By all accounts, Reggie Leach has made his name.
He's a Stanley Cup winner, Canada Cup winner and the first player to score 80 goals in a single National Hockey League campaign when you combine the regular season and playoffs, that being the 1975-76 season.
But it wasn't always a smooth ride and that's what Leach wanted to talk about during a city-hosted noon-hour talk with a small group of people at the Yk Community Arena on Aug. 2. He was in town to work with the Shoot To Score Hockey Camp, run by his son Jamie Leach last week but managed to fit the talk into his schedule.
He even joked about the small size of the group by treating everyone like schoolkids.
“OK, everyone up to the front,” he joked. “You can't hide in the back like I used to try to do.”
Leach spoke for more than an hour about his younger days growing up as an Indigenous youth in Riverton, Man., which is where he got his nickname – The Riverton Rifle.
He said he only started skating at the age of 10 and never had any aspirations of being a professional hockey player when he got started.
“My dream wasn't to play in the National Hockey League or even junior hockey, I grew up wanting to be on the senior men's team,” he said. “To us kids growing up, they were the best players in town and my dream was to play with them.”
But a chance conversation with one of his old coaches put him on the path to bigger and better things.
“He told me 'See that guy there? He was twice as good as you and now look at him.',” said Leach.
That player had turned into what Leach called the town drunk.
He eventually moved away from Riverton and managed to nail down a roster spot with the Flin Flon Bombers, where he would meet the man he calls his best friend to this day: Bobby Clarke. But his foray into junior hockey almost ended as soon as it started.
He was homesick and nervous.
“When I went home for Christmas in my first season, I almost didn't go back,” he said. “I wanted to stay home because I missed home. But I learned that you never quit. You have to work hard and stick with it.”
There was also the racism that came with being young and Indigenous in those days but Leach said his coach with the Bombers told him to let it slide.
“He told me the reason they're doing that is because they can't catch you,” he said. “You're too fast for them and they hate not being able to keep up with you.”
Leach was drafted by the Boston Bruins in 1970 and made his debut that season. He was traded to the California Golden Seals, where he played three seasons before making the move to the Philadelphia Flyers that would turn him into a household name.
Leach said it was Clarke who helped engineer the deal.
“He told management to trade for me and I'd score 50 goals a season,” he said. “No pressure.”
Maybe not every season but he did manage to crack the 50-goal plateau twice in his career, including a 61-goal season in 1975-76. He was the first – and still the only – non-goaltender from the losing team to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff's most valuable player when the Flyers lost in the 1976 Stanley Cup Final to Montreal, when he led the playoffs in scoring with 19 goals.
But the pressure of success eventually got to him and he fell into alcoholism, and he spoke openly about his struggles.
“I've been in the program since 1985,” he said. “It's one of the mistakes I made as a young adult and I'm not shy talking about it.”
Having not touched a drop of alcohol since then, Leach has gone around North America to pass along his message to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth.
It's something that has become his biggest joy, he said.
“As an elder now, it's important to give back to the youth,” he said. “I think it's very important and besides, it's great. It makes me feel young when all the little kids talk to you and you see all their smiling faces. You yell at them once in a while but that's alright because they don't listen to you half the time, anyway. Much of what I do is for First Nations kids. That's what I dedicate my life to now.”
But he was serious when he talked about how taking responsibility for your actions is an important thing.
“I hate to say this but today's parents don't always make their kids accountable enough,” he said. “I see it right across the country.”
Doug Rankin was one of the audience members at the chat and won himself an autographed copy of Leach's biography.
Rankin said he would have shown up regardless of what time of day it was.
“Lunchtime or not, I would have been here,” he said. “I always come to listen to these guys whenever they come. I think it's a good opportunity to have a chat with them. I was expecting to see more people but I think they have to do a better job of presenting this. Today's youth have no idea who Reggie Leach is so that's how you approach it – tell people who he is and why it's important to come and listen to him.”
Leach shows no sign of slowing down at the age of 68. He still plays hockey games with the Flyers alumni and will also be inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in November.
He also said as long as the camp comes to Yellowknife, he'll be here, too.
“We always have a great time when we come here and everyone makes us feel so welcome,” he said.