Penguins Cup Chronicles: Gord Dineen

Although the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 1991, that season proved to be the toughest of defenseman Gord Dineen's career for a simple reason: He wasn't playing.

Dineen's last game in Pittsburgh was Dec. 8, 1990, and he spent the next two months in Pittsburgh without playing in an NHL game. He was reassigned to the Penguins' IHL affiliate in Muskegon before being recalled at the end of April to provide depth for a lengthy playoff run.

”I felt like I was an NHL player, and it was disappointing because I felt like I could contribute,” Dineen said this week. “I'd been a part of some winning teams in the past with the Islanders and I felt like, attitude-wise, I could definitely help the team and certainly on the ice I felt like I could, too.”

After the recall, Dineen spent plenty of time on the ice with the Black Aces, a group of players who saw little postseason playing time. Their scrimmages, which included coaches like Rick Paterson and Rick Kehoe, drew high praise.

”On the morning of Game 6 in Minnesota, I think Don Cherry and Ron MacLean were both up there watching and they told somebody that was probably the best game they'd seen all year, just these guys going at it.”

Dineen said he may have been a little upset about not playing at the time, but those emotions have subsided.

”Probably at the time I might have been a little bitter just because I wish I'd been able to prove different,” he said. “They were set on their group, and I felt like I could have helped, but, you know, over time that has changed in my mind. It's kind of neat to be a part of, and I'm proud of my (Stanley Cup) ring.”

Quoting Gord Dineen

On impressing a new management regime:

”You never know how the change in management is going to affect you, and obviously, you hope for the best and I felt like I'd played pretty well the previous year with Craig Patrick coming in and finishing the season once Gene Ubriaco and Tony Esposito were let go and Craig Patrick came in and finished the season as the coach. So I felt like I'd left a good impression on him, but when you bring in a totally new coach in Bob Johnson, he just came in and maybe felt like changes were needed in those areas. It didn't work out good for me, but certainly it worked out well for the Penguins.”

On Bob Johnson:

”I think he was a guy that communicated with his top-end guys very well. That's where his focus was, was on the top-end part of the lineup. He was very pro-active with those guys. You take something from everybody that you play for, I guess, and that's where he felt like he got the most benefit from, and so that's something I see. I don't know if I always implement it that way, but it's definitely something that I saw with him.”

On the toll of not playing:

”When you start seeing a team making progress, and certainly from a personnel standpoint, the guys that were that I played with in the past, I could see that they were buying into the things that were going to help make them be winners, so it was kind of neat to see that evolution. I wish I could have been helped in that process, too.

That was probably the toughest part of my career when I think it was over 20 games when I didn't play. That was probably one of the tougher parts of my career just because you feel like you're the type of person that, you know, I wasn't one to drag anybody else down when I got to the rink. I was disappointed, but I certainly wasn't going to take away from what the guys were doing at the rink. And so sometimes it was tough going home and swallowing that. I think it's a test of character, certainly. There's a lot of people — my wife drives this home with me all the time — there's a lot of people that would have loved to be doing what I was doing and being part of an NHL team and certainly a team with success. I did have to keep that in mind. My parents were great people at the time to sort of bounce those things off of and help me get through those tough times, too.”

On playing against Moscow Dynamo in an exhibition:

”It was special for me because I think there were probably three of us, it might have been four of us, that got a chance to play when we hadn't been playing a whole lot of hockey. I think Barry Pederson, myself, Jay Caufield all got a chance to play in that game so I was really excited about it. I didn't have a whole lot of international experience, so playing against the Russians was a pretty exciting game for me.”

On his April call-up from Muskegon:

”I thought, you know, as far as making sure that they'd have depth and guys that were part of the group most of the year. I felt like once we had lost out with Muskegon that I'd get the call. There's always a joke that it would have taken two bus crashes for me to get into the lineup, but that's about it.”

On the Black Aces:

”There were different guys in and out of that lineup in the playoffs. Some guys that had been there all year, too. Grant Jennings was in and out of the lineup; I think Randy Hillier might have been in and out of the lineup at times. So I definitely wanted to make sure — I was coming out of playing a lot in Muskegon — so I wanted to make sure that I stayed on top of that. We had a real good group of Black Aces, as they always called them, guys that weren't playing that would sort of go practice and do the extra things on their own. We were a pretty competitive group in our own right as far as we used to have some unbelievable scrimmage games. We were basically playing for our own Stanley Cup there. Some of those games were really competitive, so that kept us in game shape.”

On the atmosphere of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs:

”Obviously, the way the game went, we pretty much knew it was all over halfway through the game, so it was obviously happiness for the guys. It was almost sort of a nice relief, certainly for the organization. Guys like Mario, he figured it out that he was such an impact player and the sacrifices he made, certainly physically. But it was kind of neat to see that evolution again of him. I was more just happy for those guys and happy for the group.”

On his stolen Stanley Cup ring:

”I was playing out in San Diego in the IHL and somebody broke into my apartment at the time. They stole a bunch of other things, but obviously the one thing, the first place I went to look was for my ring, and it was gone. So that was pretty devastating at the time. That would have been in 1993.

My ring was stolen at one point in time, and my wife as a surprise replaced it for me. I never replaced it, just in my own mind, I didn't make a real point of replacing it, but my wife made a point of doing that. I'm as proud of that just because, it's something she made sacrifices, too.

(My wife) knew I didn't have it. So this was 2005. I was coaching in Salt Lake City, and she had talked to someone in our management, Laurence Gillman, told him that my ring was stolen and Laurence said by all means I should get it replaced. So he put in some calls for her, and through Craig Patrick and so forth, they wrote a letter and we got it replaced. She presented it to me, and it was a great gift on her part.”

On what stands out 20 years later:

”There's a group of guys that didn't play. Wendell Young backed up a few games when Tommy got hurt. There was a group of us that didn't play in any of the games. You know, I'm as proud of those guys as obviously the rest of the guys, the highlight goals and so forth, but there's a group there that were huge contributors and keeping a good attitude and going to the rink everyday and just being a part of it. They made sure guys off the ice were in the right frame of mind. I think they stood out when times were at their toughest and kind of kept an even keel for the guys that were on the ice. Sometimes when you're on the ice, you lose a little bit of perspective. Wendell Young was as big a part of that as any one of the guys, just keeping the right frame of mind and attitude within the group of guys on the ice, too.”