For four-plus decades, Al MacNeil did anything he could to help the Calgary Flames.
As bench boss, he offered a simple suggestion that helped Lanny McDonald to become an even more dangerous goal-scorer.
As assistant general manager, he helped to build the deep and talented team that hoisted the Stanley Cup in 1989.
Even in retirement, ‘Chopper’ was adamant about doing whatever he could to make a difference. For years and years, he’d scribble scouting reports for the Flames’ coaches — a handwritten assessment of the previous game. As recently as the start of this current campaign, he was sending observations by email to Ryan Huska, only going digital when his health didn’t allow him to deliver to the rink.
MacNeil died Sunday at age 89, having spent half of his life in Calgary.
“He’d do a report every game on every player,” Darryl Sutter reminisced. “You’d get this envelope … It was always the next morning. A lot of times, it was early in the morning that he’d drop it off. And it was just so cool. It would be handwritten, and he’d have one line about every player.
“There were lots of times that you’d have a little laugh because what he was saying was exactly what you’d been thinking. And he was sharp with his wit. He’d say, ‘He’s got a hell of a shot, but he should have used it tonight.’ Or he’d say, ‘He’s a big body, but he never even touched anybody tonight.’
“You think about it, it’s hard to do that on every player after every game. A lot of times, you can pick out two or three guys and watch ’em and really critique ’em, but he’d do it with every player.”
Shortly after the Flames traded for McDonald in November of 1981, MacNeil pulled the sharpshooting right-winger aside for a critique of his gear.
‘Chopper’ was operating then as Calgary’s original head coach, having arrived when the team moved north from Atlanta about 18 months earlier.
“I loved that old guy. His love for the game never ceased to amaze me,” McDonald said as the hockey world mourned the passing of MacNeil, who patrolled the blue-line for five NHL teams during his own playing days. “When I’d played in Colorado, I would just take the old Gordie Howe tape, I think it was called back then, and I’d rub my stick and not put any tape on it but just kind of black it out a little bit.
“One of the first things he said to me was, ‘Lanny, you’re giving the goalie every opportunity to see the puck. Put black tape on your stick!’ And so I did, very shortly after I got to Calgary, and only because Al told me to. And yeah, it worked out pretty good.”
Indeed, Lanny scored a franchise-record 66 goals that next season.
Not bad advice, apparently.
“We chuckled about that many times over the years,” McDonald said. “He’d just laugh and say, ‘What the heck were you thinking?’ ”
had an incredible nine seasons that would end with a championship — back-to-back Memorial Cup crowns as a hard-hitting junior, three Calder Cup triumphs as one of the most successful skippers in American Hockey League history and four Stanley Cup celebrations in a variety of roles.
Before the move to Calgary, he’d made a significant mark in Montreal. If he didn’t have the guts as a rookie head coach to start a call-up netminder named Ken Dryden in the 1971 playoffs, the Canadiens probably wouldn’t have claimed the Stanley Cup that spring. And if he didn’t have the guts to bench Henri Richard in a crucial game, prompting some pointed public comments from the popular forward, he probably wouldn’t have been reassigned within the organization rather than getting the chance to lead the club to a repeat.
After two more Stanley Cup parades with the Habs, as director of player personnel in 1978 and 1979, Cliff Fletcher called to offer a job in Atlanta.
Still in his mid-40s then, it would be the last time MacNeil would switch teams. When he’d eventually become Fletcher’s right-hand man as assistant GM, one of his insistences was a championship-calibre team needed nine defencemen that could be trusted in pressure-packed moments. During their title run in 1989, when Gary Suter suffered a broken jaw in the opening round, they used eight.
MacNeil was, over the four-plus decades that he dedicated to the Flames, a coach, a manager, a scout and a consultant. He did just about everything except clean the bathrooms at the Saddledome — and if he figured some extra shine might result in a few more points in the standings, he wouldn’t have hesitated to grab a mop and toilet brush.
Even into his mid- and late-80s, you’d more often than not spot MacNeil in the management box at practices and morning skates. His anything-to-help legacy will be carried forward by his son Allister, who is scouring for future stars as one of Calgary’s amateur scouts.
‘Chopper’ was, as 1989 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Al MacInnis described in a heartfelt tribute on social media, “the most loyal member of the Calgary Flames.”
“He was like a mentor, a father figure, a best friend to all of us,” McDonald agreed. “We all loved that old boy. As soon as you saw him, he would ask, ‘How is the family?’ And then within 45 seconds, it was full-blown hockey and the Calgary Flames.
“Even though he didn’t work there for the last I don’t know how many years, he just loved the team and loved the game.”