By: Amanda Monahan
“They must have thought I was Batman flying through the air or something, but they’re screaming, they called the cops.”
Former NHLer Bernie Nicholls has quite the old time hockey story. This one is about the usual team prank, targeting the rookies.
He was in training camp early in the 80’s and was rooming next door to two young French players. It was 12:30 a.m. and he realized they left their sliding glass door open, giving him the perfect opportunity to scare them.
“I jump over the balcony and I sneak right on my hands and knees right on floor,” he said.
Crawling his way into the room he notices something unusual.
“No one is in the one bed and there’s two people in the other bed, so I’m thinking ‘oh my God’,” he said.
He positions himself at the foot of the bed and just starts screaming.
‘Well, an elder lady and her daughter sit up in bed and just start screaming,” he said with a laugh.
The team had cut the two young French players and booked the room out to the mother and daughter who eventually left for another hotel.
‘They could have had a heart attack and died. Oh thank God nothing serious happened.”
“I wish that someone in Victoria or wherever they were coming from would just call me or email me or something and go you know what it was my mom or sister or something. I would just love to apologize.”
His off-ice antics were no mirror image of what you would see on the ice. Nicholls is one of eight NHL players to score 70 goals in a season and one of five to tally 150 points, all during his 88-89 season with the LA Kings.
“I’ve always prided myself on being a playmaker, setting up other players, “ he said when asked what he considered his biggest accomplishment, his 70 goals or 150 points.
“I’m in pretty good company either way let’s put it that way.”
Playing a alongside a number of Hall of Famers, one player really stood out in his mind as one of his favourite to be around.
‘To me there isn’t a more classy respectful player than Brian Trottier.“
Trottier has won every award up for grabs for a centre and hoisted the Stanley Cup six times.
“You know to hang around someone like that, it’s just I’ve always respected him, just before I turned pro he was a player I looked at and wanted to be like, so he’d be my guy,”
A future Hall of Famer has also graced Nicholls list of favourite players. During his two years with the New Jersey Devils, Nicholls got to the see the beginning of the record holding career of Martin Brodeur.
“It was always funny, I’d always say to Marty ‘you shut them out tonight we’ll get you a win’, and you know what he shut then out an awful lot,”
Nicholls has played alongside many all-Stars, Wayne Gretzky, Scott Neidermayer, Scott Stevens and the list goes on. But in the current NHL there are two players he would love to lace up his skates and play with.
“Well in my opinion Sidney Crosby is the best player in the world, it’s devastating he’s not playing.”
“I’ve always rooted for Sid, I think he’s a class act.”
He chose a Chicago Blackawks to complete his all-time line.
“Jonathan Toews is amazing as well so you know we have a lot of good young talent out there but there’s two guys right there that I think are just phenomenal players.”
After 10 games with the San Jose Sharks during the 98-99 seasons, Nicholls announced his retirement from the NHL. Between his final season and today he sees a positive change to the NHL
“I think they’re really trying hard, the league is to make it better, safer, everything. They’re doing everything they can to make it a better league for everybody not only the players but for the fans as well.”