EDITOR’S NOTE: On Saturday, May 13, the Orillia Sports Hall of Fame will welcome its newest inductees. The class of 2022 includes athletes Alan Brahmst and John French in addition to builder Dave Dunn. Over the next three days, we will feature the inductees.
When he was a skinny kid playing CYO hockey in Orillia in the early 1960s, few likely thought John French would one day be a professional hockey player.
But he loved the game, he lived to compete and he was a quick study.
While his parents, Clayt and Leslie, each coached him when he was a kid, it was legendary Orillia coach Jack Dyte that made the most lasting impression on the youngster.
“Basically, he recognized that I didn’t have as much natural ability or size as some,” French recalls of conversations he still thinks about from his youth.
French said Dyte exhorted him to be fierce, to work harder than anyone else.
“It sounds corny, but I still remember him saying, ‘John, no matter how tired you are, keep your legs going and your body will follow,’” French recalls with a chuckle. “He had a way to bring that something extra out of me; he believed in me.”
That belief never left French, who got his big break at a tournament at the Orillia Community Centre, the old barn on Penetang Street where he first began to play.
Ironically, French was playing midget hockey in Toronto when he skated on to the radar of the vaunted Don Mills Flyers, who were heading to Orillia to play in what was then one of the biggest tournaments in the province.
“The coach knew I was from Orillia and was going home for the Christmas holidays and he was short a player,” French recounted in a 2013 interview with The Packet & Times.
“He asked me if I would play for him. He told me I wouldn't play much.”
But injuries to key players opened the door for French, who stepped in and stepped up even though he was playing up an age group.
In the championship game, French did the improbable, scoring five goals to help the Flyers earn the title; the hometown boy earned most-valuable-player honours.
“That was the first time I got noticed,” said French.
His stellar performance landed him a spot the next year on the Toronto Marlies’ Jr. B team. After a strong year there, he was elevated to the club’s Jr. A team where he scored 40 goals and added 50 assists in a breakout season.
Despite that, French considered himself an average player and knew his size — 5'11" and 160 pounds — was not conducive to the pros; he did not have NHL aspirations.
So he was shocked to read in the newspaper that he was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens 52nd overall in the 1970 draft. A few months later, he was one of 80 players invited to training camp at the Montreal Forum.
At his first scrimmage, French lined up on left wing; his centre was Jean Beliveau and his right winger was Yvon Cournoyer.
“I was awestruck,” he said.
French, as expected, did not crack the Habs’ lineup, but played for the team’s AHL affiliate, the Montreal Voyageurs, where he tallied 15 goals and added 22 assists in 65 games. There, he played with future hall-of-famers Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden, who was his roommate that year.
Back then, the Habs boasted a lineup that was nearly impossible to crack, so French was not upset when he was traded to the Oakland Golden Seals. He helped lead their AHL team all the way to the championship game, where they lost to the Voyageurs.
French set two playoff records for most goals in a series and most points in a series and he did much of it with a broken ankle.
“It was a great run and it was very good hockey — just one step below the NHL,” said French.
The next season, the hockey world was shaken upside down when the upstart World Hockey Association (WHA) was formed. The New England Whalers drafted French, who was eager for a fresh start.
The Orillia boy felt like a kid again, became a key second-line forward playing with his old Orillia pal, Rick Ley, the team’s top blueliner; the dynamic duo helped lead the Whalers to the inaugural Avco Cup.
At the final, in the packed stands at Boston Garden cheering him on were his mom and dad.
“My mom hated to fly,” said French. “She flew only twice in her life and that was one of them. That meant everything to me. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have been there.”
The following year French led the team in scoring and the squad went all the way to the championship again.
French was then dealt to San Diego where he had two strong seasons before being traded to the Indianapolis Racers for a season. There, he played on a line with a kid named Wayne Gretzky, who made his pro debut with the Racers.
He played the next year with the AHL’s Springfield Indians and was traded to Cincinnati during the pre-season the following year. That’s when he sat down with his wife, whom he met while playing for the Whalers, and “decided enough was enough.”
He retired and returned ‘home’ to Orillia, where he had always returned in the summers to help out at the Orr-Walton sports camp.
Through a connection with Bill Swinimer, an Orillia baseball teammate, French became friends with Wallace McCain and started a new career with McCain Foods, where he worked his way up to vice-president of export sales.
When he first started at McCain, he coached and played in the St. John Valley League, earning a title in his second year. After that, he hung up his skates.
As he looks back on his career, he says winning the first Avco Cup was a "real highlight."
But what many may not know is that French still holds the record for the fastest overtime goal in professional hockey; he scored just four seconds into the extra period in a game against the Quebec Nordiques.
“It would have been three seconds if I could shoot harder,” quipped French.
These days, the 72-year-old lives in Orillia and spends winters in Florida. He likes to golf and boat and spend time with his wife, daughters and grandchildren.
He said he is grateful to be selected for Orillia’s Sports Hall of Fame; he has been to several of the dinners — including the one where his old teammate, Rick Ley, was inducted.
“It’s an honour,” said French. “It means a lot to me and I know it’s not something everybody has a chance to do.”
There are some tickets still available for the seventh annual Orillia Sports Hall of Fame gala. Tickets for the May 13 event at Hawk Ridge are $125 and are available by emailing [email protected]
