The Rise and fall of the Buffalo Norsemen: Part 5
“An injustice has been done.”
Tondas General Manager Willie Marshall in the Buffalo Courier-Express, October 1974.
The leadership of the Norsemen could be forgiven for coming into the 1975–1976 season feeling a little punchy.
Two years earlier, the hockey dreams of owner- doctors Turecki and Taheri and former minor league superstar Willie Marshall had been dashed in a different league entirely.
In 1973, they formed the Buffalo-Erie “Tondas” (short for “Tonawandas”), creating a brand new entry in the Ontario Junior A Hockey League. The team was slated to play its home games in the big rink being built on Ridge. But a spike in national steel prices shoved the rink construction back by a year, turning the Tondas into, in GM Marshall’s memorable image, a “vagabond team,” forced to play its home games in Niagara Falls.
The new ice was ready for the Tondas’ 1974–75 season, but now an existential threat to the team emerged. The Amateur Hockey Association of the United States ruled that the Tondas could not play in the U.S., as the team had only Canadian players.
The North Tonawanda brass called foul and filed an anti-trust suit in federal court, charging multiple hockey leagues with “restraint of trade,” conspiracy, and conflicts of interest. The September exhibition games scheduled for the Tonawanda Sports Center against the Sudbury Wolves and Toronto Marlboros were scuttled and, when the OHA dropped the Tondas, the whole season was canceled.
These hardships were fresh in the mind of the Norsemen leadership coming into the 1975–1976 season, putting a certain frame on subsequent events.
There would be more public scrapes with league administration, vocal complaints about officiating, and tangling even with its parent team. So much so that when the “unbelievable” season-ending melee transpired in movie camera-filled Cambria War Memorial Center that fateful March night in Johnstown—in the presence of Paul Newman and the Slap Shot crew—it may have seemed to some like one cry of “wolf” too many.
It’s a mindset that plagues Buffalo sports fans–we’re always on the lookout for “the screw;” for the seemingly pre-ordained moment when the wheels will come off the wagon. Maybe it’s small-market impostor syndrome. Maybe it’s national-punchline pathology. Maybe it’s the maddening collective thirst of overlapping championship droughts that we just keep chasing with hot wings. But it has frozen into a defiant cry that resonates across teams, decades and sports: Buffalo vs. Everyone.
Putting the finishing touches on the lineup
By the end of their second training camp at the Tonawanda Sports Center, the Norsemen have a solid core of free agents.
Former NHL Buffalo Sabre Steve Atkinson provides stability and much-needed experience at center. Burly 23 year-old Larry Gould at left wing has had a taste of the NHL, and sees the NAHL as the perfect place to turn scouts’ heads and get back to the Show. Sabres’ assistant GM’s son Fred Hunt Jr. is looking to prove he is not just a “nepo hire” by bringing his smooth skating in the tough league. Forwards Reg Lahey, Charlie LaBelle and Claude Noel, and defensemen Wayne Morin and Shane “The Pig” McConvey round out the Norsemen’s early hires that will be along for the whole, crazy season.
In early October, players from the three “parent” clubs begin trickling in, too. (These are guys those teams already have signed, but don’t currently have room for, or want to send somewhere to stay sharp and get game-ready.) The WHA Toronto Toros send defensemen George Kuzmicz, Dan Towler and Paul Heaver. The WHA Houston Aeros send right-winger Peter Crowley, a 6-footer whom Coach Trottier lauds as “quick and tough,” and center Dave Peace, a Cornell alum noted for his finesse.
“We understood he was a cocky kid.”
Guy Trottier on rookie goalie Bill Cheropita in the Tonawanda NEWS, 1975-10-08.
You want me to play in North Tona-where now?
Some of the players assigned to the Norsemen require a little convincing to report to North Tonawanda. General Manager Willie Marshall has to get on the phone to reel in Toros’ 41 year-old Les Binkley, a veteran goaltender. A key point in the negotiation is that Les doesn’t want to play every night–a condition whose wisdom any 40+ year-old who has ever thrown out his back reaching for a cheese stick will readily appreciate. (No further comment, your honor.)
Another assignee on the fence about schlepping to Buffalo is Aeros rookie Bill Cheropita. “We understood he was a cocky kid” Trottier later quips of the prized goaltender. Once Cheropita learns Binkley signed with the Norsemen however, he agrees to report too, seeing a valuable opportunity to learn the trade from an ex-NHLer.
Finally, the Norsemen secure from the Buffalo Sabres 6’2” forward Bryan McSheffrey. McSheffrey was a top pick for the NHL Vancouver Canucks, but after two disappointing seasons they traded him to the Sabres (in part of a deal that sent future Sabres broadcaster Mike Robitaille to the Canadian west coast). The Norsemen represent a chance for the fashionably lamb-chopped McSheffrey to get more ice time, and improve his own hockey career prospects.
With Guy Trottier settling into his new coaching role, and a crowded exhibition schedule behind them, the Buffalo Norsemen turn their tusked helms toward North American Hockey League regular season play on October 17, 1975.
On nobody’s NAHL Bingo card: The N-Men emerge as a scoring powerhouse
“I’m still trying to get in shape. Hell, on those three goals I just stood in front of the net.”
Player-coach Guy Trottier humble-bragging about his hat trick in the team’s 12-1 shellacking of the Mohawk Valley Comets. Tonawanda NEWS, 1975-10-22
After dropping their first two games, the Norsemen erupt for twelve goals against the visiting Mohawk Valley Comets. It’s the start of a 9-3 tear that will vault the first-year expansion team to the top of the NAHL standings, one point ahead of defending champion Johnstown Jets.
League leaders
The line of Larry Gould, Steve Atkinson and Bryan McSheffrey begins lighting goal lamps with regularity, and power the Norsemen to become the top-scoring team in the NAHL through mid-November. Adding even more punch to the Norsemen attack is the considerable contribution from player-coach Guy Trottier, and the acquisition of left-winger Lou Nistico from the Toros. Behind the scoring barrage, goalie tandem Binkley and Cheropita prove effective stoppers, with the former winning his first six games.
At this point, defense remains the weakest link in the Norsemen’s chainmail–though help is on its way.
Buffalo Norsemen Week (drily) proclaimed
The North Tonawanda Common Council designates December 16-23 as “Buffalo Norsemen Week” in North Tonawanda. And the reason for the recognition? Was it for modeling athletic excellence to Lumber City youth? Was it for creating a safe place to keep the roving hordes of riotous, Black Sabbath-loving youth off the streets? Nope. The city specifies, with less-than-soaring rhetoric, that the week’s purpose is “to officially honor the hockey franchise as a tax-paying enterprise, and in recognition of the Tonawanda Sports Center for bringing additional tax dollars into the city.” Yes, “tax” appears twice in one sentence.
Soft sales? Paint an old gas station green
In spite of the team’s strong start on the ice, attendance at the Tonawanda Sports Center lags after the exhibition sellout vs. the Sabres rookies. Only 602 witness the Norsemen’s blowout first home win against the Mohawk Valley Comets, and fewer than 500 are on hand for a 10/28 win over the Maine Nordiques.
To boost disappointing ticket sales, the Norsemen open a new “executive” ticket office at a prominent intersection about a half mile from the arena:
“They have converted the gas station at the corner of Meadow Drive and Payne Avenue into their new attractive offices. Some long hours of painting the entire place green and white, with emblems of the Norsemen, make the renovated station look official. – Tonawanda NEWS, 1975-11-26.”
Fighting for first
The NAHL competition is fierce. The Hockey News sizes it up:
“How close has the chase [for first place in the Western Division] been? In one four-day period from November 15 to November 18 the Norsemen, Jets and Blades all had been in the top spot at one time or another. That is close.”
The Norsemen can’t keep pace. In late November and into early December, the green and gold start a multi-week 2-win, 8-loss slide that drops them to third place. Frustration in the Norsemen organization begins to show.
A long December
Trottier suspended for three games
In a 7-4 loss against the Binghamton Dusters on December 3, player-coach Guy Trottier snaps on referee Alan Glaspell. Trottier “overvehemently” argues a questionable call, and is ejected from the game. Trottier is handed a three-game suspension and is fined $100 by the league for his outburst.
Trouble with the Toros
The following week, an off-ice brouhaha ensues between the Norsemen and their parent WHA club, the Toronto Toros, over the botched assignment of defenseman Greg Neeld to Buffalo. (Neeld, you may remember from Part IV, was a top junior prospect before losing an eye in a game two years before, was drafted by the Sabres but couldn’t sign with them due to NHL rules.)
Neeld signed with Toronto the week before, and was sent down to the Norsemen “for seasoning.” Willie Marshall and Guy Trottier must have been salivating when the news flashed into the Tonawanda Sports Center fax machine: defense was a weak spot for the Norsemen, and even with one eye, this was a near-NHL caliber, big young body to hold the blue line and possibly help the Norsemen get back on track.
However, due to an alleged “mix-up in transportation arrangements,” Neeld never reports to North Tonawanda. Then, before he can play a single NAHL game, the Toros abruptly call Neeld back up.
The whiplash assignments rankle Norsemen General Manager Willie Marshall. He blasts the Toros management in the NEWS:
“The reason why we’re getting the runaround by Toronto is because they don’t know what they’re doing. They are losing and trying to create a winning situation by shuffling the players.”
Me-ouch!
Neeld finally joins the Norsemen lineup for a December 16 home game vs the Maine Nordiques. (In a photo snapped after the game, Neeld looks like a Meadow Drive deer in headlights.)
The club wins three in a row with Neeld, but injuries at multiple positions begin to take a toll. Having battled back to second place in the Western Division, the team starts on a disastrous 8-game free fall spanning from December 20 to early January 10th. Christmas will bring another unwelcome surprise.
The Christmas Day Massacre
Under the Christmas tree in Guy and Dianne Trottier’s Town of Tonawanda apartment, brightly wrapped gifts are piled up—most for the couple’s two hockey-crazy boys, Daniel (9) and Gilles (6).
Some are easier to guess than others: Norsemen sticks, adorned with nothing but a ribbon, are obvious. The wrapped Norsemen pucks are harder to spot, until their weight gives them away. Norsemen jackets and sweaters stay secret a little longer, and the boys squeal as they tear into their new team gear. “They’re dressed in green now,” Trottier later jokes.
While Trottier’s two sons are donning the green and gold, four of his players are trading those colors for the Toros’ blue and red.
Four dealt to Toronto
GM Willie Marshall breaks the news to Trottier on Christmas morning: Steve Atkinson, Dave Syvret, Paul Crowley and Greg Neeld have all been called up to Toronto for five-game trials. For the players, it is a welcome opportunity. The WHA, while not precisely a pipeline to the NHL, is a top-tier league in its own right. The Toros play their home games in the massive Maple Leaf Gardens, with big-town hockey press on hand to report their triumphs (or failures) to the scouts and general managers of the hockey world.
But for the Norsemen, the move is a kneecap just before a key divisional game.
These are key players: Steve Atkinson‘s 55 points is second-most on the Norsemen (he was named the NAHL Player of the Week for 12/23, and will be purchased by the Toros by 1/5). Defenseman Dave Syvret‘s 29-points easily leads the Norsemen defenders. Right winger Paul Crowley‘s 34 points in 32 games (and team-leading 107 penalty minutes) makes him a productive enforcer. Greg Neeld plugs an important gap on defense, and has already proved himself a difference maker in his four games with the Norsemen.
“These guys play their hearts out to get up there and I’m just glad that they got their chance. I had to call them on Christmas morning and they were all very, very happy.”
Norsemen Player-Coach Guy Trottier, quoted in the Tonawanda NEWS, 12/27/75.
“I’m really disappointed with the Toros. It was a key game and we ended up with a few short bodies.”
Norsemen General Manager Willie Marshall, quoted in the Tonawanda NEWS, 12/27/75.
While Trottier is all smiles in the press, Willie Marshall is less diplomatic. The five replacement players the Toros promise never show up, so the 45 year-old Marshall himself is forced to suit up and play the day after Christmas in a 7-4 loss to the Erie Blades. The failure of the Toros players to report to North Tonawanda has been such a problem, Marshall muses in the press over cutting ties with the parent club. They would get Steve Atkinson back, but they would lose NHL veteran Les Binkley in the net, who is 10-3 on the season so far compared with Cheropita’s 7-10 record as a starter. It would also mean forfeiting any future players.
Eyes on the playoffs
In the end, Marshall decides to keep his working agreement with the Toros intact. But he won’t rely on them exclusively for the firepower his club needs to stay competitive. He gets back on his Rolodex and uses his vast network of minor league hockey contacts to begin signing new players. The hires will transform the character of the Norsemen for the last third of the season, and give them a real chance at the NAHL playoffs.
There’s a lot on the line for the Norsemen. Bankrolling these additional contracts is a significant financial risk. Ticket sales have been nowhere near what is required for a profitable franchise, hovering well below 1,000 per game. Can an NAHL championship, or at least a respectable playoff run, change all that?
Buffalo Norsemen — Running +/−
One dot per game. Start at 0. Every win goes up one, every loss goes down one. Weeks are faint lines; months are darker markers. Tap a dot for details.
The Rise and Fall of the Buffalo Norsemen
NEXT TIME: AN “UNBELIEVABLE” END
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