| Hockey hall of famer Phil Esposito tells stories just as well as he scored goals.
Speaking by telephone from his home in Florida, there is little dead air in our conversation. He answers questions immediately and adds accessory quips, anecdotes and three-word sentences almost every time.
Q: Were you a storyteller in your playing days?
A: It depended. Sometimes. Depended on the situation. There are some times I can start telling stories and remember every story and joke I ever heard and some times I can’t remember anything. That’s why it took one-and-three-quarter years, almost two years, to write the book. The truth is, there are lots of other stories I just couldn’t remember.
In Thunder and Lightning: A No B.S. Hockey Memoir by Esposito with Peter Golenbock, the stories are straight ahead, showing all the pimples and warts of NHL players, coaches, executives and others. Written in chronological order with little bridgework from one story to the next, the tales are revealing and often laugh-out-loud funny.
"That’s what I tried to do," he says. "I tried to make people laugh, tried to make it like I was telling you a story over a beer."
Despite the revelations in the book, which range from stories of extramarital affairs and sneaking a peek at female goalie Manon Rheaume’s naked butt, to anecdotes about questionable ownership ethics and a less-than-flattering tale of wrestler Andre the Giant, Esposito says he has yet to get in trouble for its contents.
"Nobody’s given me trouble," he says. "It is reality. No doubt. Everybody thinks it’s very funny. Nobody’s told me they don’t like it and if they don’t, that’s tough luck for me."
He does admit, however, that if Andre the Giant were still alive he wouldn’t want to get on his bad side. "That guy was strong. He held me on one arm and Bobby Orr on the other. Man, he was big."
Then the conversation comes to an unusual pause. "Can you hold on for a second?" he asks. "This is print, right?" About a minute passes. "That was Ken Hodge (a former Boston Bruin and Chicago Blackhawk teammate). He says, ‘When are you going to send me a book, you jerk-off?’ I told him that’s what he was getting for Christmas."
On the suggestion he should have told Hodge he was getting the book wholesale, Esposito laughs and says, "Yeah, that would go over really well."
His links to his days playing in the NHL are many but not all memories are joyous. Take the 1972 series win against the Russians.
"There was no celebration for me," he says. "I was in Boston the day after and played a game the next day. The people in Boston, Chicago, New York, they didn’t care one iota about that series.
"It should have never been called Team Canada, it should have been Team NHL, because they wouldn’t let guys like (goalie Gerry) Cheevers or Gordie Howe (who both played in the rival WHA at the time) play. We celebrated on the plane. I was anxious to get back to Boston."
He calls winning his first Stanley Cup in 1970 the highlight of his playing career. His biggest personal accomplishment, however, was getting the franchise established in Tampa Bay.
"My only regret there is, I should have coached the first three years instead of just managing. Nobody cared if we won or lost because you have a three-year grace period. I would have had three years to make the team how I wanted it to play."
It would have played like the legendary goal scorer himself – with offensive flair. Not surprisingly, he has much criticism for today’s defensive-style pro game.
"The guys are bigger than they were in my day and supposedly stronger and everything else, and supposedly in better condition, but I don’t understand it," he says. "They play for 35, 40 seconds and the coach wants them off the ice. In our day, we were just getting warmed up. I think the game is boring compared to when I played."
Ask Espo why he wrote this book and he gives you two reasons. "One, for the money. Secondly, somebody else is going to write about me so I may as well write one myself."
But the publishing of Thunder and Lightning doesn’t mean his stories in print will end. "I’ve got three boxes full of legal-sized pads that I started keeping when I began as GM in New York in 1985 and kept it going while I was in Tampa Bay. It has all the ins and outs of trades and things.
"I think that would be interesting, the people’s names mentioned in various deals. That would be very interesting, I think." |
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