Dentures conceal the famous toothless grin. Long unruly locks of yesteryear have given way to white, neatly coiffed tufts. Wrinkles now frame the gazing eyes.
As he enters senior citizenship, having turned 65 on Aug. 13, Bob Clarke no longer looks like the scraggy centreman who took the hockey world by storm in the 1970s.
But Flin Flon’s most famous (and feisty) son remains a timeless icon, a symbol of northern-bred, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way fortitude.
It was that resilience that took Robert Earle Clarke, then more innocently known as Bobby, off the smelter-smoky streets of Flin Flon, where he spent three seasons and change with his hometown Bombers.
It was what let him become the first diabetic drafted into the NHL, back in 1969, and give the proverbial finger to everyone who predicted he would wilt under the intensity of the big leagues.
And it was what allowed him to captain
the Philadelphia Flyers to two Stanley Cups, epitomizing the club’s nickname, the Broadstreet Bullies, and earn universal recognition as one of hockey’s all-time greats.
Roots
Not that he has forgotten where it all began.
Clarke has made fairly regular visits to Flin Flon over the years. In 2010, at the age of 60, he even returned to the ice of the Whitney Forum to play in the Roller Goodwin Memorial Tournament.
During that visit, when asked about his favourite memories of playing in Flin Flon, Clarke had trouble with specifics.
“There’s so many because I grew up here and played all my hockey until I went to Philadelphia here,” he told The Reminder. “Playing for Paddy Ginnell with the Bombers and Roy Jarvis with the Midget Bombers and stuff, those are special things that develop you for the rest of your life. And I was lucky to be raised in this town, lucky to have Roy Jarvis, lucky to have Paddy Ginnell, [minor hockey coach] Arnold Kitch, the guys that helped us all along the way.”
Three years earlier, as guest speaker at the 2007 Flin Flon Bombers Sportsman’s Dinner, Clarke rubbed shoulders with many former members of the Maroon and White.
“I think like so many, from the old players that I see all around us, we’ve all got ‘Made in Flin Flon’ stamped on our ass,” he said, drawing laughter from the Creighton Sportex crowd.
Laughter wasn’t something Clarke generated much of during his playing days. The unvarnished truth: many felt that his win-at-all-costs tactics crossed over into the realm of plain old nastiness.
Reputation
That reputation was cemented during the famous 1972 Summit Series when he laid down a brutal slash to the ankle of Valeri Kharlamov, effectively taking the Soviet star out of the tournament.
Some have argued that Canada’s Summit victory (“Henderson has scored for Canada!”) warrants an asterisk because of Clarke’s deliberate chop. Others saw the Kharlamov injury as poetic justice given the Soviets’ own whopping bag of dirty tricks.
But Clarke was more than a fearless tough guy. He could also score. Oh, could he ever.
By the end of his 15 NHL seasons, all of them in Philly orange and white, he was 11th in all-time league points with 1,210. (He now ranks 42nd, but no Flyer has managed more offensive output).
After retiring, Clarke promptly became the Flyers’ general manager, taking the team to the Stanley Cup final twice in six seasons.
Upon being fired in 1990, he spent the next two campaigns as GM of the now-defunct Minnesota North Stars, helping that franchise to a surprise showing in the Stanley Cup final.
Clarke returned to the Flyers as senior vice-president in 1992 but left after one year to become GM of the expansion Florida Panthers. The team he began to build in Miami would reach the Cup final just three years later.
After just one season with the Panthers, Clarke, his general managerial abilities no longer in any doubt, was drawn back to the Flyers. His 12-year reign included one more trip to the final, but after a poor start to the 2006-07 campaign, he tendered his resignation.
As Flyers owner Ed Snider told reporters at the time: “I’ve always stood behind Bob because I knew I would never have to fire him because he would fire himself.”
Today Clarke is still with the Flyers, in the role of senior vice-president. If you’re not sure what the senior vice-president of a hockey team does, you’re not alone. Even Clarke downplays the role.
“It keeps me involved, but not in a decision-making process,” Clarke told The Reminder during his 2010 visit. “[Then-general manager] Paul Holmgren runs the Flyers. He’s the manager and we’re close friends, so I get to have an office and a secretary and stuff, but I really don’t do a lot.”
Fact or fiction?
So much has been written about Clarke over the years that it is difficult to divorce fact from fiction. Is he misunderstood? Unsophisticated? A genius? Or just mean?
On that last question, certainly there have been times when Clarke’s mouth has gotten him into trouble.
He once said former Flyers coach Roger Neilson “went goofy on us” after taking a leave of absence to fight cancer. And when criticized for failing to finalize a trade with Toronto, possibly out of pettiness, Clarke’s rebuttal was succinct: “I don’t give a s--- about the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
Clarke may not have the strongest filter, but Flin Flonners who still know him speak of his big heart, of a generosity that reveals itself in ways the media doesn’t, and isn’t supposed to, know about.
Legacy
Clarke has now lived more than two-thirds of his life away from Flin Flon, but the community still values his legacy.
Just take a walk through the Whitney Forum, where Clarke is immortalized, or visit the gymnasium named in his honour at Ecole McIsaac School.
Flin Flon’s relationship with Clarke was perhaps best summed up by local band Blue Monday on their 1977 single “The Bobby Clarke Way.” Goes one verse:
And your name is heard in every town /
He’s a family man with three kids and a wife/
Comes back home just to slow down his life/
The people ‘round here, they know he’s in town/
But they don’t make a fuss, they just see him around/
In their hearts they’re singin’
The World According to Clarke Some memorable quotes from Bob Clarke:
On the Flin Flon Bombers: “The Bombers were the reason that player like Reggie Leach and myself became NHL players. We had a strong work ethic and desire. We owe that to Flin Flon and the Bombers.”
On an opponent facing the Flyers during his playing days: “They always try to play with our minds. But that won’t work with our club. We’ve got 20 guys without brains.”
On rumours: “I’ve discovered that the less I say, the more rumours I start.”
On his club’s toughness: “We take the shortest route to the puck and arrive in ill humour.”
On former Flyer Eric Lindros sitting out a year: “If you’re a hockey player and you get a chance to play, you go play. You only have so many games in your career, and if you love playing hockey, you love being part of a team and going to the rink, how can you sit for a whole ---damn year?”
On any wishes he had for Lindros after the centre was finally dealt: “He hurt this organization. I could care less about him.”
On his feistiness: “I’ve been a competitor all my life. I was taught to fight back. If I see things and hear things that I know aren’t right, my natural instinct is to fight back. But it can get you deeper in trouble. Even when I try to behave, my temper gets the better of me.”
On modern NHL hockey compared to his playing days: “It would be foolish for us to believe that hockey now is not better than 20 years ago and won’t be better 20 years from today. The game of hockey is much better. It is faster, harder and the players are in much better condition. The puck is shot much harder now.”
On the Russians: “The Russians are the dirtiest players I’ve ever seen.”
SOURCES: The Reminder archives, NHL.com, CBC.ca, Bleacherreport.com, National Post, The New York Times
