Flyers at 50: Before becoming 'The Hammer,' Schultz started out as a 'pipsqueak'
If you're going to write about the Flyers of the 1970s, you have to talk to and write about Dave Schultz. The story cannot be told without him. Just 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds, he was nevertheless the most intimidating enforcer of the age. He led the NHL in penalty minutes each of his first three years in the NHL, and his 472 penalty minutes in 1974-75 remain the league's single-season record. He was, as his teammate Bill Clement put it, "the baddest animal in the hockey jungle."
If you're going to write about the Flyers of the 1970s, you have to talk to and write about Dave Schultz. The story cannot be told without him. Just 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds, he was nevertheless the most intimidating enforcer of the age. He led the NHL in penalty minutes each of his first three years in the NHL, and his 472 penalty minutes in 1974-75 remain the league's single-season record. He was, as his teammate Bill Clement put it, "the baddest animal in the hockey jungle."
He did not start out that way. Here is Schultz, in his own words, on how he came to be "The Hammer" and why.
In retrospect, I think, "How did Mr. Snider allow this? How did Keith Allen allow this?" When my mother back in Waldheim, Saskatchewan, had to read they wanted to kick Dave Schultz out of the league, it was crazy.
I've never had a fight in my life off the ice. If anybody bothered me back in my hometown, I'd get my big brother to take care of the guy. In junior [hockey], I was so chicken. If I wasn't on the bench when a brawl started, I went there. I was such a little pipsqueak chicken and intimidated.
I started fighting when the Flyers drafted me, and I went to the Eastern Hockey League, the Salem (Va.) Rebels. I got in a fight my first game and my second game, and my whole life changed. That wasn't my reason for doing it, just so I could make the NHL or stay there. I don't know that any player knows he can play in the NHL other than a star. It was a role that developed over a few years in the minors.
It was not easy. I had to win the fight or come close to it. Somehow I did it. A lot of times, I'd think about it. I'd go to sleep on the afternoon of a game thinking about it, picturing it, and that night it would happen. Some of those guys didn't know I'd beat the hell out of them that afternoon a number of times in my head. That's what I envisioned.
I believe what we did. We had a great team. I'm not sure I can believe what I did.
@MikeSielski