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Pittsburgh. I actually asked them if I could go to the American Hockey League, if you can believe that. They also felt it would be beneficial for me, as I had a lot of things I needed to work on and I was still very young. I needed to get some real playing time with the pros, and it was where I felt – and the Red Wings felt – I should be. I had to get stronger and play smarter to earn my way onto a full-time roster in the NHL .
    The American Hockey League was a terrific place to learn and play the game. I can’t say enough about my time there. The AHL was a very competitive league. In a six-team NHL , there were only jobs for about sixty-five forwards, so you know there were a lot of really good players in the AHL . Some of them were career minor leaguers, some of them were just a step away from the NHL , and the competition for jobs and high quality of play really helped me develop into a better player.
    We had a good team in Pittsburgh, and a mostly older one – Pit Martin and I were the only young guys. Vic Stasiuk, who had played with Chicago, Boston, and Detroit for many years and been a member of the Bruins’ famous Uke Line with Jerry Toppazini and Bronco Horvath, was the playing coach, and he played me a lot, in all situations, which really helped me to improve. My linemates certainly helped me also. Winger Yves Locas led the AHL that year with forty goals and my centre, Art Stratton, had a league-best sixty-five assists.
    The players were great, and they were a tight-knit group. Many of them knew they would never play in the NHL , so they just enjoyed their time in a league with long bus drives and long hours socializing after the game.
    Veteran players like Hank Ciesla, Pete Geogan, Lou Marcon, Adam Keller, Claude Laforge, Yves Locas, and Art Stratton were such a great help to a young aspiring – but very green – kid like myself. We’d kill time on the road-trip bus listening to players like our wily defenceman, Warren Godfrey, who always had a great story to tell.
    The league was full of characters like Godfrey and also full of hard-nosed guys like Don Cherry and Fred Glover. Really solid players like Bep Guidolin, Al Arbour, Willie Marshall, and Bill Sweeney also played in the league. And our general manager in Pittsburgh, Baz Bastien, was always in for a practical joke or two.
    Once while we were having a bite to eat and a few beers after the game, I looked over at Baz’s plate and saw an eye staring up at me, giving me quite a shock. Bastien had a glass eye, which I hadn’t known – but of course every player around me was aware of the GM’S fake eye. You have to pull one over on the rookie, I guess, and they sure caught me that time!
    The time in the AHL made me much more prepared for the NHL than I would have been without it, so I am grateful to all the veteran players and coaches who helped a young kid adjust to the huge jump from junior to professional hockey.
    Life was pretty good in Pittsburgh, and I really enjoyed playing there. The city was a nice place, it was clean, and the people were good, hard-working folks. Eleanor and I rented an apartment and met an older couple named the Dabneys, who were really friendly and helped us adjust to life in a new city. The players in the AHL were older and accepting of us, and the league had some great hockey cities, like Hershey and Rochester. The Civic Arena, also known asthe Igloo because of its shape, had just been built, so we had a brand-new place to play in. That arena was better than several of the NHL rinks at the time, and we had all the amenities that a big-league team would have.
    I would have been happy to stay there all year. I was getting a lot of ice time and it was a positive situation for me. I was called up briefly in November due to some injuries in Detroit, but I really wanted to spend Christmastime in Pittsburgh, since Eleanor and our first daughter, Heather, were there. I didn’t want to be apart from them at that time of year.