On my first sports beat, the first superstar-to-be I wrote about was Bobby Clarke. He was a junior hockey legend and there was much speculation where he would go in the National Hockey League team. Discussions extended after work. One included a newspaper colleague and his wife who — like Clarke — was raised in rural Manitoba. She was also a nurse.
“He’s a diabetic you know,” she said.
It was like a physical curse. Diabetes was a warning to all athletes, leaving them more susceptible to excessive bleeding “they” said…and if a skate or stick cut Clarke, he might bleed out…and which team would take that chance? Seriously, that was a genuine concern, or theory.
Clarke’s dream season — anywhere — was 1966-67, the only one he played in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, my first beat with the Winnipeg Tribune. Clarke scored 71 goals and 183 points…in 45 games! In Wayne Gretzky’s best year of junior, he scored 70 goals and compiled 182 points. Game stories often reported that Clarke scored four goals, or had seven points. A three-point game was an off night for this teenage sensation.
He played two more seasons with the Flin Flon Bombers, in the newly formed “super” Western Canada junior league. Then came the draft. Clarke probably should have been in the top three…maybe even No. 1 — the first two drafts awarded to the Montreal Canadiens: Rejean Houle and Marc Tardif. Philadelphia drafted Clarke — 17th overall. Every team had passed on him. Boston did it three times. Even the Flyers made him their No. 2 pick, taking Bob Currier in the first round. Maybe they just took the wrong Bob C.
The draft was still something of a novelty in those days, compared to the spectacle it is now. Of the first 56 players picked, 55 were Canadian. Two first-rounders never played a minute in the NHL. Only five became NHL All Stars. Only Clarke made the Hall of Fame.
Flanking him in Flin Flon on that dominant line were Reg Leach, who scored 67 goals in that dream season and eventually joined Clarke in Philadelphia to anchor the Flyers’ only two Stanley Cups, and Ron Burwash. Both were First Nations but in those days reporters never seemed to care much about mentioning a hockey player’s lineage, only his ability.
Clarke, a Flin Flon native, was the anchor. He went on to win a handful of NHL awards, including the Hart Trophy three times. Gretzky has said when he was 14, just 5’6” and 125 pounds and playing against “men,” he was advised to study Clarke for a month, and that’s how he learned to played from the corners and behind the net, which he used as a decoy — creating what became known as Gretzky’s “office.”
Three years after being drafted 17th, Clarke was a key in Canada’s eight-game victory in the Summit Series, where part of his legacy was breaking Valery Kharlamov’s leg. While he always owned his indiscretion, it has always misrepresented his real, wonderful talent.
Bobby Clarke has spent his life in hockey. Now 74, he’s still a Flyers’ executive. It’s been a long time since anybody said: “He’s a diabetic you know.”
