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Canadian ice hockey player (born 1948) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Douglas Bradford Park (born July 6, 1948) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. A defenceman, Park played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the New York Rangers, Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings. Considered to be one of the best defencemen of his era, he was named to an All-Star team seven times. The most productive years of his career were overshadowed by superstar Bobby Orr, with whom he played with for a brief time. Unlike Orr's, however, his teams never hoisted the Stanley Cup. Park was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1988. In 2017, he was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.[1]
| Brad Park | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Hockey Hall of Fame, 1988 | |||
|
Park in the 1970s | |||
| Born |
July 6, 1948 Toronto, Ontario, Canada | ||
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (183 cm) | ||
| Weight | 190 lb (86 kg; 13 st 8 lb) | ||
| Position | Defence | ||
| Shot | Left | ||
| Played for |
New York Rangers Boston Bruins Detroit Red Wings | ||
| National team |
 Canada | ||
| NHL draft |
2nd overall, 1966 New York Rangers | ||
| Playing career | 1968–1985 | ||
As a youth, Park played in the 1960 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with the Scarboro Lions,[2] was a member of the Junior B Toronto Westclairs (1964–1965) and then the Junior A Toronto Marlboros (1965–1968). He was drafted by the New York Rangers in the first round (second overall) in the 1966 NHL amateur draft and, after a brief stint with the minor-league Buffalo Bisons of the AHL, began playing for the Rangers in 1968.
Park developed into the best Rangers defenceman, whose offensive skill, stickhandling and pugnacity made him popular with local fans and media. He even drew occasional comparisons with the Boston Bruins superstar Bobby Orr, universally acclaimed to be the greatest at his position in hockey history. Years afterward, Park remarked, "I saw no reason to be upset because I was rated second to Bobby Orr. After all, Orr not only was the top defenceman in the game but he was considered the best player ever to put on a pair of skates. There was nothing insulting about being rated No. 2 to such a super superstar."[3]
Park was made the alternate captain of the Rangers and briefly served as their captain. In 1972, after the team's top scorer, Jean Ratelle, was lost due to a broken ankle, he led the Rangers past the defending Stanley Cup-champion Montreal Canadiens in the first round and the West Division champion Chicago Black Hawks in the semifinals of the playoffs. The Rangers advanced to the Stanley Cup finals where they fell to the Boston Bruins in six games. After the Rangers staved off elimination in Game 5 at Boston, Bruins assistant captain Phil Esposito said famously, "If the Rangers think they're going to beat us in the next two games, they're full of 'Park' spelled backwards", Sure enough, the Bruins put them away in Game 6 at Madison Square Garden. Park finished a distant second to Orr in the Norris Trophy vote.
When the upstart World Hockey Association tried to lure Park away, the Rangers re-signed him to a $200,000-a-year contract that made him, briefly, the highest-paid player in the NHL.[4]
In the 1972 Summit Series, with Orr unable to play due to injury, Park emerged as a key contributor to Team Canada's series over the Soviets, being named Best Defenceman of the series.
After opening the 1975–76 season with their worst start in ten years, the Rangers began to unload its high-priced veterans. Park, along with Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi, was traded to the Boston Bruins in a November 7 blockbuster deal that also sent Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais to the Rangers, one that shocked everyone.[5][6] The New York press and public had felt that Park, 27 at the time, was overweight, overpaid and over the hill, as he was facing unfavorable comparisons to Denis Potvin.[4][7]
While Esposito and Vadnais were effective players for the Rangers, the team remained mired at the bottom of the division after "the trade", and Rangers general manager Emile Francis was eventually fired. Contrary to expectations that the Rangers had gotten the better end of the trade, the struggling Bruins were instantly rejuvenated and soon again became one of the NHL's best teams, despite the departures of Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr.[4]
Taking over the mantle of leadership from Orr, whose career was threatened by injury and who would soon leave the team, Park continued his success under coach Don Cherry. Park had previously been an end-to-end puck carrier, but with the Bruins, he was told by Cherry to concentrate on defence.[4] Getting over his unpopularity in Boston when he was a member of the arch-rival Rangers, Park made a relatively smooth transition to his new team,[8] even hitch-hiking a ride from two teenagers at 1 am after his car ran out of gas, and Park later rewarded them with free tickets to the next Boston home game.[4]
From 1977 to 1979, Cherry's "Lunch Pail A.C." captured three division titles for the Bruins. Park earned two first All-Star team selections, while coming in second in the Norris Trophy race twice in a Bruins' uniform, with 1977–78 being considered one of his finest seasons.[3] In 1977 and 1978, Park was a key contributor to Boston's back-to-back appearances in the Stanley Cup Finals where they lost to the Montreal Canadiens both times.[9] His last highlight with Boston came in Game 7 of the Adams Division finals against the Buffalo Sabres in the 1983 playoffs, when Park scored the game-winning goal in overtime and help Boston advance in to the conference finals[10] — Park's career overlapped with the first four years of the emerging superstar defenceman of the Bruins, Raymond Bourque, from 1979 to 1983.
The following season (1983–84), Park signed with the Detroit Red Wings as a free agent.[11] He won the Bill Masterton Trophy for perseverance that same year, having set a record for assists by a Red Wings' defenceman (53). After the 1985 season, still an effective player but hobbled by repeated knee injuries, he announced his retirement.[12][13] The next year, he served as Detroit's head coach before he was fired on June 3, 1986.[14][15][16][17]
Soon after his retirement and before he coached the Red Wings, he served as a color commentator and studio analyst for CTV and ESPN NHL broadcasts in between.[18][19]
In 1988, Park was elected in his first year of eligibility to the Hockey Hall of Fame in his hometown of Toronto.[20][21]
Park was one of five plaintiffs along with Dave Forbes, Rick Middleton, Ulf Nilsson and Doug Smail in Forbes v. Eagleson, a class action lawsuit filed in 1995 on behalf of about 1,000 NHL players who were employed by NHL teams between 1972 and 1991 against Alan Eagleson, the league and its member clubs. The players alleged that the NHL and its teams violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by colluding with Eagleson to enable him to embezzle from the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) and that the four-year statute of limitations in civil racketeering cases began when Eagleson was indicted in 1994. The lawsuit was dismissed on August 27, 1998, in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by Thomas Newman O'Neill Jr. who ruled that the statute of limitations expired because it had begun in 1991 when the players were made aware of the allegations against Eagleson. O'Neill's decision was upheld in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on October 17, 2000.[22][23]
Park has resided on the North Shore of Massachusetts and on Sebago Lake in Maine for almost 40 years, with his wife Gerry.[24] He has five children and eight grandchildren. His autobiography, Straight Shooter: The Brad Park Story, was published in August, 2012.
| Regular season | Playoffs | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Team | League | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | GP | G | A | Pts | PIM | ||
| 1965–66 | Toronto Marlboros | OHA | 33 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 48 | 14 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 38 | ||
| 1966–67 | Toronto Marlboros | OHA | 28 | 4 | 15 | 19 | 73 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 17 | ||
| 1967–68 | Toronto Marlboros | OHA | 51 | 10 | 33 | 43 | 120 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 37 | ||
| 1968–69 | New York Rangers | NHL | 54 | 3 | 23 | 26 | 70 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 7 | ||
| 1968–69 | Buffalo Bisons | AHL | 17 | 2 | 12 | 14 | 49 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1969–70 | New York Rangers | NHL | 60 | 11 | 26 | 37 | 98 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 11 | ||
| 1970–71 | New York Rangers | NHL | 68 | 7 | 37 | 44 | 114 | 13 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 42 | ||
| 1971–72 | New York Rangers | NHL | 75 | 24 | 49 | 73 | 130 | 16 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 21 | ||
| 1972–73 | New York Rangers | NHL | 52 | 10 | 43 | 53 | 51 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 8 | ||
| 1973–74 | New York Rangers | NHL | 78 | 25 | 57 | 82 | 148 | 13 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 38 | ||
| 1974–75 | New York Rangers | NHL | 65 | 13 | 44 | 57 | 104 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 2 | ||
| 1975–76 | New York Rangers | NHL | 13 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 23 | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| 1975–76 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 43 | 16 | 37 | 53 | 95 | 11 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 14 | ||
| 1976–77 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 77 | 12 | 55 | 67 | 67 | 14 | 2 | 10 | 12 | 4 | ||
| 1977–78 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 80 | 22 | 57 | 79 | 79 | 15 | 9 | 11 | 20 | 14 | ||
| 1978–79 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 40 | 7 | 32 | 39 | 10 | 11 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 8 | ||
| 1979–80 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 32 | 5 | 16 | 21 | 27 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 4 | ||
| 1980–81 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 78 | 14 | 52 | 66 | 111 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 11 | ||
| 1981–82 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 75 | 14 | 42 | 56 | 82 | 11 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | ||
| 1982–83 | Boston Bruins | NHL | 76 | 10 | 26 | 36 | 82 | 16 | 3 | 9 | 12 | 18 | ||
| 1983–84 | Detroit Red Wings | NHL | 80 | 5 | 53 | 58 | 85 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | ||
| 1984–85 | Detroit Red Wings | NHL | 67 | 13 | 30 | 43 | 53 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | ||
| NHL totals | 1,113 | 213 | 683 | 896 | 1,429 | 161 | 35 | 90 | 125 | 217 | ||||
| Team | Year | Regular season | Post season | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | L | T | Pts | Finish | Result | ||
| Detroit Red Wings | 1985–86 | 45 | 9 | 34 | 2 | 40 | 5th in Norris | Missed playoffs |
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