Reardon Was Spectacular

Ken Reardon was a Hall of Fame Montreal Canadiens defensemen of the 1940s that won one Stanley Cup and was a two-time NHL First Team All-Star.

"I couldn't skate, I couldn't shoot, and I wasn't very intelligent. But I was spectacular." − Ken Reardon

Nicknamed "Beans" from his army days, Reardon used to drink penicillin for breakfast and bath daily in pickling brine. It was quite the different regiment than what you might see an NHL player partake in today, but back then it worked for Ken.

Reardon was a top flight defensemen known for his headlong rushes and all-out intense, physical game that left opposing players in his wake and himself often injured; though he showed extraordinary toughness in playing while he was in pain throughout his career.

The fact that Ken Reardon was the player that Don Cherry idolized as a kid should tell you all you need to know. Cherry admired Reardon so much because he stood for all the right things. Reardon fought in World War II and was this incredibly brute and tough player on the ice, but deep down was a very compassionate person that was admired by a lot of people.

"He did some scouting right after he retired from hockey and if he went and scouted you up in Winnipeg and you came out of the arena without a coat on, he would literally give you the coat off his back − no questions asked," recalled Reardon's son who is also named Ken. "As much as he terrorized the league, he was this incredibly kind, passionate human being."

Ken Reardon was born in Winnipeg on April 1st 1921. He grew up in the city's West End and played his hockey at nearby Clifton Community Club, winning the city playground championship in 1931 and 1932. He then helped the East Kildonan Bisons win the Bantam Championship in 1933 and 1934 and also won a Midget City crown for them in 1935. The following year he won another city championship, this time in juvenile hockey with the Winnipeg Monarchs.

It should be said that despite all of the success that Ken accomplished early on in hockey, he'd be the first to tell you that it was his brother Terry Reardon, two years his senior, who was the real hockey star in the family. Terry was quickly rising through the ranks of junior hockey in Winnipeg, and was a prolific goal scorer for the East Kildonan North Stars and later the St. Boniface Seals. For Ken, his claim to fame at school was that he was Terry Reardon's younger brother.

At the age of thirteen, Ken experienced the worst kind of tragedy when he lost both of his parents in an automobile accident. Ken, his two brothers and one sister were orphaned and eventually the family, still overwhelm from what happened to their parents, moved to northern British Columbia to live with an uncle. 

Back in those days, youth hockey in British Columbia wasn't up to the same level as it was in Winnipeg, but Ken wanted to continue playing hockey so he was encouraged by his uncle to play for the Blue River Rebels of the British Columbia Junior Hockey League for the 1937-38 season.

At this time, Ken's brother Terry, was the star player of the Brandon Wheat Kings, scoring 45 points in just 16 games. The next season he would make his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins. Inspired by his big brother, Ken wrote a letter to a junior team in Edmonton requesting a chance to try-out. He made the team, but mostly watched the games from the bench as he rarely found playing team even though his team made it all the way to the Memorial Cup final.

In the fall of 1939, Ken attended a New York Rangers camp in Winnipeg but was let go because of his "poor" skating. During the 1939-40 season, Reardon worked extremely hard to improve his skating and all the work he put into it showed on the score sheet. In that year's Memorial Cup playdowns, Ken exploded for 31 points in 14 games, as his Edmonton Athletic Club lost a hard-fought Western final to the Kenora Thistles.

Paul Haynes, a Montreal Canadiens forward that was injured and out of action, was sent by the team out west to scout junior hockey. On his trip out west, he discovered Elmer Lach and Ken Reardon.           

"One look was enough," recalled Haynes. "From the first time I saw him, Ken was a tough, hell bent-for-rubber kid who electrified the stands. I slapped him on the Canadiens' list pronto and the following autumn he was brought east to the Canadiens' training camp at St. Hyacinthe, Quebec. Dick Irvin had the rookies working a week before we oldtimers reported. Reardon looked good and I was plenty proud of my scouting. Naturally, too, a rather intimate friendship had grown between us.

"The very first day we oldtimers put on skates, Irvin lined up a team against the rookies. I snaffled the faceoff, passed to Toe Blake who carried it over the blue line and whipped it back to me. At that identical moment, an earthquake hit. I found myself dazedly staring up at the roof lights. Players were looking down in wondering sympathy. Reardon had hit me with the most blistering check I ever received in ten seasons in the National Hockey League. I was sore as a boil but when I cooled down I realized the guy just doesn't mix sentiment with business − he plays for keeps all the time."

Most hockey players have to play in the minors before they play in the NHL to get used to the pro game − not Ken Reardon though. The Canadiens liked him so much that the 5'11'', 180 pound defensemen made the 1940-41 Canadiens squad out of training camp and debuted for the team as a nineteen year old rookie. Reardon signed his first pro contract on October 26th 1940 for $4,000 a season, plus a $1,000 signing bonus. He played his first NHL game a few nights later as he was one of the half-dozen rookies who suited up for new coach Dick Irvin on opening night and immediately the Canadiens coach Irvin realized he had something special in front of him. Ken was fierce and fearless right from the get-go and was a rock on defense. Any opposing forward that tried to get around Ken was met with a crunching body-check.

After a very strong rookie campaign, the Canadiens decided to bring in Ken's brother Terry for the 1941-42 season and the two brothers became teammates in Montreal. Ken and Terry seemed to have a really good thing going in Montreal, but that's exactly when World War II broke out, and of course the Irish brothers enlisted in the Canadian Army.

Call it fate or whatever you want to call it, but the future president of the National Hockey League Clarence Campbell and Ken were privates together early in the war at an Edmonton base, sharing the same tent. Since Ken used to enjoy a few extra winks of sleep in the mornings after reveille, Campbell would shine up his buttons to keep him from having trouble with the sergeant.

Before Ken was shipped overseas, he kept up with his hockey and helped the Ottawa Commandos win the Allan Cup in 1943. During the war, Ken got up to corporal and was personally presented with a Certificate of Gallantry by Field Marshall Montgomery for work under fire with a heavy bridging group of the Canadian Army in Belgium. Ken's brother Terry survived being shot in the back on the battlefield, but his hockey career was never the same once he returned from war. 

When Ken returned home he rejoined his Canadiens club and picked up right where he left off as one of the league's most prominent and toughest defensemen. In the 1946 Stanley Cup final, Ken and his Canadiens went up against brother Terry and the Boston Bruins. The series was so intense that the two brothers even fought each other during one of the games. Ken's Canadiens ended up winning the series in five games, but it was one of those series that really could have gone either way. For Ken, it was also a matter of personal triumph as that 1946 Cup win would be his one and only he would win as a player.  

Ken had some more stellar years in the late 1940's but just couldn't get the job done against the powerful Toronto Maple Leafs teams of that era. Still though, Reardon's intense play on the ice certainly made him a lot of enemies, but it also garnished a lot of respect from other members of the National Hockey League.

"He's a wild, crazy guy out there on the ice," said Rangers star Frank Boucher, "but he's the most inspired player in the league today. He can rally a team when it needs it and lift it all by himself."

Toronto Maple Leafs coach Hap Day added that, "Reardon is the most demoralizing player in the game. He can knock a whole National Hockey League team off balance − get them thinking of everything but hockey."

"He was a no good rotten son of a bitch, but he was a nice guy too!," recalled former Leafs player Howie Meeker with a chuckle. "I got to know him very well over the years and he was a really great guy. Reardon ran on skates, was tough as nails, and on the ice you never knew what he was going to do. But get him off the ice and he was full of shit and vinegar. He was definitely the English-speaking heart on those late 1940's Montreal Canadiens when they had good years. Ken certainly got by with less skill than any defensemen that ever played in the National Hockey League. I mean on a scale of one to ten, he was probably a six, but he was an incredibly smart player at the same time. I've always had a ton of respect for Reardon as a player and person."

In New York, the fans at Madison Square Garden's despised Ken's play so much that the upper gallery of the arena formed an anti-Reardon hate club. Shortly before Christmas one year, they threw an unplucked turkey at Ken during a game that just missed his head by mere inches. Ken looked up to the fans and saw a banner that they unravelled from the railing that read: "Merry Christmas, Reardon!"

On an off-day one year, Ken visited Mont Tremblant, a famed ski resort and went skiing for the first time in his life. After a mere ten minutes of instruction, he went up the first chair lift and actually negotiated the rapid descent without falling. That's what can happen I guess when you have absolutely no fear, a solid sense of balance and the ability to absorb coaching instantly. Astounded ski instructors saw Ken the following afternoon skiing with several members of the Canadian Olympic team which is crazy because he'd only been skiing for a day. It just goes to show you what kind of a natural athlete Reardon really was that he could take on a totally different sport and excel almost instantly.

As mentioned earlier, Reardon often found himself injured and playing through injury and great deals of pain. It's the result you can expect from throwing your body out there on a nightly basis. One shoulder injury was supposed to keep him out of the lineup and in the press box for three weeks but he returned to the Canadiens' lineup after just ten days. He attempted to hit an opponent in the first few minutes of his first game, missed, and slammed the tender shoulder into the boards. Ken completed the game and then asked the team doctor to look at the throbbing arm. "It's your head I should be examining, not your shoulder," replied the doctor.  

Through all the success that Ken had during his short but stellar NHL career, he is likely best known today for his longstanding feud with Cal Gardner.

The Ken Reardon/Cal Gardner feud started on March 16th 1947 during a late-season game that featured what hockey historian Stan Fischler calls, "the greatest fight in Rangers' history; no questions asked." The radio play-by-play man Bert Lee was yelling hysterically, "It's a riot! It's a riot! It's a riot!" as the two teams were having an old fashioned donnybrook that featured endless bouts and stick fights.

It all started with just thirty seconds remaining in the game as the Canadiens were nursing a 4-3 lead. Reardon took the puck up the ice and as he skated across the blueline, Bryan Hextall of the Rangers checked him, bouncing Ken towards the Rangers' Cal Gardner, who in turn cross-checked Ken in the mouth. Reardon would later recall how his upper lip felt as if it'd been sawed off his face. "There was quite a bit of blood on the ice," said Reardon. "My chewing gum was on the ice and I could see a couple of teeth sticking in it."

That's the moment when all hell broke loose. A bench-clearing brawl ignited which also involved some fans too. One fan took a shot at the bloodied Reardon as the police struggled to keep the Canadiens team from attacking the crowd.

After the game, Reardon promised to the media that he would get revenge on Gardner every time they met again. He even told a magazine that he was going to break Cal Gardner's jaw. Well in their next couple of meetings nothing really happened that was noteworthy, but that all changed in November of 1949 when Gardner, who was now a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, had his jaw broken by Ken in a game at the Montreal Forum.

"I wanted to get even, I make no bones about it," recalled Reardon. "The week the magazine came out I ran into Cal Gardner accidentally. I never got a penalty for it and unfortunately he broke his jaw off both sides."  

Reardon had to go in front of league president Clarence Campbell, his former bunk-mate in the Canadian Army and was given a real strict talking to. He even forced Reardon while he was on the ice to post a $1,000 bond against future violence.

Ken, who retired after the 1949-50 season before the on-ice war with Gardner continued any further, said with a chuckle, "If I'd have played one more year I would have had one more go (at Gardiner) I think because $1000 is not that much money."

That old saying that time heals all wounds doesn't apply here as Reardon and Gardner would remain enemies for their entire lives.

Ironically, November of 1949 was also when Reardon and teammate Leo Gravelle were arrested and put in jail for a few hours in Chicago after another wild melee. Fans had claimed that Leo and Ken had attacked them with their "deadly sticks" and one of the fans even needed seven stitches after Ken supposedly slashed him in the head with his stick. Reardon and Gravelle faced charges of assault with a deadly weapon and it was all over the news across North America. Fortunately, all charges were cleared very quickly and the pair could switch their full focus back to hockey.

Ken ended up retiring from hockey when he was just 29 years old which is no doubt a testament to the rugged style of play he endorsed. Ken said that his body could no longer withstand his violent style of game, but that his heart and mind would never let him tone down his game. He retired with 26 goals and 122 points in 341 NHL games over seven seasons in a Montreal Canadiens uniform. Among the defensemen of his time, he ranked second in points over his seven NHL seasons. Ken was also a First Team All-Star twice (1947, 1950) and was a Second Team All-Star (1946, 1948, 1949) on three occasions.              

After his retirement, Ken stayed in the Canadiens organization and was their Director of Public Relations until 1956 when he became the assistant and right-hand man to Canadiens general manager Frank Selke. Reardon led the team's scouting system in Western Canada for years and helped the Habs find plenty of players that eventually suited up for the Canadiens.

Reardon was also instrumental in the Canadiens decision to hire Toe Blake at the beginning of the 1955-56 season. In Dick Irvin Jr’s book "The Habs", Reardon recalled how the coaching decision was made.

"Frank Selke didn’t want to bring Toe Blake back. He never wanted Toe as coach. He said he did, but he didn’t. Selke wanted to bring in Joe Primeau. The French press wanted Roger Leger. My father-in-law (Senator Donat Raymond, the team’s owner) wanted Billy Reay. And I held out for Toe Blake.

"When Blake was coaching in the Quebec Senior League, he would go the league meetings and cause Selke untold grief. That’s why he never wanted him as coach.

"So I said, 'If he gives you that much trouble working against you, imagine how it would be with him working for you."

Selke finally relented and history as you can say was made since Toe Blake would go on to coach the Canadiens to eight Stanley Cup championships, including five in a row from the 1956 through 1960.

Eventually, Ken was named the team's vice president and he held the position until 1965. In 1964 when Selke retired as the club's general manager, Reardon was one of the final two candidates to fill the job along with Sam Pollock. Although the Habs ended up going with Pollock, Ken never felt any bitterness towards him.

"Sam Pollock is the most intelligent man I've ever met," recalled Reardon, "not just in hockey, but in life."

In addition to his 1946 Stanley Cup as a player, Ken also won Cups in 1956 as assistant manager, and then in 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960 as vice president. Reardon's stellar career as a player was honoured in 1966 with his induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

In his later years, Reardon stayed out of the spotlight but remained best friends with hockey legends such as Bobby Orr and Maurice Richard. He followed the game all through his life, but claimed that the invention of the jet airplane was the worst thing to happen to hockey. In his day, players would travel by train and they did everything together. In the modern game there is too much time apart and he felt that team's aren't as close-knit as they once were.

Ken Reardon passed away in Saint-Saveur, Quebec at the age of 86 on March 15th 2008 after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer's.

The final word on Reardon comes from Jacques Plante's biographer Todd Denault who wrote that, "Ken Reardon was not the most gifted or talented player to ever play for the Montreal Canadiens. But his level of determination and toughness was rarely if ever matched by any future members of the team. His battling style and willingness to play all out, regardless of injury or the opponent endeared him to Canadiens fans."

Ken Reardon, Guy Lafleur, Don Cherry, Dick Irvin Jr.

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