How a young Wing Watson grounded Golden Jet Hull

He was a 23-year-old utility defenseman with a big assignment: Shadow Bobby Hull in the 1966 Stanley Cup semifinals.

Bryan (Bugsy) Watson was the young defenseman for the Red Wings.

Hull, the father of Wings star Brett Hull, was one of the most feared scorers in the NHL, having scored 54 goals for the Chicago Blackhawks that season with a banana-blade slap shot.

Every spring, the story is refilled at Bugsy's, a sports bar in the Old Town section of Alexandria, Va., where Watson is the proprietor. Customers armed with pitchers of beer and surrounded by 18 televisions still ask Watson about the time he shot down the Golden Jet and propelled the Wings into the Stanley Cup finals.

“I still get a lot of mail, and Detroit fans who come in my place asking about my battle With Bobby,” said Watson, 59. “Believe it or not, Hull still hates me for what I did to him.”

The previous year, the Black-Hawks had eliminated the Wings in the playoffs, largely because of Hull's eight goals. In the 1965-66 regular season, Chicago finished second and Detroit fourth in the six-team league, and the Wings had beaten the Hawks only once in 14 meetings.

Although the Blackhawks wore loaded with talent, including future Hall of Famers Stan Mikita and Phil Esposito, the Wings knew they primarily had to stop Hull. Other teams had tried that during the season by assigning players to shadow the superstar, but Hull still set an NHL record for goals.

Employing a check-and-chase strategy, Wings coach Sid Abel assigned forward Paul Henderson to shadow Hull in the first game of the playoffs. But after the Golden Jet scored the game-wining goal in a 2-1 Chicago victory, Abel turned to a spirited young player not afraid to sacrifice his body.

Although 25 pounds lighter than Hull, Watson volunteered for the job.

' “When I played in Montreal, I saw how well Claude Provost had shadowed Bobby, and I had done It myself once with the Canadiens,” Watson said from his home in Alexandria.

The Wings had acquired Watson, then a part-time penalty killer, before the season, and teammates Gordie Howe and Andy Bathgate soon started calling him “Bugsy.”

Before long, he made a career out of his ability to provoke opponents into joining him in the penalty box.

Teammate Bill Gadsby fondly remembers Abel's words to Watson: “Sid told Bugsy, ‘If Bobby Hull goes to the concession stand, you go with him and put the sugar in his coffee.' ”

In the first nationally televised NHL game in the United States, the Wings annihilated Hull and the Hawks, 7-0, in Game 2 at Chicago Stadium. Watson began his persistent pestering of the Golden Jet, which lasted the rest of the series.

As Hull would begin his patented circle to gain skating momentum, Watson would skate small circles inside, hacking at Hull at every opportunity.

“I was awful to him, and I drove him nuts,” Watson said. “I jammed the lanes so he could not do his big windup with the puck. I can't tell you the things I said to him. I was never afraid of Bobby”

When the series moved to Olympia Stadium for Game 3, Watson and Hull each were penalized twice for infractions against the other. Watson also scored a goal in the Wings' 2-1 loss.

“I'll never forget that goal, because after I scored, this slimy thing went flying over my shoulder and it scared the hell out of me,” Watson said with a laugh. “After the game, this guy who had seen the look on my face introduced himself as Fritz Cusimano, and he told me how the octopus tradition had started way back with his family's fish market.”

Watson added further insult to injury in the Wings' 5-1 victory in Game 4, when his second goal of the series was followed by a thunderous ovation. The Olympia crowd roared throughout the game during the Hull and Watson war.

A chorus of “We want Watson” echoed through the old red barn. Afterward, when Hull was asked whether Watson was beginning to bother him, Hull quipped, “When he scores goals, he does.”

Watson didn't score again, but the Wings won games 5 and 6 and headed to the finals, where they lost to the Canadiens in six games. It was their last finals appearance for 29 years.

They got there partly because role player Bugsy Watson got the better of the great Bobby Hull.
For the series, Watson was banished seven times for infractions against Hull, and Hull was penalized five times for misdeeds against Watson. The Golden Jet scored only twice, both times when Watson was on the bench. Bugsy's two goals, which matched his regular-season output, occurred with Hull on the ice.

“There's no question that Bryan had a job to do, and he did it well,” Howe said recently.

Howe was asked what he would have done had Watson been assigned to shadow him.
“I would have first asked Bugsy, ‘What flavor do you like — white tape or black?' ” Howe said.

Gadsby said: “Bryan did a hell of a job on Hull every game we played, but he paid the price. I remember Bugsy's belly was all marked up with spear jobs, and his chest and ribs had welts all over because Bobby didn't like what he was doing”

Years later, Watson learned that Hull still harbored bad feelings toward him.

“At an old-timers hockey game in Markham, Ontario, Ted Lindsay, who is good friends with Hull, for kicks suggested that I skate over to Bobby and have some fun,” said Watson, who ended his 17-year career with the Washington Capitals. “When Bobby saw me coming over, his big smile went to gloom and doom. I grabbed his stick so he couldn't skate, and with that, he ripped it out of my hand and jumped over the boards, taking off his skates. I said to Teddy, ‘Holy Jesus, you see what I mean?' ”

After Watson nearly lost his hand in a chain-saw accident a few years ago, Watson heard that Hull remarked, “How's the chain saw doing?”

These days, if he's not tending to his restaurant business with his wife of 32 years, Lindy, or working for his pet project, the Special Olympics, Watson enjoys a visit with his 4-year-old grandson, Isaac. He calls his grandpa “Bugsy.”

And at least once a year, Watson makes it back to Detroit for a Red Wings alumni golf outing, swapping stories with old friends and teammates. Watson played six seasons in his two stints with the Wings — with the second one ending in 1977.

“I loved Montreal, but Detroit was the best sports city I have ever been in,” Watson said. “The people were so wonderful to me. I had so much fun, I could hardly wait to get to the Olympia.”
And he certainly enjoyed the 1966 playoff series against the Blackhawks.

“I know I had a lot more fun than Bobby did,” he said.

By BILL DOW
. FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER