Hartford Whalers

You know, big Jim McKenzie, six foot four from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 240 pounds, heavyweight fighter, but a real gentleman.

He's playing second year for the Hartford Whalers.

I have the last game of the season, a nothing game.

Hartford Whalers are done, and they're playing in the old Cap Center, Washington.

So we come off the ice.

All the Hartford Whalers players, coaches, stick boys, trainers, everybody off the ice at the Zamboni entrance where the refs went off.

Big Jim McKenzie, last guy off on the rubber mat looking down at me.

He said, Carrie, if I told you to fuck off, would you give me a misconduct? I said, Jim, what are you talking about? I said, the game's over.

We argued this the other day.

Is it the Hartford Whalers or the Milwaukee Brewers that have the greatest logo in all the sports? And They just play.

Pat Murphy's team plays ball the way it's meant to be played.

I just am very happy for that whole team.

And it's such a great point that there was a distinctive element to you guys together.

We're talking with Chuck Kaiton, longtime voice of the Hartford Whalers and the Carolina Hurricanes.

Give us

some insight,

So, yes, Schmotz was, they thought, Vancouver thought he was damaged goods because they thought he had signed with the WHA Blazers, I believe.

And Freddie O'Donnell had been in talks with the New England Whalers.

And his wife wanted to stay in the Boston area.

And the Boston Whalers didn't want him to go to Vancouver just to see what it was like.

That's really something.

When four teams were absorbed into the NHL for 79-80, Lacroix concluded his career with the New England and then the Hartford Whalers.

So again, Andre Lacroix passing at the age of 81.

Any other personnel news before we wrap up this show?

I have all the tickets.

I got Hartford Whalers tickets.

Bring them back.

There's a difference of you keeping a ticket that was yours to begin with as opposed to hunting down over 2,000 tickets.

All right, here we go.

It was the Hartford Whalers who are now the Carolina Hurricanes for those keeping score at home.

It was a 79-80 season, suiting up alongside his sons, Mark and Marty.

Scored 15 goals that year at 51 and 52.

The railroad industry is very important to Harvard, uh, Hartford, Connecticut.

Um, using this yard goat as, you know, taking it and making it the animal and then putting it in the team colors from the old Hartford Whalers, the beloved relocated hockey team.

You know, they really tied into like just local community stuff, right? Like the railroad industry is important.

It's the reason Hartford exists.