Your Survival Guy liked this remembrance of the late Montreal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden by broadcaster Al Michaels in The Boston Globe by Jim McBride.
Michaels and Dryden shared the broadcasting booth for years and were together for Team USA’s win over the Soviets, sparking the famous “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” by Michaels.
“Paired together for the first time for the Izvestia Cup in Moscow in 1979 — a precursor to the Lake Placid Olympic Games — the strangers got together for an introductory chat,” explains Michaels.
“We met for dinner at the International Hotel in Moscow the night before the tournament started. And we were sitting there, and I could tell right off the bat he was my kind of guy, and this was going to work really well,” Michaels told the Globe.
“So, he spent about five or six minutes at one point explaining to me the differences between international hockey and the 100-foot-wide rink and the NHL style hockey at 85 feet, and the cross-ice passing and the geometry, etc., etc. And it was fascinating,” recalled Michaels.
“So, Ken finishes up and then he says to me, ‘Now do you think this is something that the American audience will be interested in?’ And I said, ‘Ken, they will be but let me introduce you to the world of broadcasting: Can you get it down to eight seconds?’” Michaels said.
“So, we shared a big laugh over that and sure enough, you go back through some of those games that he did in Lake Placid, and his analysis was spectacular. He was able to get it down to eight seconds or less.”
From The Boston Globe:
[Dryden] turned pro late in the 1971 season and impressed the Canadiens brass so much, he earned the starting job over veteran — and fellow Hockey Hall of Famer — Rogie Vachon. Dryden was tremendous in leading Montreal to the Cup, beating the defending champion Bruins with stars Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito in the first round. Esposito would later go on to call the 6-foot-3-inch Dryden — tall for a goalie in that era — “that thieving giraffe.”
Dryden, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs MVP in 1971, then helped lead the Habs to five more Stanley Cups (1973, ‘76-79).
Those ’70s Canadiens teams were loaded with Hall of Famers: They had prolific scorers and superb defenders, but it was often Dryden who got them over the top — particularly in their battles with the Bruins.
“Not too many people say this, but they needed Kenny Dryden,” Cheevers said. “I didn’t really try to compete against him. I really tried to stay up with him and give my team a chance, give our team a chance, to win. But he was a good one.”
Following that final Cup and a fourth straight Vezina Trophy in ’79, Dryden decided he was done with hockey. He set his keen eye on broadcasting.
Dryden authored a number of books, including “The Game,” which delved into those legendary Canadiens teams of the 1970s. It is considered by many the best hockey book ever written.
“To me, ‘The Game’ is as great a sports book as I’ve ever read. It’s phenomenal,” Michaels said. “Every word was his own — there’s no ghostwriting. He’s a brilliant guy, a brilliant guy. There’s no two ways about it.”
I agree 100 percent with Michaels. “The Game” puts you in the locker room inside Dryden’s head and the pressure he was under as a championship goalie, and what it took to win. It was a lot, and it took a toll.
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Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
