RIP Wolfman

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Blob Mckenzie
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RIP Wolfman

Post by Blob Mckenzie »

Jack Mcilhargey died of Cancer yesterday.

RIP to a true tough guy and a guy along with Harold Snepsts gave the Canucks a lot of backbone in the late 70s. It was a horrible trade with Philly to get Mac and Larry Goodenough for a very good young D man in Bob Dailey. But Mac brought respect if nothing else.

Assistant coach here for years under four head coaches. Went to run the minor league team for a while and ended up back in Philly.
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Cornuck
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Cornuck »

A warrior and perennial fan favourite. too soon
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Curmudgeon
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Curmudgeon »

It's a damn shame, what a great guy. I met him at Richard Brodeur's Golf Tournament years ago, saw him around Burnaby a bit too, and he sure had some great stories from that 70's era.

RIP, Jack.
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Strangelove »

Gotta love the Wolfman, see you on the other side Mac...
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Megaterio Llamas
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Megaterio Llamas »

Doyle Hargraves wrote: Mon Jul 20, 2020 3:27 pm Jack Mcilhargey died of Cancer yesterday.

RIP to a true tough guy and a guy along with Harold Snepsts gave the Canucks a lot of backbone in the late 70s. It was a horrible trade with Philly to get Mac and Larry Goodenough for a very good young D man in Bob Dailey. But Mac brought respect if nothing else.

Assistant coach here for years under four head coaches. Went to run the minor league team for a while and ended up back in Philly.
Brad Gassoff, Curt Fraser and Randy Holt joined Jack and Harold on the 78-79 team. Not a very good team but man were they ever tough.

Really sad news, far too early.

RIP Jack
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by rats19 »

RIP Jack
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Mickey107 »

RIP. Good guy in the room from everything I heard. Thought he was older.
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Curmudgeon »

Great article by Willes today. First picture is of Dennis Ververgaert though.

https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/n ... g-his-loss

A buddy was telling me about a story he thought came from Crawford where one time they were doing video work with the team and they put up a clip of Jack vs Fotiu and it got quite the rousing response from the players. Probably changed how some looked at him from that point on.

Anybody remember that story?
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Blob Mckenzie »

That’s a good article. He was obviously a very popular guy among his teammates. He had a couple of legendary battles with Fotiu. He didn’t back away from anyone.

@ Meg.. yeah when Harry Neale first came here he made it a point that the team was going to be tougher. He added Fraser, Smyl, and Holt to McIlhargey and Harold it made the team tougher. The next few years they brought in guys like Nill, Williams, Delorme and Campbell and the team was as tough as any other.
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Megaterio Llamas
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Megaterio Llamas »

Yeah, it was a great article.

For sure Neale wanted a new image for the team, tough to play against and they were that in spades. '78 was also the beginning of the influx of Swedes, Gradin, Lindgren, Roland Eriksson and Lars Zetterstrom all came in that year. Jake Milford who took over as gm in '77 also deserves a lot of the credit for the rise to at least respectability. It was he who had the instinct to bring WHA coach Neale into the fold.
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Re: RIP Wolfman

Post by Curmudgeon »

I remember being pretty excited to see them add Roland Eriksson after the couple years he had in Minnesota and hadn't even heard of Gradin. Another tough guy who had a brief but semi eventful stint here was Brad "Motor City Smitty" Smith. Scored 2 goals against Moscow Dynamo before moving on later in the year and had a bit more time in the NHL with Detroit and the leaves. I actually worked with a guy who got some games in goal on the same St. Catharines team as Smith and he was quite the guy apparently.

Doyle, good call getting Nill in there. An underrated tough, scrappy guy and of course scored the big OT goal against Chicago in '82.
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