HockeyFighter
11-21-2002, 11:53 PM
Taken from the Toronto Star. It is about fromer NHL enforcer Steve Durbano who died a few days ago. You would think when someone dies you could say one nice thing about them.
"The last time I spoke to Steve Durbano, he threatened to kill me.
He was calling from prison.
With Durbano, NHL super-goon, one never took such threats lightly. Years earlier, he'd hurled a hockey stick at my head ---- and that was long before he even knew my name. I was just a stranger. And Durbano was just a psychopath.
There was a time when clinical psychopaths could find work in the NHL, fame even, comic book hero status. Durbano had more than his share of all that before glory turned to notoriety and his career went up his nose.
Buried in a snowdrift of cocaine, yet drugs were not the worst of his problems. Cocaine didn't make Durbano crazy, although the last thing he needed was that extra jolt of aggression. This man seethed with rage, with violence, with malice. His own teammates feared him. Once, after he'd disappeared from the bench with 59 seconds left in a game ---- simply took off, peeved over his low ice-time ---- he was only permitted back on to the squad after the other players took a vote. What shocked is that a majority of teammates had given him a second chance. Perhaps they were afraid of what he'd do to them if they didn't.
It's considered bad form to speak ill of the dead. But in that case, there would be little to say now of Durbano, who died on the weekend from liver cancer, aged 50. He had wound up in Yellowknife, N.W.T., purportedly there in search of some peace and quiet, which doesn't sound like Durbano at all.
I never expected him to mellow.
In 1998, the spectacularly inept Durbano had been sentenced to three months in jail on a charge of procurement. In other words, he was a pimp. He'd attempted to hire a woman ---- she was actually an undercover police officer ---- to work as a prostitute for the escort service he was running out of a Welland hotel room.
Prison was familiar to Durbano. He'd spent 28 months in the slammer in the previous decade ---- one-third of the seven-year sentence he'd received upon conviction for trying to smuggle $568,000 worth of cocaine into Canada. He'd been employed as a bartender back then. That was in '83, just three years after his retirement. Between the coke bust and the hookers, Durbano had also been arresting for shoplifting five shirts from a men's clothing store. At his arrest, he had $12 in his pocket and claimed to be living on welfare.
Drugs, broads, booze, brawling, hubris ---- hell of a story. And I'd written it, after Durbano's procurement trial in St. Catharines. Shortly thereafter, from inside prison, Durbano called to say he'd "get me" upon his release.
He was never very bright. Indeed, I think he was deranged, barking mad, ga-ga.
Who knows? Maybe he'd emerged from the womb that way, not correctly wired in the head. Maybe he was just a bad seed. Or maybe he'd been a nice little boy grown up into a heaving, hulking madman hockey enforcer. As a Toronto Marlie, he'd worked part-time sweeping and mopping up around Maple Leaf Gardens, which gave him plenty of time to watch his beloved Leafs. That's a poignant image. Yet Durbano became the most penalized player in the history of the Ontario Hockey Association.
Drafted in the first round by the New York Rangers, 13th overall, Durbano was clearly not without talent. But teams didn't want him to score goals. They wanted him to fight, to erupt, to wreak mayhem. And this he did, enthusiastically, as arguably the most volatile player ever to lace 'em up in the NHL. In 220 career games, with four clubs, he racked up 1,127 penalty minutes. That doesn't include his World Hockey Association stint, where he once, famously, snatched the toupée off Bobby Hull's head and tossed it into the crowd.
It was a tumultuous hockey career, with Durbano the ultimate reprobate and malefactor, although he complained to Star columnist Milt Dunnell in 1989 that nobody wanted to hear about cocaine use in the NHL. They especially didn't want to hear about it from a cokehead jailbird. But, like so many other players of that era, Durbano laid his woes at the feet of player agent Alan Eagleson. Durbano blamed Eagleson for not obtaining proper compensation on his behalf after he'd suffered a hand injury. It was then, while still playing, that Durbano became a cocaine addict.
Which doesn't explain his behaviour back in 1977.
That year, genuine hard-nose Ted Lindsay was hired to turn around the woeful Detroit Red Wings, a team that had failed to make the playoffs in 15 out of 17 seasons. Promising to get physical ---- the promotional campaign was euphemistically called "Aggressive Hockey's Back In Town" ---- Lindsay invited an array of nutbars and miscreants to camp. I went there on a magazine assignment.
One morning, at the old Detroit Olympia, Durbano became upset after constantly missing the net during 3-on-2 drills. Roaring in frustration, he picked me out of the sparse observers in the stands and heaved his stick, spear-style, directly at my head.
I ducked. The PR flack apologized. And Durbano was shortly thereafter cut.
He was a thug, a pimp, a druggie and a psycho. Other than that, I'm sorry he's dead."
"The last time I spoke to Steve Durbano, he threatened to kill me.
He was calling from prison.
With Durbano, NHL super-goon, one never took such threats lightly. Years earlier, he'd hurled a hockey stick at my head ---- and that was long before he even knew my name. I was just a stranger. And Durbano was just a psychopath.
There was a time when clinical psychopaths could find work in the NHL, fame even, comic book hero status. Durbano had more than his share of all that before glory turned to notoriety and his career went up his nose.
Buried in a snowdrift of cocaine, yet drugs were not the worst of his problems. Cocaine didn't make Durbano crazy, although the last thing he needed was that extra jolt of aggression. This man seethed with rage, with violence, with malice. His own teammates feared him. Once, after he'd disappeared from the bench with 59 seconds left in a game ---- simply took off, peeved over his low ice-time ---- he was only permitted back on to the squad after the other players took a vote. What shocked is that a majority of teammates had given him a second chance. Perhaps they were afraid of what he'd do to them if they didn't.
It's considered bad form to speak ill of the dead. But in that case, there would be little to say now of Durbano, who died on the weekend from liver cancer, aged 50. He had wound up in Yellowknife, N.W.T., purportedly there in search of some peace and quiet, which doesn't sound like Durbano at all.
I never expected him to mellow.
In 1998, the spectacularly inept Durbano had been sentenced to three months in jail on a charge of procurement. In other words, he was a pimp. He'd attempted to hire a woman ---- she was actually an undercover police officer ---- to work as a prostitute for the escort service he was running out of a Welland hotel room.
Prison was familiar to Durbano. He'd spent 28 months in the slammer in the previous decade ---- one-third of the seven-year sentence he'd received upon conviction for trying to smuggle $568,000 worth of cocaine into Canada. He'd been employed as a bartender back then. That was in '83, just three years after his retirement. Between the coke bust and the hookers, Durbano had also been arresting for shoplifting five shirts from a men's clothing store. At his arrest, he had $12 in his pocket and claimed to be living on welfare.
Drugs, broads, booze, brawling, hubris ---- hell of a story. And I'd written it, after Durbano's procurement trial in St. Catharines. Shortly thereafter, from inside prison, Durbano called to say he'd "get me" upon his release.
He was never very bright. Indeed, I think he was deranged, barking mad, ga-ga.
Who knows? Maybe he'd emerged from the womb that way, not correctly wired in the head. Maybe he was just a bad seed. Or maybe he'd been a nice little boy grown up into a heaving, hulking madman hockey enforcer. As a Toronto Marlie, he'd worked part-time sweeping and mopping up around Maple Leaf Gardens, which gave him plenty of time to watch his beloved Leafs. That's a poignant image. Yet Durbano became the most penalized player in the history of the Ontario Hockey Association.
Drafted in the first round by the New York Rangers, 13th overall, Durbano was clearly not without talent. But teams didn't want him to score goals. They wanted him to fight, to erupt, to wreak mayhem. And this he did, enthusiastically, as arguably the most volatile player ever to lace 'em up in the NHL. In 220 career games, with four clubs, he racked up 1,127 penalty minutes. That doesn't include his World Hockey Association stint, where he once, famously, snatched the toupée off Bobby Hull's head and tossed it into the crowd.
It was a tumultuous hockey career, with Durbano the ultimate reprobate and malefactor, although he complained to Star columnist Milt Dunnell in 1989 that nobody wanted to hear about cocaine use in the NHL. They especially didn't want to hear about it from a cokehead jailbird. But, like so many other players of that era, Durbano laid his woes at the feet of player agent Alan Eagleson. Durbano blamed Eagleson for not obtaining proper compensation on his behalf after he'd suffered a hand injury. It was then, while still playing, that Durbano became a cocaine addict.
Which doesn't explain his behaviour back in 1977.
That year, genuine hard-nose Ted Lindsay was hired to turn around the woeful Detroit Red Wings, a team that had failed to make the playoffs in 15 out of 17 seasons. Promising to get physical ---- the promotional campaign was euphemistically called "Aggressive Hockey's Back In Town" ---- Lindsay invited an array of nutbars and miscreants to camp. I went there on a magazine assignment.
One morning, at the old Detroit Olympia, Durbano became upset after constantly missing the net during 3-on-2 drills. Roaring in frustration, he picked me out of the sparse observers in the stands and heaved his stick, spear-style, directly at my head.
I ducked. The PR flack apologized. And Durbano was shortly thereafter cut.
He was a thug, a pimp, a druggie and a psycho. Other than that, I'm sorry he's dead."