Five times, he scored 30 goals in the National Hockey League. He had back-to-back 100-point seasons. An All-Star, he played for Team Canada in 1972’s Summit Series, scoring a key shorthanded goal on Vladislav Tretiak in Canada’s first win. He’s one of seven who also played in 1976’s Canada Cup, one of five to score in both series. His name is on the Stanley Cup four times. Online you can find a photo of him, hugging the original Prime Minister Trudeau.
Last year, Peter Mahovlich graduated from Cathedral High School in Hamilton, an honourary diploma after he passed on the real one six decades earlier. And this is what he said:
“This is going to be the biggest honour I have ever received.”
It was a shocking revelation from a hockey hero. He is 77 years old. Of all the trophies and watches and accolades he received playing the game he loves, that belated high school diploma means the most.
“I know my mother and father are…so proud,” Mahovlich added, “wherever they might be.”
He played in 18 NHL seasons, the best of them — including the four Stanley Cups — with the Montreal Canadiens. He was bigger than his big brother Frank, his teammate in Detroit and then Montreal. At 6-4, Pete was imposing but not a tough guy. He had skill, but not enough to escape the shadow of his brother. In 884 games, Pete had 288 goals and 485 assists for 773 points, a point every 1.42 games, which is better than 24 of the league’s 100 all-time points leaders, including Henri Richard, Patrice Bergeron, Eric Staal and Daniel Sedin.
As somebody who had occasion to interview him during his eight years with the Canadiens, I always had a soft spot for Pete Mahovlich that had little to do with what he did on the ice. He was full of smiles, jokes, playfulness and quotes. He played the game for good times, and there were many of those during the ’70s in Montreal.
One day at the Forum, I was despatched to cover a Canadiens practice. I wound up sitting next to an older man who was clearly not from the front office. He was a visitor and, it turned out, a friend of Pete’s. His name was Father Gerald David, from Sheet Harbour, Nova Scotia. Pete was Catholic, I was not but that didn’t matter. Hockey crosses ecumenical lines.
So Father David was our mutual friend. He became our family’s friend, we corresponded regularly and saw him occasionally. Our friendship lasted until his death 20 years later.
Maybe he was Pete’s conscience. The lure and bright lights of hockey convinced Mahovlich to be a high-school dropout in Hamilton, where he played junior.
When he dropped back in, all those years later, he brought a message for his fellow graduates.
“If you love doing what you want to do and you can make a living at it, it doesn’t become work,” he told them. “It becomes your life. That’s what I’m here for…to explain how important it is to make the right decisions because as we get older we’re responsible for all our decisions.”
Father David would have liked that.
