A Look At Bob Fitchner (Part Three)

Bob Fitchner was a solid forward in the 1970s in both the WHA and the NHL.

This is the last of a three-part series on former Quebec Nordiques player Bob Fitchner in his own words.

Going to Quebec, I kind of got the word that someone was going to be traded late in the 1975-76 season, and then I heard I’d been traded and that Mr. Maurice Filion wants me in Quebec. But the timing of it really couldn’t have been worse! One night I was awake and was going to grab a frosty mug from the freezer to have a beer and I dropped it on the floor, stepped on the glass, and I cut the bottom of my foot for six stitches. I couldn’t skate and was off the ice for about a week while this trade’s maybe taking place. By the time I got on the ice, I’d been off for eleven days. I got to Quebec and got thrown out on a line with Serge Bernier and Rejean Houle, who were two of the best players in the whole league, and I was a trailer on every line rush. I mean I would have been anyways, but being out of shape, I was standing out as a trailer, so that line lasted a couple of games and then I moved off the scoring line and onto a checking line with Steve Sutherland and Curt Brackenbury. We played the rest of that year together and then played the following year as well.

Brackenbury ended up becoming one of my best friends and we still are to this day. In Quebec, we used to have a faceoff play in the offensive zone. Brack would position himself at the top of the faceoff circle and I would bank the puck off the boards, retrieve and slide the puck to our answer to the Golden Jet, Curt Brackenbury, and he would one-time the shot. Most often I would be tied up along the boards awaiting the usual sound. Nothing but… glass. One day Brack spent forty-five minutes perfecting a stick with a huge banana like curve and loft. I had visions of some poor, unsuspecting fan in the eighteenth row getting struck with that cannonading drive. I promptly stepped on his blade and snapped it in half. My concern was his reaction – that he might punch me. To my great relief, he saw the humour in it and agreed that the curve was a bit extreme.

I think financially it wasn’t that good because taxes were much higher playing in Quebec. My wife looked at the first paycheck and remarked how it was a pretty big difference from my paychecks in Indianapolis. You don’t think about those things because you’re playing in Quebec with all the hockey history there. Prior to going there, you never really liked playing in Quebec as a visiting team because of how loud it was in the arena, but once I got traded there, I really enjoyed it.

The most difficult thing about my time in Quebec was that it was a tough place to live in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 years with all the talk of separation. Rene Levesque was the premier and he stood right behind our bench all the time, smoking cigarettes, standing in the hallway as we go off the ice. Most people in Quebec City were pretty good, but I had one neighbour that caused some problems for us. He was very into separating and was kind of confrontational because he didn’t like having an English neighbour. One night while I was away on the road, they were throwing glasses at my house, which was dangerous. But getting away from that, I always felt I got treated well by the fans of Quebec. Most of the time I didn’t know what they were saying anyways because I didn’t speak French.