We met frequently during long-ago Pats games and hope to soon play racquetball
Dirk Graham and I used to be in touch all the time. Literally. So I called him the other day with congratulations on being inducted into the Regina Sports Hall of Fame.
“I was dumb enough to try to fight him, so thank God somebody had to save me,” said Graham, whose current job scouting for the NHL’s San Jose Sharks prevents him from attending our induction ceremony Thursday at the Conexus Arts Centre, which will also honour builder Bernadette McIntyre (curling) and athletes Aaron Higgins (Special Olympics weightlifting), Jessica Frotten (Para-athletics) and LaDonna Watkins (track)
I once got hung up in the arms of Graham and Neufeld, my skates dangling helplessly and embarrassingly as they frantically exchanged uppercuts. Thankfully he didn’t remember.
We visited once briefly in Dallas, when he played for the CHL’s Black Hawks before backtracking to the IHL’s Toledo Goaldiggers and, with encouragement from coach Bill Inglis, rededicated himself to making The Show. During a high-scoring season with the CHL’s Salt Lake City Golden Eagles, we managed a postgame drink together following a game in Billings.
That was in 1986.
“Do you remember when you interviewed me decades ago, when I was just making my way in the NHL?” he said.
“I kept that story. I have it laminated. It was awesome, dude. I really appreciated it. I have it laminated up on my desk.”
I remembered his North Stars teammates taunting him to buy a house in the Twin Cities, which he did and was promptly traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. That’s where his hockey career blossomed.
Through eight subsequent NHL seasons before retiring in 1995, four times Graham scored more than 20 goals, became Blackhawks captain in 1989 and later had a short stint as their coach, won the Frank Selke Trophy as the league’s outstanding defensive player and made it to the 1992 Stanley Cup final, where Chicago was swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
It’s a long way from a flooded parking lot in North-Central Regina.
The years have been unkind to Graham’s knees, both of which have been surgically replaced and kept him from playing his favourite sport — racquetball.
“I’ve been trying to find a league nearby,” said Graham, who lives in Chicago. “I love racquetball. That’s one of the things I used to do in the summer to train.”
What a coincidence! As part of the Class of 2024, one of the reasons I’m being inducted into the Regina Sports Hall of Fame is my long-time involvement with racquetball locally, provincially and nationally. An incredibly popular sport in the 1980s, racquetball is still around with two courts at Regina’s downtown YMCA, now The Nest Health Centre.
“Except during COVID, I try to get back to Regina every year to see my mom and uncle,” said Graham. “I will definitely look you up and we’ll hopefully play a little bit of racquetball.”
Cool!
The Regina Leader-Post has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.
With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark leaderpost.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.