›› | HISTORY | WITH SCOTTY BOWMAN
THE GREAT AB MCDONALD
AB MCDONALD , the first captain of the WHA ’ s Winnipeg Jets , is legendary in Winnipeg . Born and raised in Winnipeg , he went off to play with the OHA ’ s St . Catharines ’ Teepees as a 16-year-old in 1954 .
He eventually joined the Montreal Canadiens in 1958 , was traded to Chicago after the 1960 season and played on Stanley Cup winners in Montreal in 1959 and 1960 and then played on the Cup winner in Chicago in 1961 .
He went to Boston in 1964 , then Detroit in 1965 and Pittsburgh picked him up in the expansion of 1967 . He had a good year in Pittsburgh in 1967-68 ( 22 goals and 43 points ) and we liked him .
So , back when I was with St . Louis , we traded for him in 1968 . ( NHL President ) Clarence Campbell was pretty smart . He set up that 1967 expansion so the new teams played in the same Conference against each other , guaranteeing that an expansion team would reach the Stanley Cup final . It was good for the fan base of the new teams and helped build the teams in St . Louis , Los Angeles , Philadelphia , Minnesota and Pittsburgh .
However , we didn ’ t get a lot of players in the expansion draft so we didn ’ t have much to trade to the existing teams in order to better ourselves . So
we tended to trade amongst ourselves . In June of of 1968 , we sent Lou Angotti to Pittsburgh to get Ab and it was a good trade for us .
Pittsburgh had missed the playoffs in 67-68 , but Ab had a good year and I knew him from his days in Montreal and he knew many of the players we had because we had a lot of former Montreal players like Jimmy Roberts and Red Berenson . We all liked him and it turned out to be a really good deal for us and a good fit for Ab . He just fit in perfectly for us .
Ab was a good two-way player with better-thanaverage hands so he had some offense . He also played a lot of defense and on my teams , you had to play two-ways . He had terrific size ( 6-foot- 3 , 190 pounds ) and in those days , there weren ’ t a lot of big players in the league . He had a good long reach and was a great all-around player .
I liked Ab because he was such a happy-go-lucky guy . He always had a smile on his face and he loved to play the game . He came out of Winnipeg to Montreal when the Canadiens were the best team in the world and they had a lot of good players . It was tough to make that team so he and Murray Balfour ended up going to Chicago and
Winnipeg Wild star Ryan Gottfried and his grand dad Ab McDonald
they had some success there .
Ab was a really good player in Montreal , but they just had so many great players coming up that it was hard for Ab to find a place . But when he went to Chicago , he got on a line with Stan Mikita and Kenny Wharram and enjoyed a lot of success . That was a very good line that had a lot to do with the team ’ s Cup win in 1961 . In fact , Ab scored the Stanley Cup winning goal for Chicago that year . Then he went into the expansion draft and we were glad to get him in St . Louis a year later . We had him for two-and-half years in St . Louis and he helped us get to two Stanley Cup finals . He eventually went on , of course , to become the first captain of the Winnipeg Jets and that was a great way for Ab to finish a very good career . Loved Ab McDonald , another great player from Winnipeg . ❍
Former NHL coach and honoured member of the Hockey Hall of Fame , Scotty Bowman provides Game On , Manitoba ’ s Hockey Magazine with a column at various times throughout the hockey season . He holds the NHL record for most wins by a coach in both the regular season and the playoffs and won 14 Stanley Cup championships .
Photo by Jeff Miller
124 | GAME ON | REGULAR SEASON EDITION 2018