Warroad hockey legend and U.S.A. Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Henry Boucha recently talked to the elementary and high school kids about his life. The Grand Portage Local Indian Education Committee brought Boucha to Grand Marais and Grand Portage. A full-blooded Ojibwa, Boucha is just one of six Native Americans to have won an Olympic medal. At age 19, he led the 1972 U.S. Olympic hockey team to a silver medal, losing the final to the mighty Russian team.
Many are too young to have seen Minnesota North Star forward Henry Boucha, 22, bleeding on the ice, his cheek bone crushed by a vicious stick to the face, his mugger, Boston defenseman Dave Forbes beating on him as he lay semi-conscious in a fetal position.
It was 1975, a moment of infamy for professional hockey, for all professional sports. Forbes would be the first professional athlete tried in a civil court for his actions incurred while playing in a game.
But for Boucha, the change in his eyesight pretty much ended his professional career.
As Boucha talked to the Cook County students in the high school gymnasium on Monday, November 18, he was reflective. On one hand the National Hockey League (NHL) stiffened its penalties and cracked down harder on goons like Forbes. And following the “incident” all kids were required to wear facemasks.
On the other hand, when this attack happened Boucha’s agent was in the midst of working out a four-year contract for the young superstar, and this savagery would leave him permanently injured. Just a year and half later Boucha was out of professional hockey; the sport forever robbed of one its truly great talents.
Boucha never received the big contract or saw the big money. At that time, said Boucha, the NHL didn’t have any counseling resources or direction to offer players whose careers were cut short. Adrift, without any plan, Boucha struggled. Throughout his 20s he was drinking and using drugs and his wife left him and took their two children.
Boucha hit bottom.
But let’s back up. Back to when Henry was a youngster skating on frozen rivers and ponds in used skates and playing with hand-me-down sticks, sometimes using a soup can as a puck. As a 10-yearold Henry led Warroad to the state Bantam championship. As a reward, the kids got to see the Detroit Redwings play Toronto.
“Detroit was my favorite team. Imagine, years later when I was selected by Detroit and in my first professional game we faced Toronto. I scored a goal in that game,” Boucha told the kids, recounting how his agent had instructed him to tell the coach that he was a leftwinger because Detroit was short of left-wingers.
“I had never played left wing in my life, but I told the coach I was a leftwinger and I got to play,” Boucha said with a smile.
As an eighth-grader Boucha started for Warroad. Early on he played goalie and forward, but during his senior year his team needed help on defense, and Boucha, at 6 feet and, 180 pounds, became a defenseman. A shark around the blue line, fearless and inexhaustible, Boucha never came off of the ice. He scored 60 goals and had 35 assists in his senior year, and fans dubbed him the “Electric Warrior” while announcers at the state tournament simply referred to him as “The Great Henry Boucha.”
One of the most talked about—if not the most talked about—Minnesota high school state championship games was the1969 final that pitted small Warroad against Edina.
Late in the third period Boucha took a high stick to the face and suffered a cut above his left eye that required stiches. Warroad didn’t have a team doctor or a trainer, so the Eveleth team doctor was summoned. As the doctor stitched and fitted him with a butterfly bandage Warroad’s coach stalled. It was late into the second overtime when the doctor released Boucha to play—with one eye swollen shut. Still, with a few ticks on the clock Boucha took a shot that found its way past the goal tender as the buzzer sounded.
In the state quarterfinals Boucha again scored the winning goal late in the third period against Minneapolis Southwest. He performed his magic the next night against Roseau late in the third period in the semi-finals to lead the Warriors to a 3-2 victory to set up the final against Edina.
It was a dream match-up. But once again Boucha would take a hit—this time by Edina defenseman Jim Knutsen—that knocked him down, shattering his eardrum and sending him to the hospital for three days. Warroad lost in overtime. Knutsen didn’t receive a penalty, but replays showed that his elbow had hit Boucha’s head. Still, Boucha harbored no ill will towards Knutsen.
In 1970 Henry played junior hockey in Canada, then was selected to play for the U.S. Olympic development squad. The U.S squad won the gold medal in the World Championships in 1971, but following that high Boucha was drafted into military service.
“I thought my dreams of playing pro hockey were over when I was drafted, but he [coach] told me to report for basic training and he would work it out with the military so I could play amateur hockey and represent my country,” Boucha said.
After basic training Henry reported to Colorado Springs and began training for the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. It was America’s best amateurs against the rest of the world’s best pros, Boucha said.
Behind Boucha’s goal scoring, the U.S. took the silver medal, upsetting Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Finland before eventually losing the gold medal to the Russian team.
As a pro, Boucha scored the fastest goal ever at the start of a game. It took 6 seconds for him to beat the Montreal goaltender in 1973. Boucha played in 247 games over six seasons and was named to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1995. He retired from professional hockey at 24, and then was adrift until he was almost 30.
At age 29 Henry and his girlfriend moved to Idaho to live a simple life. He hunted and they gardened. One day while out walking Boucha found a golden eagle that had died. He called the state Department of Natural Resources and gave them the bird, but he knew something had happened.
Although his mother spoke Ojibwa at home, Boucha hadn’t learned much about his culture. Still, he knew the eagle was a holy symbol. He decided that finding the bird was a sign.
He and his girlfriend traveled to Warroad to spend Christmas with Henry’s parents. While there his 14-yearold daughter called and said her mother had given her the okay to live with him, but not in Idaho she wanted him to live in Warroad. He and his parents and his girlfriend were elated.
His life turned around. Boucha moved back to Warroad and he became a family man again. He learned about his culture, serving on the Indian Education Committee for five years and helping Native causes throughout the region. He also coached youth hockey for 25 years.
Along the way he picked up a real estate license and he is now in business development with Alaska Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Boucha also is involved in a film company that is making documentaries about Native Americans who have competed in the Olympics. A feature movie is in the works about Boucha’s life.
In the meantime Boucha is touting his new book Henry Boucha, Ojibwa, Native American Olympian. He also speaks to youth throughout the country.
Throughout his talk Boucha told the kids that if their world was falling apart they could find strength in their families and in their communities. That as one door closed another would open, but they would have to look for it, maybe change directions, make new plans and move on. He was talking from his own experience.
The man who had been knocked down so many times so unfairly was standing before the kids and telling them his life story. It wasn’t always pretty. But the man who was called Minnesota high school’s most electrifying hockey player, the man who never came off the ice of his own volition, well, one could expect no less from the great Henry Boucha. The sports announcers had it right a long time ago.
But today he’s great for being the man he has become, and the magic he created on the ice is the stuff of legend and wondrous enjoyment.
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