" ... he said, "Forget that, just knock somebody over"!

We had a fabulous, memorable day at Ted's home.

By fabulous, I mean we sat in his kitchen overlooking a championship golf course back-drop and I listened while they reminisced about all the crazy people and crazy things that happened during the course of an Original Six season. You would have loved to be a fly-on-the-wall ... you would have paid to have been a fly-on-the-wall.

I thought about all this on a recent Sunday afternoon while I was driving the 401 from Detroit back to Toronto, alone. This time the drive was boring, and monotonous. It seemed to take forever. I had to pull into a rest stop just to keep from falling asleep at the wheel.

When Bruce and I made this same trip following our visit with Lindsay, he let me tell a dumb hockey story about an incident or a player and then he saw my dumb story and raised me four more.

I remember telling him something about Eddie Shack, while Bruce was drinking a Tim's double-double and he laughed so hard the coffee came out of his nose. When he challenged my stories with his own we had to stop at service stations for a whizz, we'd both been laughing so hard.

On my recent 401 journey without the ref, the trip took forever.

With Bruce, the time went by so quickly and I was disappointed when it came to an end. I wished we were driving on to Montreal.

Every winter, I move on to Florida and hook up with Norm Foster Hockey at the Ellenton Igloo. Bruce did too. He loved Norm and the guys that make up all his various teams.

Hockey was Bruce's game and he was home when he was with hockey people.

Anyway ... my recent drive wasn't the same without him.

I was reminded of the importance of friendships. 

I was reminded about the people around me who, like Bruce, 

are a positive life force and have a contagious, good spirit.

He was a once-in-a-lifetime guy.

Bruce passed away in January 2018.

I miss him.