The Global Game

The Tale of Two Thomas'

Before the jaw-dropping, acrobatic game-saving style of Boston Bruins star goalie Tim Thomas came along, oddly there was a hockey player with the same name who donned red, white and blue of the USA Hockey 25 years earlier.


Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas playing for Team USA at the 2010 Olympics

The two-time NHL goaltender of the year suited up for team USA in 2010 in Vancouver. Thomas was a back-up to fellow Michigan native Ryan Miller, helping the team to a silver medal.

Wisconsin Badger
Tim Thomas

Wisconsin star defenseman Tim Thomas was a smaller puck-rushing d-man who anchored the Badgers blueline in the early 1980's NCAA Div I men's hockey. Thomas' prolific college career ranks him fourth all-time among UW Badger defenseman, collecting just over a point a game average over four years with 154 points in 151 games.

Early in the 1984 season, Thomas was tapped to join the United States men's national hockey team to compete in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Going into the tournament the 1984 team carried in the uneviable pressure of living up to the "Miracle On Ice" 1980 gold medal winning team four years earlier. Version 1984 had the same formula that team organizers used in 1980 - a college-laden roster, featuring future star NHL'ers such as Pat LaFontaine, Chris Chelios, Al Iafrate and Ed Olczyk. With all that firepower, experts expected at least a medal round berth, but the Americans flamed out, finishing far out of the medals, seventh overall with very average 2-2-2 record.

Team USA's Tim Thomas in
pre-olympic action against the
 Minnesota North Stars in 1984

Unfortunately for Thomas, he was the last cut from the final 20-man Olympic roster heading to Sarajevo after playing for the US squad in all the pre-olympic games. On his return to Wisconsin, the Minnesota native continued his fine play for the Badgers, making second team All-American in 1985 and posting a very impressive 63 points in 42 games.

Although he was never drafted into the NHL, Thomas played 20 minor pro games for Indianopolis Checkers and Balitmore Skipjacks from 1986 to 1988, registering a respectable 14 points, before retiring from hockey for good in 1988.

The Global Game

Free Agent Frenzy

Can you remember a time when the Detroit Red Wings were a struggling franchise and a doormat of the NHL? Look up the sports news from the early 1980's and you'll find a team in desperate need of talent and identity. Lean times were upon the Red Wings as the team was shut out of the NHL post season six out of nine seasons, including a run from 1979 to 1983.

A year before in 1982, a new era was beginning to unfold in the Motor City hockey arena. Pizza magnate and avid sports fan Mike Illitch bought the team and installed up and coming assistant general manager Jimmy Devellano as the Red Wings new GM. It seemed as though Detroit's fortunes were slowly turning around. The Red Wings finally got back to the post season in back-to-back years in 1984 and 1985 being oustaded in the first round in both years, while adding one of the greatest players ever to wear the winged wheel on his chest - Steve Yzerman through the NHL draft in 1984.

By 1986, the Red Wings organization were ready to take the next step in the NHL winning heirarchy. Wanting to make a huge splash  Devellano waded into the undrafted, free agent waters, looking for those players that were not caught in the net of the NHL scouts trollers. Illitch gave Devellano the "all go" signal to allow the team to spend as much money as possible to land the biggest diamonds in the rough.

Those diamonds came in the form of a trio of  US college hockey players Ray Staszak, Tim Friday and Dale Krentz that were best forgotten by Red Wing fans. 

Ray Staszak

Staszak was coming off a wildly successful season as a junior at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Staszak was the CCHA player of the year and first all star after putting up 72 points in 38 games in 1985. Detroit needed a leg up on their Norris division foes and Staszak, standing at 6'0" 200 lbs, looked like he might be one of those talented gems that fell through the extensive NHL scouting ranks. And in the summer of 1985, Devellano was so convinced of Staszak's future pro potential, he signed the Pennsylvania native to highest free agent contract in league history at a whopping 1.3 million dollars over four years !!! This was an unheard of sum for such an unheard of player. Hockey experts and pundits throughout North America could believe what they have seen, heard and read.

Was Detroit actually breaking the bank for a untested college hockey player?  Yes, they had and now the pressure was on the 22-year-old to produce early and often.

But it was never to be for Staszak. Although he made the opening night roster for the Red Wings it would take four NHL games to supplant his future as a hockey oddity. Four games would all Staszak would ever see at the NHL level as he was sent down to the Detroit AHL farm team in Adirondack. A series of injuries to his shoulder and stomach permanently derail his once promising career and sour the Red Wings on this million-dollar flash-in-the-pan.




Tim Friday playing for RPI

Detroit continued it's 1985 college free agent foray, going after championship pedigreed defenseman Tim Friday. Friday was a star defenseman on the 1985 NCAA Div I champion Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers hockey team.



Friday with Detroit in 1986



At 6'10" 190 lbs, Friday wasn't a huge presence on the back end but he was known to be responsible in his own end of the ice and for finding the space for a quick pass up to the forwards. The Red Wings were trying to get younger on the back end and made a few trades to get the right combination speed, skill and size. Friday was supposed to fit that bill but after 23 games, posting no points and putting up a -9, the native of Calfornia was sent down to the AHL for the rest of the 1985-86 season after inccuring a shoulder injury. Friday regained his top form again in Adirondack, while helping the AHL team to the 1986 Calder Cup league championship. Friday never saw the bright lights of the Joe Louis Arena and the NHL again as he retired from hockey that summer, reportedly due to a worsening shoulder injury.

Dale Krentz was a solid forward

Krentz with Adirondack in 1988





Drafted Into Obscurity < Dan Dorion >

The annals of National Hockey League are littered with incredibly talented also-rans and could've beens. A multitude of players who, if they had the right coaching and situations, might have gone on to dazzle a generation of fans and captivate their never-ending dreams of championships.

  

Dorion with Utica in 1987 

One such player had all the talent, magic hands and ice presence to succeed but none of the size to play such a physically demanding game - Dan Dorion. Standing at a diminutive 5'9" and weighing a small 180 lbs, Dorion was always given the unenvial task of proving himself time and time again because of his tiny stature. Even though he was a proven dominating sniper at every level of hockey he had played in, Dorion's size was always in question. And this was the case again in the summer of 1982 when the New York native was tapped by the newly-minted New Jersey Devils. Dorion's stock fell as a far any talented player's stock could fall as the Devils made him their last pick in the 12th round of the entry draft.

The NHL's braintrust have always held the belief that bigger is better. Year after year general managers around the league task their scouting staff to find the next great player who combines the important measures of size, speed and talent. And its always the same critirea in that same order. For players like Dan Dorion, who have incredible talent, the deck is consistently stacked against them. No matter how many goals they score (ironic, isn't that the object of the game??) little men who burn out the lamps with league-leading titlting tallies always seem to be looked upon with suspicion.

Western Michigan Mustangs

Maine in 1987

Dorion was lighting up the USHL for Austin, 96 points in 50 games, as an 18-year-old when the Devils came calling. The tiny scorer continued his development in the US college ranks at Western Michigan University. While with the Broncos, Dorion put up some prolific numbers running up an incredible 293 points over his four college years, placing him 8th overall for career NCAA men's hockey. In 1986, he was the runner up to the Hobey Baker award for best men's hockey player and was a finalist for the award two year's earlier in 1984.

 After such an amazing college career one would think NHL scouts would've been knocking down his door for a chance to draft such a talent. But it wasn't to be for Dorion as his size became his major stumbling block.

Utica in 1989

Dorion playing for his country in 1986

Dorion finally got his crack at the NHL in the spring of 1986, playing three games while adding his only points - one goal and one assist.
He was on his way to hockey obscurity after New Jersey left him to languish in the AHL for the next season in 1987, finally giving him another taste of NHL action - one last game in 1988.

Dorion as he could see the writing on the wall of his limited NHL career. He was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers AHL farm team in 1988 and Dorion was on his way to Europe permanently a year later in 1990.
As a footnote to his pro hockey career, Dorion had a four-year-run in the British Hockey League, starring for Nottingham and Humberside to close out his time on the ice.