Well worth it

PENTICTON, B.C. -- At 75 years old, Tommy McVie knew he'd had a pretty good run. He's sipped from enough Cups in his day -- a Turner Cup, a Calder Cup, a Patrick Cup in the old Western Hockey League and the last Avco Cup when he coached the Winnipeg Jets.

The Stanley Cup? Hey, it has only been 55 years in pro hockey. You can't do everything.

"I thought time was running out, that it would never happen," said McVie in his gravel voice, a dead ringer for that radio bit "The Champ."

"As a player I didn't get there to win; as a coach I didn't get there to win. I've been with the Bruins a long time, off and on since 1973 ... I thought my chances of being part of a Stanley Cup weren't going to be there.

"But I just kept hangin' around, and it happened."

Hangin' around doesn't begin to describe the man who, at 76 now, just might be the eldest continuously working scout in NHL press boxes today. He is, as scout Lorne Davis and so many were before him, a walking piece of NHL lore. He's a chapter or two of The Book of Hockey, standing right up there in the corner of the rink here in Penticton.

McVie broke in with the Toledo Mercurys back in 1956, then two years later began a 14-year run in the old Western Hockey League, playing for teams like the Portland Buckaroos and the Seattle Totems, meeting people like Connie (Mad Dog) Madigan, his best friend even today.

He can't wait to remind you that Madigan, at 38 years old, was the oldest rookie in NHL history when he suited up for the St. Louis Blues back in 1972.

"Connie, he don't talk too much, you know?" McVie said. Of course, McVie did the talking that day, convincing the Blues GM Lynn Patrick to fly Madigan into St. Louis, rather than the farm team in Salt Lake City.

It was one more trip to the NHL than McVie ever got as a player, though he coached seven years in the show. The stories though, they're always saucier when they come from teams with names like the Dayton Gems or the Johnstown Jets.

There, in Johnstown, McVie was the original Reggie Dunlop, player-coach back in 1972-73. Madigan had a role in the movie Slap Shot, as Ross (Mad Dog) Madigan.

"I come down there as an old pro, a player-coach. Not very good at the time, but you had to coach and play to even get a job in those days," he remembered. "It was a butcher's league, a tough league. I tried to convince them that I wanted to stay in hockey, 'cause that's all I knew.

"All the kids in my hometown (of Trail, B.C.) got their dad's job, but I didn't want to go work in the smelter, in the foundry. I left there with a pair of skates in one hand, a lacrosse stick in the other, and I've never had a real job."

On 55 years in the game he said: "People say it's dedication. I say, 'Too lazy to get a real job.'"

Somehow he always came back to Portland, where he lives today.

"I got fired so many times I always had somewhere to go back to, collect my things, and head off to the next job."

And over the many years, McVie has become a fixture there. His day with the Stanley Cup this summer was, well, more than a half-century in the making.

"When the gentleman in the white gloves came to me, handed me the Stanley Cup, it was mine for 12 hours. It was the most wonderful day of my life," he said.

The Cup has a certain allure. Big Stanley with a local legend is even more popular. He carted that Cup around Portland to huge crowds, all afternoon long.

"They said, the last four hours, take it home and spend it with your family. But when I drove up to my house, I couldn't find a parking spot. Guess I didn't realize I had 100 people in my family."

It's fall now, and McVie is back where he should be, inside a hockey rink, scouting for the team he loves, the Bruins.

"There is a certain way the Boston Bruins play; there is a certain way the people of Boston want them to play," he explained. "When I'm out scouting players, and come back to our meetings, I just say, 'He's not a Bruin. Can't do it,' right in front of GM Peter Chiarelli and Bruins president Cam Neely.

"Now, Cam Neely was a Bruin. Terry O'Reilly was a Bruin. Don Marcotte was a Bruin," he said. "You've got to be a Flyer to be a Flyer? You've got to be a Bruin to play for the Bruins."

Mark Spector is the senior columnist on sportsnet.ca