THE TOILET PAPER BOWL - Written by Howie Mooney

Photo: Canadian Press

Now picture this. It’s late January, the dead of winter, and your hockey team has a home game tonight. It wasn’t that long ago that your team was perennially in the playoff chase, but now they’re in the basement of their division. The season has been going from bad to dismal. In January, the team stopped talking to the reporters. Media in Calgary were calling your team “a bunch of turkeys”.

The team they’re hosting tonight is just three points ahead, so you think you have a chance for a victory to pull closer to them. Maybe, with a couple of wins after this, your team can pass them. Then you go to the game, and it all seems to fall apart.

That was the scenario on the night of January 23, 1989, as fans began to assemble at Le Colisee in Quebec for the Nordiques game on this Monday night against the Hartford Whalers. The once mighty Nords were in the basement three points behind their blue-and-green brethren in the Adams Division standings. A pair of rookies would be defending the nets in this one. The Whalers would start Peter Sidorkiewicz while Ron Tugnutt would be in goal for Quebec.

The man in the stripes with the red band on his arm would be Kerry Fraser. Fraser seemed to be a lightning rod for fans’ vitriol wherever he worked throughout his career. It wasn’t his famously perfect hair that the masses disliked. It always seemed to be something that happened on the ice from the past that spectators seemed to hang on to like a family heirloom.

In the case of the fans of the Nordiques, it was a disallowed goal that Quebec’s Alain Cote had thought he scored against the Montreal Canadiens in the 1987 Adams Division finals. That left the game tied at 3-3. Montreal scored later to win the game 4-3 and the folks at Le Colisee never forgot that transgression.

Say what you want about fans in the city of Quebec. Folks in Montreal have the reputation of being the smartest fans in hockey. That may be so, but the fans who stand on what was once Stadacona pack a lot of passion along with their long memories. And they tend to express their feelings with as much force as they can possibly muster.

Le Colisee contained a lot of history. It was called by some “The House That Jean Beliveau Built”. Beliveau played for the Quebec Aces before the Canadiens bought the league the Aces played in so they could have the player they so coveted. Guy Lafleur played for the junior Remparts there, but when he was much younger, he led his Thurso team in the renowned Quebec Pee Wee Tournament.

It was home to a World Junior Hockey Championship and a World Mens’ Hockey Championship. The Nordiques played in the old building when they played in the World Hockey Association and then stayed there when the WHA folded after the 1978-79 season. When the Nords joined the National Hockey League, they continued to call Le Colisee home.

This game started innocently enough. Hartford’s Torrie Robertson put his team on the board with a 45-foot slapper off the glove of Tugnutt a little past the halfway mark of the first period. But a Trevor Stienburg charge ignited tempers and Randy Ladouceur and Steven Finn dropped the gloves as the period approached its end. Hartford took that 1-0 lead into the dressing room for the intermission.

The Whalers added a pair in the second period when Ray Ferraro and Kevin Dineen put pucks past Tugger. When Brian Lawton scored just over eight minutes into the third period, the natives began to get restless. Two-and-a-half minutes later, when Ferraro potted his second of the night, the home crowd of 14,227 saw their frustration bubble over to a roiling boil.

Lawton’s goal was scored while Joe Sakic was in the penalty box for slashing. 93 seconds after that goal, Quebec’s Darin Kimble and Hartford’s Ulf Samuelsson got into it. Each man received a game misconduct along with a double minor. Kimble was sent off for slashing and roughing. Samuelsson was called for high sticking and roughing. Earlier, the Nords had been assessed five straight penalties. The fans were on their feet screaming and shouting in anger and frustration.

After Ferraro’s capper came at 10:30 of the third frame, a multitude of rolls of toilet paper, coins, cheap cigarette lighters and rubber galoshes began to cascade down on to the playing surface. Nordiques’ coach Jean Perron pulled Ron Tugnutt and replaced him with Mario Gosselin, but that became a footnote on the night. All of the sundry and various objects thrown on to the ice caused a twenty-minute delay in the game.

About ten minutes into the delay, Fraser told Whalers’ coach Larry Pleau to have his team adjourn to their dressing room. Ten minutes after that, Fraser gave both teams the go-ahead to return to the ice. Order seemed to be restored. But then, when the fans laid eyes on Fraser again, their fire seemed to return. And, once again, they found more things to throw on to the ice.

Eventually, the teams came back out to complete this game. The Whalers just wanted to get out of town, hopefully with a win and maybe the shutout for their goalie, Sidorkiewicz. They made it through on both counts. And there were only a few things sporadically thrown on to the ice. It ended with a 5-0 Hartford Whalers’ victory. And some paperwork for the referee.

According to the Hartford Courant’s Bruce Berlet, Kerry Fraser spent about an hour writing his report on this one when it was all over.

There was plenty of comment though from players and coaches from both teams. And perhaps the sanest and most cogent comment came from Quebec’s Mario Marois. “Fraser had nothing to do with the result. We got what we deserved,” Marois told Berlet and other reporters. “But I won’t cry (for him) because referees always haven’t been fair to us here.”

One of the Nordiques’ tougher guys, Randy Moller, said, “The fans were frustrated. They got on his (Fraser’s) back, not because of this game but because of what happened (back in 1987).” While the Quebec players addressed the night’s situation seriously, some of the Hartford players, given the fact that they were the victors, felt more empowered to speak sarcastically about what went on that night amongst the fans.

Some, but certainly not all.

Torrie Robertson, the erstwhile tough guy who managed to score the game’s first goal, harkened back to his roots to discuss how things might have gone down in his home province if fans acted like they did at Le Colisee. “In British Columbia, if you throw something on the ice, they haul you off and throw you in jail. It seemed they were throwing everything that wasn’t tied down. It’s okay at first, but it got stupid.”

Ron Francis was the Whalers’ captain. The 25-year-old was fairly direct in his disappointment in what had happened that night. “It’s an embarrassment to the National Hockey League. They wouldn’t even do that in Sault Ste. Marie (his hometown). Obviously, they needed more security. But they could have ended a player’s career. They made their point, but enough is enough. It was brutal.”

Kevin Dineen was also 25 at the time and his comments seemed to echo his captain’s. “I now renounce this city.” Dineen was born in Quebec City. “One guy almost falls over the plexiglass and the cop who helps him back over starts laughing while he’s doing it. There’s obviously no excuse for something like that.”

Dineen thought the game should have been called at the 10:30 mark of the third period. “If it were my decision, I would have called the game. In the third (with the threats of more foreign objects still being thrown on the ice), we were concentrating only on not getting hurt…and that is a very dangerous way to play.”

Scott Young was a rookie with the Whalers in 1988-89. He had one major question. “I’d like to know where they got all the toilet paper. They must have been selling it at the concession stands.” Norm MacIver was a Hartford defenseman who started his career with the New York Rangers and, in 1992-93, would lead the Ottawa Senators in scoring.

That night, in the Whalers’ dressing room, MacIver had heard Young’s comment, and he shot back, “I hope no one had to go to the bathroom (afterward).” Ulf Samuelsson was nearby, and he added, “All they kept throwing were pennies. They couldn’t afford quarters.” Pennies?

Peter Sidorkiewicz was focused on trying to nail down his second ever NHL shutout. He didn’t really care for the interruptions and distractions. “It was pretty stupid, and the worst part is the people were getting a kick out of it. It was a bit distracting but when you’re up 5-0, it doesn’t bother you too much.”

Ray Ferraro expressed some support for Kerry Fraser in his comments. “It’s fun – ha ha – for a while, but then it got mighty silly. And the worst part is the league has had enough bad press. People are killing the league for this.” That was when he paused and then added, “I don’t usually feel sorry for a referee, but I did this time. He had no chance.”

Pleau was the Whalers’ coach by the late 1980s but a couple of decades earlier, he was still just a player and in 1967, he was representing the United States in an exhibition game against Sweden in Goteborg. His teammate, John Cunniff, got into a scrap with a player from Sweden. The fans there began to litter the ice with beer bottles. Of course, the bottles broke upon contact with the ice surface.

Soon after the broken bottles rained down, both teams had to head back to the safety of their own dressing rooms. “We left the ice for an hour, then came back and shook hands promising not to fight anymore. We finished the game without further incident.” He then moved back to the events of that night. “I didn’t mind the fans at first because they’re part of the organization and have a right to let their feelings be known. But they really carried it too far.”

The night was intense and became the subject of discussion both in the city of Quebec and in league corridors. Security of the players, officials and fans was the main concern, obviously. But who was ultimately responsible for what had happened at Le Colisee that night? Discussions took place over the next couple of days on that topic. Opinions came in from numerous directions.

Because the team did not own Le Colisee, and leased it from the city, the Nordiques were limited in what they could do about the situation. The police took the stance that it was just a small number of hooligans who created most of the havoc. Their director of public relations, Jean Martineau, said, “Everyone looked foolish because of thirty or forty people, and now we’re all working to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Marcel Aubut, the president of the Nordiques, tried to downplay the whole thing. “I think it’s an isolated incident. We don’t have that style of fans on a usual basis, like in New York or Boston. I don’t know if we have enough security, but it’s never been tested like that.”

Ultimately, a couple of things were done. The force of security personnel at the games was increased. The other thing that was done was to replace all of the toilet paper holders. No longer would there be rolls of toilet paper in the washrooms. All the rollers would be replaced by a dispenser that allowed a single square at a time to be pulled.

There were no further similar incidents that season and the Nords finished in the basement of the Adams Division with a record of 27-46-7 for 61 points. The Whalers finished fourth in the division eighteen points ahead of Quebec. The next season, 1989-90, was even worse in the capital of La Belle Province. The Nordiques went 12-61-7.

But all of this bottoming out allowed the Nordiques to pick high in the NHL Draft. In 1989, they took Mats Sundin first overall. In 1990, they chose first again and got Owen Nolan. Then in 1991, with the first pick in the selection process, they took Eric Lindros.

Ultimately, Sundin would be traded to Toronto for Wendel Clark. Lindros would never sign with Quebec, but they did get Peter Forsberg as one of the pieces for his rights. Nolan would stay with the team for a while. They had acquired Joe Sakic with the 15th overall pick in 1987, so they were assembling pieces. By the end of the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, they found themselves with the best record in the Eastern Conference and the second-best in the league. Only Detroit had a better record.

Sadly, the fans in La Vieille Capitale would never see this group reach their final success.

In the summer of 1995, the Nordiques moved south to Denver, Colorado and became the Avalanche. That was the first of a series of slaps in the face to the fans of Quebec. In November of 1995, after a blowup in Montreal between new Montreal Canadiens coach Mario Tremblay and his star goaltender Patrick Roy, the Habs traded Roy to the Avalanche, giving them the major piece they needed to become a truly elite club in the league.

In June of 1996, in their first season in Colorado, the team formerly known as the Nordiques won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Florida Panthers in four straight games. If any fan base had the right to maybe express themselves by throwing a roll of toilet paper, it was that group of fans in the city of Quebec. Alas, it may have all begun that January night in 1989.

Hope remains that, someday, the city will regain another NHL franchise. The extreme hope is that they get it sooner rather than later.

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Howie’s latest book The Consequences of Chance, seventeen new and incredibly detailed stories of outlandish and wild events that occurred in sports over the last fifty years, is available on Amazon. It’s the follow-up to his first books, Crazy Days & Wild Nights and MORE Crazy Days & Wild Nights! If you love sports and sports history, you need these books!

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