Garry Lariviere was one of several NHL players from Gananoque
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For a small town nestled in the 1000 Islands, Gananoque has produced more than its share of pro hockey players, including Bob Dailey, Alyn McCauley and Fred O’Donnell.
Garry Lariviere grew up in Gan and went on to help the Quebec Nordiques capture a World Hockey Association championship. As an Edmonton Oiler, he befriended Wayne Gretzky and narrowly missed winning a Stanley Cup. His love for harness racing gave some excited fans an opportunity to meet No. 99 one summer evening at the Kingston Park Raceway. After hanging up his skates, he served as an assistant coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs, helping defencemen to hone their skills.
With the Gan town arena just around the corner from his house, he spent much of his youth as a rink rat. In those days, there were no Zambonis. The staff used 45-gallon barrels of hot water to flood the ice. “We used to sit on top of them during games in order to keep warm,” he laughs.
As a teenager, he showed promise when the Gan Midget team went to the Ontario finals in 1971 before losing to CFB Borden.
“Playing pro hockey is something I dreamed about and had in the back of my mind,” the 71-year-old grandfather of six told the Original Hockey Hall of Fame from his home in St. Catharines. “But at the time you don’t know whether it will happen.”
Lariviere was born in St. Catharines and lost his father at the age of two. His mother decided to move back to her hometown of Gananoque. Ironically, the St. Catharines Black Hawks would select him in the junior draft in 1971, where he played for the next three years.
The fledgling WHA sent the demand for players soaring, providing Lariviere with an opportunity following his Junior days. “The new league made is a lot easier for players like me to break into the pro ranks,” he recalls.
He joined the Phoenix Roadrunners for the 1974-75 season, which was a huge change from hockey-crazed Canada.
“Few people in Phoenix knew anything about hockey,” he says. “You would leave the rink and go outside and it would be 80 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Lariviere put his nose to the grindstone. “I knew that I had to work hard in order to stay competitive.”
In 1976-77, he moved to the Quebec Nordiques, playing with Kingston’s Jim Dorey. In the playoffs that season, he had a solid 10 points in 17 games. The Nordiques captured the league championship and the Avco Cup.
Moving to the Oilers, Lariviere befriended Gretzky and invited him to his Charleston Lake cottage in the summers for fishing and waterskiing. Lariviere was a huge harness racing fan, owning a top horse called Twin B Playboy during that era.
Fans at the Kingston Park Raceway were thrilled when Lariviere showed up one evening in June 1982 with Gretzky in tow. While the pair had dinner, Gretzky and then girlfriend Vicki Moss put down a few bets. All were duds except for one – a $1 bet on a triactor (picking the first three horses in a race) that earned them half of a pot worth $1,206.
Another time Gretzky popped into Gan Chev Olds and bought a brand new Cadillac. It
wasn’t for him – it was a gift for his father Walter, who was retiring from Bell Canada. Gretzky paid cash. “I don’t think financing was a problem for him,” laughs Lariviere.
The following season, Gretzky powered the Oilers to the Stanley Cup finals in 1983. However, the New York Islanders, led by Mike Bossy and Denis Potvin and Bryan Trottier, swept the Oilers in four games in the final that year. Great goaltending by Billy Smith proved to be a key difference. It was the Islanders fourth cup in a row.
Gretzky’s Oilers dynasty captured their first Stanley Cup in 1984. However, Lariviere had already been sent down to the American Hockey League, skating for the St. Catharines Saints.
“It was the timing,” he recalls. “By 1984 I was 29 and that was considered too old for the NHL. The Oilers were going for younger players.”
After playing in St. Catharines for three seasons, he turned to coaching, first with the Saints and later as an assistant with the Leafs.
“Toronto was a very tough place for players,” he argues. “They could make as much money off the ice doing endorsements as they could from their salary. The risk was that they would lose their focus on winning hockey games.”
Just like today, it was a turbulent period for the Toronto squad. John Brophy was head coach from 1986 to 1988. He was fired after the Leafs had yet another mediocre season. George Armstrong served as interim coach, before Doug Carpenter took over in 1989.
Lariviere kept his head down and focused on his mandate of building the defensive core. “I just did my job. As long as the kids improved their defensive skills, I was happy.”
When Carpenter became head coach, Lariviere lost his job. He moved back to St. Catharines, where he worked with Service Master for more than two decades before retiring.
Asked to name a highlight of his career, he puts it simply: “I was a small-town kid who got the chance to play pro hockey.”
Now five of his grandchildren play the sport. “My days and nights are spent watching them play hockey,” he says.
Some of the games are in Niagara so he gets to see them live. However, Dylan Lariviere skates for the Trail Smoke Eaters in the British Columbia Hockey League. “His games start at 10 pm Eastern time and don’t end until one in the morning. Those games are killing me,” he says with a laugh.