- [Seth] Sports rule books don't just come
into existence fully formed.
You don't nail it in one, you know?
- [Will] Yeah you build a skeleton
that you don't know what the meat's gonna look like,
you just know it's going to kind of fill it out
and you'll tinker a bit,
but you'll get those bones looking good.
- Okay that visual aside,
there are so many rules that exist
because a player or a coach tried something
and then the league said, oh, didn't think of that one,
but, yeah, we need to get rid of that, you can't do that.
- [Will] The Air Buds of the real world.
- The Air Buds of the real world.
And if you are one of these Air Buds,
you might be the last person ever to get to do something.
And with that in mind,
I would like to talk about the NHL goalie
who tried to skate the entire length of the ice
and score a goal.
- Yeah, sweet, more of that.
- All of the rules seemingly that exist
to involve goalkeepers are basically like,
stop playing hockey.
We're gonna play hockey.
You stay in the fuckin' net and mind the goal.
And even before any of what we're talking about,
there are rules that are like, well,
you can't hold the puck for more than three seconds.
You can't hide the puck.
You can't, and we've talked about this one before,
you can't pile up snow to block the puck
from going into the net.
- I'm pretty sure they're also the only player
not allowed to smoke during the game.
- [Seth] (laughs) They can only smoke cigarillos
is the rule.
- [Will] But if you're smoking,
you have to have a full plexi shield,
so you're just hotboxing yourself.
- So all of those goalie buzz kills,
all that stuff they can't do, that's stashed in rule 67.
But the rule I want to talk about,
and the rule that has a specific origin
that we're about to discuss, is rule 27.7,
which very simply says,
""if a goalie participates in any sort of play
"intentionally playing the puck
"when you're beyond that center red line,
"it's a minor penalty."
- Okay, I mean, it's reasonable.
I assume that is kind of the grandfather
of the goalie rules,
where then everything is working back from that.
- Well, so you would think, but as far as I know,
some of that stuff about what the goalie can do
with the puck is older
and that rule has a specific start date,
and it's from the '66-'67 season.
It's not that old.
- Yeah, I would have figured
that they would have got all that sorted out by the '60s.
- No, so in fact,
it took a lovely gentleman by the name of Gary Smith
to bring that rule into existence.
So Gary Smith, first of all, 6'4", big ol' goalie.
- Mm, Gare the Bear.
- Hm?
- Gare the Bear, I said.
- All right, he was actually nicknamed Suitcase Smith
because he played for so many different teams.
- That's pretty good.
- And for our purposes, I don't know how to put this,
Gary Smith had an interesting take on problem solving.
Sometimes he would clear the puck out of the crease
by dropkicking it, by literally punting the puck.
- Which feels like lofting a knife into the air
in the form of your skate blade.
I would assume pretty early on in the rule book,
it's like, oh, no kicking.
Let's just get that blanket rule.
Note, do not for any reason really kick.
- Listen, I looked hard at that.
As far as I can tell,
there's nothing that says you cannot dropkick the puck.
- I like that this gives the possibility
of some fucked up version of Gary Smith, who was like,
your rule book doesn't say I couldn't kick him
in the throat with my skate!
(laughs)
- So Gary Smith, he used to punt pucks.
He once got really hungry during a game
and he solved that problem
by ordering hot dogs to the bench.
He once got pulled from a game-
- Hang on, hang on.
How does...?
So he would have to...
The thing I can't get past on that is no one killed it
before he was able to get the hot dogs?
- What's the problem?
He was on the bench.
(snaps) It's easy.
- Yeah, shit, maybe this is...
I'm being a complete concessions prude right now
Let the players eat.
- So Gary is a problem solver and early in his career,
he faced the grand existential challenge
a lot of young players face,
which is that he was deeply worried he was gonna get cut
and his NHL career would end immediately.
He was a backup to the backup to the backup
on a very, very good Toronto Maple Leafs team
that actually won the Stanley Cup in his second season.
So in December of 1966, he is sitting on the bench,
hanging out, watching a game
between the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens.
He has hardly played at all that season,
but there are a couple of injuries,
some fights, some people get pulled,
and he's been talking so much trash during the game
and having so much fun from the bench
that the coach is basically like, hey, get out there.
You seem like you're enthusiastic and ready for anything.
Go play some hockey!
- How is that the determining factor?
Hey, uh, no one's really giving a shit,
but you're talking a lot of trash.
Yeah, go do that out there.
- So Smith comes into the game playing goaltender
and immediately gives up a couple of goals
and he's kind of eating shit.
So Gary, the man who ordered hot dogs to the bench
and occasionally dropkicked the puck out of the crease said,
I know what I can do to prove myself.
I'm gonna score a goal.
- Gary as a problem-solver really is confounding
because when you play a position
that has the word goal in the name of it-
- Yeah, goalscorer.
- Yeah, I guess if you stopped reading,
you would focus too much on that,
but the act of tending the goal.
- I tend to score.
- Stupid.
- So Gary ends up catching a puck in his glove,
one of the few saves he had of the evening,
so he says now is my opportunity,
puts the puck down on the ice, and starts handling.
He passes the red line.
He passes the blue line.
He is now way further
than a goalkeeper ever goes these days.
- In territory not yet explored by any tender.
- He had no way of knowing
that he could actually breathe over there,
let alone score a goal.
- Right, 'cause there is so much smoke down there.
- Yeah, from the other goalie hotboxing, yeah.
He's about ready to try and attempt a shot
when a player on Montreal, JC Trombley,
who as far as I can tell is not a major heavy hitter,
just drills him.
- That's awesome!
Trombley, six Cups, something like that.
Usually you feel like these are the stories
where like you don't know anyone involved,
you often don't even recognize the names of the teams.
- No, and on that note,
Tim Horton was involved in this game,
Tim Horton, he of the donuts.
- He saw Gary Smith's teeth coming out
and he thought of Timbits, oh, yeah.
- So as Gary Smith describes it,
he describes himself spinning
and sort of gets sort of a strobe effect of with each spin,
he sees the Canadiens going the other way
and he left the net empty.
But one of his teammates thankfully stepped in
and prevented them from scoring.
- And then was awarded the role
of starting goaltender the next game.
Smith was on his fuckin' way.
- Easily could have gone that way.
- I love that basically what Gary Smith was describing
was a head injury.
The next day, did he miss practice
because of combat fatigue?
The way that everyone was talking about that shit
in the '60s and '70s is so, yeah, I was spinning around
and I heard some noises and-
- Yeah, I could smell colors for a few days,
but then I came back.
So it wasn't a good scene.
He describes trying to scramble back into the goal
and tripping repeatedly on his way back
and immediately the head of the referees association,
I think there's a quote from the same week,
if not the next day,
saying uh-uh, we do not want goaltenders carrying the puck
down the ice like that,
we're making a rule as soon as possible.
And that is where rule 27.7 came into existence.
- I think the one thing that's really unfortunate
with how this played out is there's an opportunity for Gary
to be a pioneer and create a world
where goalies are actually encouraged to go do this.
'Cause had he made his way down there, shot, scored,
not received a concussion, it sounds like, from Trombley,
I don't think the NHL sees that
and they're like, oh, we need to change that.
They would celebrate goalies scoring
'cause that is bad-ass.
- So you're suggesting basically
this is a tremendous fork in the road
for the entire sport of hockey,
where if he goes out there
and does a few spin moves and stiff arms someone
and then puts the puck through his legs and scores,
then the NHL is like, oh, well, we should steer this way
and this should be the entire direction
of the league from now.
Then fast forward to present day and everyone's a goalie.
It's 20-on-20 goalies and everyone is 6'4"
and everyone's eating hot dogs,
all the goalies are smoking.
It's a better world.
It's the world in which I want to live.
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