The 20 scariest nicknames in NHL history
Hockey has always lent well to scary lore, particularly in its earlier eras, because the sport was so rooted in violence. If you read up on some of the atrocities committed by the likes of Eddie Shore and Sprague Cleghorn on the ice back in the day, you’ll shudder. And many of the most fearsome personalities often earned monikers befitting their presences.
In honor of Halloween, then, let’s peruse some of the sport’s all-time most frightening nicknames. Many come from enforcers, who historically scare the daylights out of their opponents like few others, but there are alternative ways to petrify other teams, from killing them with scoring ability to laying out punishing hits to proving unsolvable between the pipes.
The key for evaluating each nickname is: pretend you’ve never faced the player and, in the dressing room before the game, your teammate tells you, “Oh no, we’re up against [nickname] tonight.” How that makes you feel will help you rate the scary factor.
20. Ted Lindsay: Terrible Ted
A Hall of Famer, a nine-time All-Star, a four-time Stanley Cup champ and a pioneer for player rights, Lindsay played much bigger than his 5-foot-8, 163-pound frame. If you faced Terrible Ted, it meant getting run over by one of fiercest competitors of his day.
19. Shayne Gostisbehere: Ghost Bear
Unlike Lindsay, the puck-moving blueliner Ghost Bear, or Ghost, plays a slick finesse game and doesn’t scare opponents with his style or demeanor. But there’s no way we can exclude a Ghost from a spooky nickname list. ‘Ghost’ was always part of Gostisbehere’s nickname, but, according to a scout who told me the story, the ‘Bear’ was added because the scout had trouble saying ‘Gostisbehere’ and simply wanted to relay the excitement over ‘this Ghost Bear kid’ to the Philadelphia Flyers front office when they it had eyes on him.
18. Bernie Geoffrion: Boom Boom
Context matters. Geoffrion’s peak years as a Montreal Canadiens sniper came in the 1950s and early 1960s, when goalies didn’t yet wear masks before Jacques Plante’s innovation in 1959. As one of the slapshot’s original innovators, ‘Boom Boom’ struck fear into goalies with his howitzer.
17. Ivan Irwin: Ivan the Terrible
He only played 155 games in the NHL between 1952-53 and 1957-58, but Irwin made an impression. He was an imposing figure for his day at 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds. Anyone who crossed the New York Rangers blueline and drove to the net was going to feel it with Irwin on the ice.
16. Guy Lafleur: Le Demon Blond
The legendary superstar is better known as ‘The Flower.’ But some of the game’s true institutions earn multiple nicknames. With his long blond locks flapping in the breeze while he skated around his opposition and racked up 100-point seasons, the ‘Le Demon Blond’ nickname adequately summed up how frightening it was for rivals to face him. Lafleur won three consecutive Art Ross trophies between 1975-76 and 1977-78 during the peak of Montreal’s last dynasty.
15. Dave Semenko: Cement Head
My hands hurt even saying the nickname out loud. Semenko, the Edmonton Oilers’ famed enforcer and Wayne Gretzky’s personal protector during their 1980s dynasty, was feared for his fists. He even battled Muhammad Ali in a charity boxing match. The Cement Head nickname worked for anyone who struggled to say his last name, or even for opposing fans who wanted to taunt him, but it also conjured the image of a rock-solid teammate and someone whom it would hurt to tangle with. Who wants to punch a cement head?
14. Brady Tkachuk: Chucky
The horror movie icon Chuky, voiced by Brad Dourif, is a tiny, evil, doll. The hulking Brady Tkachuk isn’t Chucky-like in his stature. But personality wise? The Ottawa Senators captain is gleefully mischievous wreaking havoc on the ice. He absolutely captures the spirt of the doll. His nickname is a play on his last name rather than a direct homage to Child’s Play, but it happens to fit perfectly.
13. Pat Verbeek: The Little Ball of Hate
Only one player in NHL history has at least 500 goals, 1,000 points and 2,500 penalty minutes: Verbeek. Young fans know him now as the Anaheim Ducks GM, but Verbeek was a menace of a player who mixed aggression and goal-scoring like few in his generation. He did so at 5-foot-9 and 192 pounds, hence the moniker.
12. Jerry Korab: King Kong
Korab was a behemoth on the blueline, most prominently on a Buffalo Sabres team that reached the 1974-75 Stanley Cup final. But the ‘King Kong’ nickname almost made him feel 20 percent bigger than his 6-foot-3, 220-pound frame. What attacker wanted to try and get around King Kong in the O-zone?
11. Terry O’Reilly: Taz
Few nicknames in hockey history have suited a player better than ‘Taz’ for O’Reilly. Wild, chaotic and unpredictable, O’Reilly was a Tasmanian Devil on ice, an emotional leader who would do anything to protect his Boston Bruins teammates. He was the enforcer who could do anything at any given moment and kept opponents guessing. He was also underrated as a scorer; he once had a 90-point season, albeit it came in 1977-78 as the NHL was trending toward its peak offensive era.
10. Gary Simmons: Cobra
In his first NHL start, Simmons recorded a shutout, and a reporter compared his stellar performance to a slithering snake on the ice. Boom, a nickname was born, and Simmons later immortalized it by donning a mask with the Cobra artwork.
9. Dave Schultz: The Hammer
It’s one thing to be a feared enforcer. It’s another to be the scariest guy on the Broad Street Bullies. He was “nicknamed the Hammer because of the way I bounced my fist off the enemy’s head,” he once wrote. No wonder the Philadelphia Flyers‘ opponents frequently came down with the Spectrum Flu in the 1970s.
8. Billy Smith: Hatchet Man
So many of the scariest villains brandish trademark weapons, from Freddy Krueger’s gardening glove to Jason Voorhees’ machete. Billy Smith, netminder for the New York Islanders 1980s dynasty, swung his stick (or sometimes his blocker) at anyone who breathed too close to his crease. You paid a toll if you wanted to pass.
7. Ken Morrow: Wolf Man
Morrow was a towering presence on the Isles’ dynastic blueline – not to mention the 1980 USA Miracle on Ice Olympic squad – but his nickname didn’t reflect his play style. The classy Morrow was no killer out there. But he did grow one of the best beards in the game, wolf-like indeed.
6. Don Murdoch: Murder
Murdoch exploded onto the NHL scene like no rookie we’ve ever seen, scoring eight goals in his first four career games, including five in his fourth contest. He was considered “murder around the net” and finished second in the 1976-77 Calder Trophy vote, but drug problems, including a cocaine-possession arrest, derailed his career.
5. Curtis Joseph: CuJo
Defenseman Robert Dirk, Joseph’s teammate during their St. Louis Blues days, had trouble saying the name Curtis Joseph and shortened it to CuJo. Joseph then leaned into the name, shared by the rabid dog in Stephen King’s 1981 horror novel, and Joseph adorned his masks with it throughout his superb NHL career as a goaltender.
4. Doug Gilmour: Killer
The natural assumption is to attribute the ‘Killer’ nickname to Gilmour’s gritty playing style throughout his Hall of Fame career, but the origin is deeper and spookier. While Gilmour played for the Blues in the 1980s, teammate Brian Sutter likened Gilmour’s slight frame and mullet to the look of notorious murderer and cult leader Charles Manson. The nickname originated as ‘Charlie’ and morphed into Killer eventually.
3. Alf Pike: The Embalmer
Pike didn’t become ‘The Embalmer’ because he laid guys out or scared them stiff or anything of the sort. He was simply a licensed mortician during offseason. With a career spanning 1939-40 to 1946-47, Pike played during a time when it was common to have a second job.
2. Derek Boogaard: The Boogeyman
Boogard is arguably best known now as one of first NHL players posthumously diagnosed with CTE, his career as an enforcer serving as a cautionary tale on the dangers of repeated head trauma. It thus feels wrong in a way to celebrate his nickname – but it would also be dishonest to forget how he was regarded during his playing days. He was as feared as any enforcer of his day, and the Boogeyman moniker was a natural play on his last name.
1. Stu Grimson: The Grim Reaper
The perfect nickname. The Grim Reaper concept, the spirit that visits you before death, is iconic and creepy. Attaching it to a scary enforcer seemed to increase its power, and it was simultaneously a play on Grimson’s last name. No notes.
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