REDVERS - The annual Sportsman's Dinner at the Redvers Recreation Centre took place with a southeast hockey legend filling in.
Recreation Director Nadine Pryde had a guest speaker lined up who had to cancel. She reached out to former NHLer Marty McSorley, who had been at the event in 2023, for suggestions as to who she could call on short notice. She was told Bryan Trottier, who has been named as one of the top 100 players from the first 100 years of the NHL, would be available to speak.
Pryde was thrilled but much to her dismay, Trottier had to back out due to a family matter.
It turned out that a local resident, Garth Mann, had invited his cousin to attend the dinner – Weyburn native Dave (Tiger) Williams. Tiger had spoken at the dinner once before. Trottier suggested that since Williams was going to be there, maybe he could entertain the crowd with some of his stories. Trottier asked Williams, who said yes, and the dinner was a go.
Williams is the most penalized players. His 3,971 penalty minutes is 406 minutes more than anyone else.
After supper, two local hockey teams were acknowledged for outstanding achievements. The Redvers senior Rockets and the Redvers U15 Rockets both won league and provincial titles. As well, hockey player Naton Miller was recognized as the latest inductee onto Redvers’ Wall of Fame.
Then auctioneer Dellan Mohrbutter took the stage. He auctioned off item after item, including caps from the 16 NHL hockey teams that made this year’s playoffs. The winning bidders of those caps are now entered into a hat calcutta. The owner of the Stanley Cup-winning team will take home 25 per cent of the pool that was created by the purchases of the caps.
Many items raised a lot of money, including jerseys signed by Trottier and Williams.
For about 90 minutes, broken up by an intermission, Williams told stories of his 14 years in the NHL, including how he chose the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs’ offer over the World Hockey Association's Cincinnati Stingers because his father wanted to watch him play on TV on Saturday nights. He also shared how Francis (King) Clancy told Williams to stay in his role as an enforcer, saying "If you’re a crusher, don’t try to be a rusher, because you’ll end up an usher."
When he was playing for the Maple Leafs, he was annoyed that his many fines to the NHL came out of his paycheque. He approached Leafs' owner Harold Ballard and told him to pay the fines or he’d quit. Ballard couldn’t pay Willams’ fines, of course, but in the off-season, Tiger received a cheque for ‘services rendered’ that, coincidentally, equaled the total of the fines.
The way he told these and other stories kept the audience well-entertained. If Williams' stories weren’t enough, former NHL draft pick Kelly Greenback joined Williams onstage to add stories of his own about Williams.
