Francis was ready to play at Cornell University
by Peter Ruicci (Independent Media)
What if Sam McMaster and Terry Crisp hadn’t been so persuasive?
Certainly the Ron Francis story, with regards to his developmental years, would have been different.
The Sault native, an all-time NHL great and current general manager of the expansion Seattle Kraken, was “pretty much set to go to Cornell,” before McMaster, the Soo Greyhounds general manager, and Crisp, the club’s head coach, helped to change his mind.
“My plan was to attend Cornell,” Francis, now 58, said of the prestigious Ivy League university in Ithaca, N.Y., and home of the iconic Cornell Big Red hockey team. “But at the last minute I changed my mind and wound up playing for the Greyhounds.”
McMaster and Crisp spoke to Francis, who was also an impressive student, and his parents, Ron Sr. and Lorita, prior to the 1980 Ontario Hockey League draft.
Francis recalls the Hounds brain trust telling his family “they needed a defenceman in the first round, but they said they’d take me in the second round.”
Deciding what to do, when it came to this important decision, involved other factors, he added.
Francis recalls a shakeup in the coaching staff at Cornell.
And Crisp and McMaster told the Francis family just how good a player they believed the young man could be.
“I just changed my mind,” Francis said, remembering telling the Hounds “you guys believe I can play in the NHL, but I’d like some kind of guarantee that if I don’t, my education will be covered.”
McMaster and Crisp agreed.
True to their word, the Greyhounds selected defenceman Steve (Baby Bull) Smith in the first round (No. 2 overall) of the draft. Francis was taken early in the second round, 15th overall. While there were 12 OHL teams at that time, the Brantford Alexanders had two choices in the opening round.
“They ended up drafting me and the rest is history,” said Francis, who completed an iconic, 23-year NHL playing career with 549 goals and 1,249 assists in 1,731 regular season games.
He also won two Stanley Cups as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins, finishing with 46 goals and 97 assists while playing in 171 playoff games.
As an OHL rookie, Francis notched 25 goals and 43 assists in 64 games.
So promising was his future, the Hartford Whalers selected him No. 4 overall in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft.
One season later, he notched 18 goals and 30 assists in just 25 games before getting called up to the NHL at age 18. He was a mere 89 games removed from playing midget hockey in the Sault.
Terry Crisp, the Soo’s head coach at the time and a retired NHLer, offered this advice to his young star: “Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut.”
Francis recalls how, “at the Whalers ’81-’82 training camp I thought I did well. Larry Pleau (Hartford’s head coach and general manager) didn’t want to rush me and that’s why they’d sent me back to junior.”
Taking Crisp’s advice to heart, Francis, playing alongside sniper Blaine Stoughton (52-39-91), generated 25 goals and 43 assists in 59 games as an NHL rookie. He never looked back.
Asked about his time with the Hounds, Francis noted how proud he was to play here and how “it was a fun time in my career. As a kid growing up in the Sault, the Greyhounds were the team you looked up to.”
He recalled playing street hockey as a youth and he and his friends dreaming of being “either Jack Valiquette or Wayne Gretzky, or guys who were playing for the team at that time.”
Both Valiquette (1973-1974) and Gretzky (1978-1979) played only one season for the Greyhounds. Valiquette posted a 63-72-135 stat line in his lone Hounds campaign before being drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round (No. 13 overall) of the ’74 NHL draft. The centre from St. Thomas, Ont., skated in 350 NHL games, notching 84 goals and 134 assists.
Gretzky (70-112-182 in his lone season here) certainly needs no introduction. He went on to become the biggest name in the sport.
As a young man in the Sault, “you always went to the games,” Francis said. “I remember lining up all night to buy tickets for a playoff game. Seeing how much this franchise means to the community and being able to play in the Sault was great. I absolutely bleed Hounds red and white.”
