Takin' a T/O With BT: Wendel Clark...My Hat is Off to You Sir

Dream on.

As the lights lowered and another Maple Leafs’ legend was honored, the fake mustaches were in full flight on Saturday.

While Dream On, Aerosmith’s first-ever single, piped through the Air Canada Centre’s sound system, while fans young and old looked on, a piece honoring one of the toughest S.O.B’s to ever don the Blue and White played at centre-ice.

For the first time in a few years, the classic white base, blue trim Maple Leaf, while the 11-point Leaf adorned the front.

Everything about the night was a throwback from the matchup on the ice, to the jersesys, to the throngs of fans chanting “Wendel….Wendel” throughout the Air Canada Centre.

Although he had only called the confines of the hangar home for 26 games, it didn’t matter—Clark’s attitude and ambition for the game would have aroused this reaction had he been honored at his barn-turned-hockey-rink, or Radio City Music Hall.

But in watching the moustached-man’s montage, I realized that there will never be another.

There will never be another you Wendel Clark.

You and your time were one of a kind.

From the time he was drafted, you could sense there was something special about Clark—he not only scored (155 points in 136 WHL games), but he played one of the more chippier games you’d ever see, amassing nearly 500 penalty minutes in the same timespan.

Clark brought a brand of hockey to the table that Leafs’ fans had long forgotten about thanks to Harold Ballard. He was the kind of guy that would go through the boards (or the crossbar of his own net) for his team and his fans.

He may have known the meaning of the word “quit”, but he probably forgot it more than a few times thanks to his thunderous collisions.

Just ask Bruce Bell what it was like to walk across Clark’s railroad tracks—the end result wasn’t pretty.

Clark was unafraid to drop the gloves, providing something that’s been a rare find for many teams—a player with the ability to fight, hit, and score; all three of which he put on display during the 1993 series against cousin Barry Melrose and the Los Angeles Kings.

Marty McSorley felt the wrath of Clark’s hands when the gloves came off, landing on the opposite end of a kind of beat he had handed out so often in defense of his own superstar, Wayne Gretzky.

Clark was also able to dominate with the glove on as well, netting ten goals in 20 games, and a hat-trick in game six of that series against the Kings.

But it wasn’t just one of those things that made Clark great, it was all of them. He was personable, a fighter, a gamer, a scorer, and a leader.

He was everything a team in need of a savior needed, and everything a fan base and a media center wanted to latch on to. He was the epitome of a left winger.

While Luc Robitaille is undoubtedly one of the most skilled players to skate the left side of the ice in an NHL rink and Frank Mahovolich, Bobby Hull, and Johnny Bucyk are some of the Left Wing Legends, my favorite (and the best in my mind) will always be Wendel Clark.

It’s just a shame that his breed is a dying one.

In today’s NHL, the scoring left winger is thriving. Names like Alexander Ocheckin and Alexander Semin of the Washington Capitals have become two of the prolific young Russian goal-scorers in the NHL, Simon Gagne has provided the Philadelphia Flyers with a solid scoring option, while Blake Wheeler and Nikolai Kulemin are both young stars in the making.

But how many “Wendel Clarks” are there in this day and age? How many players do it all, and can be the physical force, the scoring presence, and the spirited fighter on their team?

Not many…and it’s certainly too bad.

Looking around the NHL, the introduction of the enforcer and two-way specialists has defeated the purpose of players that “do-it-all”. While all of the players we talked about (Ovechkin, Semin, Gagne) are fun to watch and great for the game, none of them bring the same kind of magic that a star that could mix it up could bring.

Between those three, there are four fights—two in regular season and two in the preseason—that are recorded. Not exactly the stuff of moustache lore right?

Looking across the league, there are just a handful of players who I’d look to for everything that Clark provided.

Brendan Morrow is one of them. The Dallas Stars’ Captain (who’s now a little bit more like Clark with his own season-ending injury) is one of the biggest impact-players among left-wingers. Morrow brings a gritty game to the ice, and is a tireless worker. Morrow has the ability to put the puck in the net, lay the body, and even drop the gloves on occasion (9 recorded NHL fights).

Along with Morrow, there are a handful of Right Wingers who are making Clark proud. Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames had that memorable bought with Vincent Lecavailier in the Stanley Cup finals a few years ago, while he’s also got back-to-back 90-point seasons and two 50-goal seasons.

Shane Doan (although he’s bounced back and forth between both slots on the wing) is another player who’s been able to lend support to the Winnipeg Jets and Phoenix Coyotes organizations in a variety of ways.

Along with the ‘Yotes, Daniel Carcillo may be one of our last shots at a Clark-type player. While Carcillo was the ability to fight and net a ton of penalty minutes while being that kind of pest, he’s also displayed the ability to score a few goals over his short career, including 5 goals in the final two games of last year.

If Carcillo can keep himself out of the box a little more often than his 324 penalty minutes from last year indicate, then perhaps he can develop a game that taps into most aspects of hockey.

As we move onwards and upwards towards hockey’s future, it’s sad to think that players that play the game like Clark are going extinct. If a player is a goal-scorer one year, then he’s given top-line minutes to score goals and do only that from here on out. Because of the health risks involved, fighting amongst stars is deterred.

On the other hand, if a fight needs to happen, or a hit needs to be laid, then the “proper” players are deployed by the coach for that specific reason as well, and if that player starts to score? Then he gets more ice-time, specific to his “new found talent” and a new enforcer is brought in to do his old job.

Even more, physical, grinding play is facing attempts at being fazed out in favor of increased scoring.

So while Clark’s career numbers (due in large part to a heft amount of games missed due to injury) are nowhere near Hall of Fame worthy, and the only way he’ll be remembered is through the minds and memories of Leafs’ fans, Saturday Night’s ceremony meant so much more than just honoring number 17.

It represented the end of a style, the end of a way to play the game, and the memories that came with all of it.

The past is gone,
It went by like dusk to dawn…

Hopefully we’ll see another like you Wendel, but who knows how long it’ll last.
Sing the praises of number 17, Leafs fan or not. Sing for the years.

Dream On...

Bryan Thiel is a Senior Writer and an NHL Community Leader for Bleacher Report. If you want to get in contact with Bryan, you can do so through his profile, and you can also check out all of his previous work in his archives.