The oldest living National Hockey League player (as I write this) is 103. He was born on Christmas Day in Fort William, Ont., as Steve Wojciechowski, which he shortened to Wochy (making life linguistically easier for hockey broadcasters, starting with the legendary Foster Hewitt). He has lived 71 years of hockey retirement in Sault Ste. Marie.
The reason for Wojciechowski/Wochy’s vast anonymity, besides being a Centenarian, is that his NHL career lasted 54 games. Yet he was a teammate of Gordie Howe… before Howe played his first NHL game. He was signed by Red Dutton, later the league’s president (preceding Clarence Campbell) and the executive who made his New York Americans the first hockey team, anywhere, to board an airplane. So, yes, Steve Wochy is a player from another world.
In his only full season with Detroit, he scored more goals (19) than Ted Lindsay, now one of the 100 greatest players of the NHL. Wochy’s scoring bonus was $25, from the Red Wings’ tightwad owner, Jim Norris. A 19-goal scorer today is a multimillionaire.
Wochy is only the second player to make it to 100; his predecessor another distant memory-only-in-his-neighbourhood, Al Suomi, who died in 2014. In recent years, a few better-known players fell short of joining the Centenarian Club—Marty Pavelich (98), Vic Stasiuk (93), Bob Chrystal (93). Reg Abbott (Montreal, three-game career) is next in line in 2030.
Suomi had a career even more modest than Wochy’s—five games. Born to Finnish immigrants in Eveleth, Minnesota, he was summoned to the Windy City from a semi-professional team only because the Black Hawks’ owner, Frederic McLaughlin, wanted to end his team’s dismal year with a line-up of players all born in the U.S., a rarity of its time. The gimmick ended, as did Suomi’s career, when the season did.
Wochy, a better player, was also a better story. His rookie season included a trip to the Stanley Cup Final, and he was within a goal of having his name engraved on the mug, but for Babe Pratt’s third-period game-winner for Toronto in Game Seven. In his NHL career, he was both a beneficiary and victim of the Second World War. Enlisting in the Canadian Army for a year, he was discharged with stomach problems and that opened the door to Detroit.
NHL teams were short of talent because of the war, but when the hockey soldiers returned, Wochy was out of a job. He had a productive career in the American League on four teams that won two Calder Cups, was an all-star and finished with 253 goals in 547 games.
Ironically, the player who took his place wasn’t a soldier. It was Gordie Howe, his former teammate from Omaha. Wochy’s last team was the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, then playing senior amateur in the Northern Ontario Hockey Association. Many years later a junior team, the Greyhounds were Wayne Gretzky’s last stop before he turned pro.
The NHL has done a documentary on him, narrated by Joe Thornton, who retired 67 years after Wochy. Fans by the hundreds still request his autograph, or ask questions, or say thanks for being an inspiration.
At 103, Steve Wochy is more popular than ever.
