The passage of the Nordiques to Quebec will have allowed people to experience more good times than bad. Among the worst, this evening of April 11, 1976 when Calgary Cowboys forward Rick Jodzio delivered a violent double-check to the face of Fleurdelisés star player Marc Tardif, leaving him unconscious on the ice.
At 6:16 of the first period of the second game of the quarter-final series of the Canadian division of the World Hockey Association between the Cowboys and the Nordiques, Jodzio “sent Marc Tardif, best scorer on the circuit, on the ice with a high stick following a 30 foot charge. He then attacked him with both fists, literally knocking him out,” as journalist Claude Cadorette wrote in the April 12, 1976 edition of the Journal de Québec.
That day, the Journal headlined on its front page: “Late knocked out. by a savage.
Nearly 50 years later, a question remains about these sad incidents: Did Jodzio act after receiving an order from his head coach Joe Crozier?
In the brand new book “Once upon a time… the Nordiques: 100 players tell their stories”, the authors Benoit Clairoux and Pierre-Yves Dumont have devoted six of the 528 pages of the work to transcribing the testimonies of the players of the era as well as their memories of this incident which ensured that Tardif was never the same player thereafter.
“This incident had a great impact on the people of the AMH. Hockey was very violent at that time and I felt that some tough guys were still very bitter about what happened in 1976,” said Pierre-Yves Dumont during an interview with the Journal.
“It was important for us to transcribe all the testimonies on this incident. People think that not much happened but it is one of the worst, if not the worst attacks in the history of modern hockey,” adds Benoit Clairoux.
“It changed my career”
In the book, without returning to the event as such, Tardif laments that this kind of gesture is not just the reflection of a bygone era.
“What led to that unfortunate evening for me was just a reflection of the glory years of the Flyers, who had just won the Stanley Cup two years in a row,” he mentions in the book.
“In my opinion, things haven’t changed that much since my attack, except today [les bagarres] would be prohibited,” he adds.
The Journal published this photo of Tardif’s swollen face, after the incidents of April 11, 1976.
Photo d’archives
Met during the official launch of the book, Thursday evening in a restaurant in Quebec, Tardif did not hide the fact that these were difficult moments to revisit.
“It’s definitely not a happy event… it changed my career,” admits the man who took Rick Jodzio to court… in vain.
“I look at it today and I don’t understand why hockey is still the only sport where fighting is allowed. I think it has no place.”
Ordered or not?
In “Once upon a time… the Nordiques: 100 players tell their stories”, the vast majority of former players interviewed accuse former coach Joe Crozier of being at the origin of the excesses of April 11, 1976.
“I see it [Jodzio] sit down again after returning from the penalty box. Instructor Crozier leans into his ear, and a moment later, he jumps on the ice and rushes to throw a double-check in the face of Marc who has just gone around the net,” says Serge Bernier in the book.
Former Nordiques player François Lacombe was present at the launch of the book “Once upon a time… the Nordiques: 100 players tell their stories”, Wednesday evening.
Photo by Kevin Dubé
When we say that it is the vast majority of veterans who testify against Crozier, it is because one testimony stands out from the others: that of François Lacombe who, that season, found himself in the enemy camp, with the Cowboys from Calgary, after spending the previous three seasons in Quebec.
“Some said Joe Crozier called the shot. No. It happened so quickly,” he told the author of these lines when he also met him at the launch of the book on Wednesday evening.
“It was scary”
The former defender, who returned with the Nordiques the following season, then grabbed a salt and pepper shaker placed in the center of the table, where he was sitting.
“You remember, Marc did that,” he said first.
He then places the salt shaker in the middle of the table: “The goal is there,” he illustrates.
Then, he moves the pepper shaker to the left end and makes it go around the “goal-salt shaker”.
“Marc took the puck, went around the goal and cut forward. Jodzio arrived from the other side,” he says.
Premeditated or not, Lacombe nevertheless recognizes one thing: the moments that followed were absolutely nothing to cheer about.
“He hit his head on the ground. In the Colosseum, you could have heard a pin drop. It was scary. I was playing for Calgary but the guys were still friends on the other side. I went to see Christian Bordeleau and Serge Bernier and we spoke. Fortunately, Marc escaped.”
He got through it but, he himself admits, Tardif was never the same player afterward.
“At least there are much more positive elements in the book!”, concludes the latter.
Some testimonials from the book
«For his part, Crozier used the media to intimidate or distract his opponent. When he leaned toward Rick Jodzio on the Cowboys bench, it was clear to me» – Jean Bernier
«The Cowboys and their instructor Joe Crozier knew they couldn’t compete with us. They had to get Marc out of the ice» – Christian Bordeleau
«Jodzio gave Marc a double check in the face, then he started beating him. I jumped behind Jodzio’s back to stop him, but he had already hit Marc several times» – goalkeeper Richard Brodeur.
«I don’t want to defend Rick Jodzio, but the guy was put in a terrible situation. Coach Crozier sent him to do a bad job» – Charles Constantin.
«In a hockey fight, there are unwritten rules. You don’t hit a guy from the side, you make sure he sees you, he’s ready to fight and if you’ve hit him solid, well, you stop hitting him. Jodzio did not respect this last aspect that evening: he continued to hit Marc, who was lying unconscious on the ice after his premeditated attack– former tough guy Curt Brackenbury.
