COMMENTARY: KID DYNAMITE
Craig Adam and Gerry James (right)
(Listen daily for the RP Commentary on the All New Hits 98 CKHD & LTD Radio)
It’s been a tough week for fans of sports greats, particularly Winnipeg.
On Tuesday we learned of the passing of Bomber great Kenny Ploen. He was 88.
I didn’t know a ton about Kenny other than that my Winnipeg football friends worshipped him, kind of like us and Lancaster.
The thing I knew most about him was that he sold advertising for Winnipeg radio station CJOB and had plenty of success with that. And there’s a statue of him in front of the Bombers Stadium.
They don’t do that for just anybody.
But on Tuesday I looked him up and it was the first I learned that Ploen led the Bombers to four Grey Cup championships in the 50s!
Shoot, he’s the Joe Montana of the CFL. It doesn’t seem like he’s got his due nationally.
But the one that hurt me even more was the news that legendary Gerry James passed away, also on Tuesday, at age 89.
Gerry’s a Bombers legend too, but also of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and school kids are marveling this week upon learning that Gerry played in both the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup in the same year in the 1950s.
Read that again.
There’s a far more personal connection to Gerry for me. He also ran the SJHL teams in Melville, Yorkton and Estevan in the 80’s and coached the Moose Jaw Warriors for a spell. My Dad spoke of Gerry James with the same reverence that he had for Toe Blake and Scotty Bowman.
I heard during a particularly cold snap in the 80’s, Gerry offered to personally boost any car in the arena parking lot after the game if necessary. Could you imagine a coach offering that now?
While promoting his book Kid Dynamite, Gerry James appeared on my radio show on the concourse at the Brandt Centre before a Pats game and it’s one of the greatest interviews I ever had.
His hair was gray, his face weathered and he peered at me through bi-focals but there was one thing that was unmistakeable: the fire in his eyes.
Here you can’t say they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
The fact is they only made one like Gerry James.
That’s today’s Rod Pedersen Commentary
(The Rod Pedersen Show airs daily at 12 pm & 5 pm on Game+TV, WQEE Radio, Podcast & YouTube Live)
What a great story.
They played well before my time but I have heard many fond memories from the older crowd about Ken Ploen in particular. With Bud Grant’s passing last year and now Ploen and James, we are losing the anchors of the one true Blue Bomber dynasty from the late 50s and early 60s.
Karma never loses an address.
BIG announcement today….well to a handful of facebook syncophants that it turns out a fellow will not be sitting in the Sports Cage chair
I predicted that Harvard would make it so a guy can take the new offer or simply…..quit…and when you’re dealing with a Narcissist’s pride he won’t sit and wait for the severance he’ll move along and start another podcast….just what the world needs.
Also remember anyone that is constantly yapping about their adult kids on social media. That isn’t parenting it’s narcissistic enmeshment.
Oh well.
It was a six-team NHL then, not like today.
What’s that got to do with anything.
James played in an era when there was only 130-140 NHLers now there’s 600+
Ya so it was harder to make it to the NHL.
That’s what I’m trying to say.
Oh! My apologies.
How many remember that he was voted the top athlete for the first half
century for the province of Manitoba.
I think he was living in Yorkton Sask at that time.
Ed Holzer. etcabbage@telus.net