Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Taking a look at Wendel Clark's career without the Blue & White blinders on.

THE REST OF CANADA – It all started from a smart-alec email, the moment that a Western Canadian truly realized he was working for a Toronto-based company.

The call went out over the Sportsnet blackberries for topics to discuss with Wendel Clark, whose number is going up in the rafters in Toronto on Saturday night. Prior to a sit-down interview at Sportsnet, we tend to poll all of our hockey people for pertinent questions.

Of course, with head office being in Toronto, everyone and their dog chips in with submissions that tend to come with a sprinkle of adoration for Wendel.

"Who was your favorite centreman?"

"What was your favorite moment as a Leaf?"

"What was it like playing with (sigh, flutter) Doug Gilmour?"

And so on, and so on.

Of course, it all brought out the Westerner in me. I couldn’t resist.

Reply to All:

"How many Cups did you win, Wendel?"

It’s not the assignment you want, when your boss phones you up and says, "Why don’t you give us an outside-of-Toronto perspective on the Clark ceremony?"

Who wants to rain on the parade? What’s in it for a guy to point out the obvious, that Clark was a good player, but not a great one.

He was a great Leaf, to be sure. But a great player?

Did he ever play in a Canada Cup?

If Clark had played for the Canucks, would he have been Stan Smyl? If he played in St. Louis, would he have been Brian Sutter. Of course, he played in Toronto for the majority of his career. But had he played in Calgary, would he have been a poor man’s Gary Roberts? In Chicago, a tougher Steve Larmer? In Philly, Rick Tocchet with a better wrist shot?

How many of those guys will be bawling on national TV this Saturday night?

The big picture - that the Leafs teams he played on were for the most part awful – is not Clark’s fault. All he did was make the best of a bad situation during those hopeless Harold Ballard years.

"He WAS the Leafs," remembered Detroit winger Darren McCarty. "When you were a kid, you tuned into Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday night because you wanted to see Wendel score, fight, and run over somebody."

It’s true that, for most of Clark’s time in Toronto, he was worth the price of admission. He had to be, because the rest of the team was nothing short of a rip-off.

And maybe it’s not fair to point out that Clark’s contemporaries honoured with a jersey in the rafters of other Canadian rinks invariably wore their Stanley Cup rings to the ceremony. Or in the case of a Trevor Linden, whose jersey goes up Dec. 17, he willed his team to a Game 7 against the Rangers back in ’94.

Clark’s Leafs got close twice, losing a pair of Conference Finals. That’s it, that’s all.

Never got out of the Conference.

He is not a Top 100 NHL goal scorer (330 career goals). He doesn’t make the list for assists (234) or points (564).

Nineteen men played more games for the Leafs than Clark’s 608. He only scored 40 goals once: a 46-goal season in 1993-94.

Compare him to the guy whose number they’ll be retiring in Montreal the same night? Frankly, you can’t.

Still, there was a lot to like about this kid from Saskatoon, who waltzed into Toronto in a pair of cowboy boots and carried the Leafs through all of those old (Chuck) Norris Division battles.

"I think he was like Cam Neely, with a greater mean streak," said Oiler Dwayne Roloson, a Simcoe Ont. boy. "Look at his leadership. I’d compare him to Messier."

Sorry Roli – that’s the Ontario talking.

Wendel wasn’t as good as either Neely or Messier, other than he had the wrist shot and liked to fight. But boy, does it ever end right there.

Clark did not play in the Canada Cups that Messier did, win the Stanley Cups or score 50. He had less than one-third of Messier’s 1,887 career points.

What Clark did have was a stage. Every Saturday night from coast to coast he’d fight the opponent’s toughest guy, and score a couple with that big, sweeping wrist shot that took a while to get off, but was a missile in the days before everyone could shoot the puck.

"He needed space to get that shot off, but he earned that space," said former Oilers defenceman Kevin Lowe.

He did indeed. That’s because he was a good player.

Not a great one.