CORNER BROOK Former Newfoundland senior hockey league star Gus Greco died earlier this month in his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Gilda Greco, his older sister, told The Western Star Thursday that he died of heart failure. He was 48.
Mr. Greco struggled with personal issues in his later years and was known for his sometimes excessive lifestyle.
Mr. Greco played and coached in the Newfoundland Senior Hockey League back in the 1980s with the Port aux Basques Mariners, St. John’s Capitals and Corner Brook Royals during his stint in the province.
He also coached the Royals and La Scie Jets to Herder Memorial championships.
He was known as one of the toughest two-way players to suit up in senior hockey circles during the glory days of the 1980s when imports became a big piece of the senior hockey puzzle.
He started his senior hockey career with the Port aux Basques Mariners during the 1984-85 campaign.
The next year he was playing with the Mariners until the team folded a few weeks into the schedule. A player draft led to Greco getting picked by the St. John’s Capitals, which had re-entered the league that year.
The Corner Brook Royals won the Herder in 1985-86 and Greco joined the team as a pick-up player and went on to win the coveted Allan Cup.
He played the following season with the Capitals and helped them win the Herder, but during the 1987-88 season he found himself taking on the role as playing coach with the Royals as a 24-year-old and guided the team to another Herder win.
He also coached the La Scie Jets to a Herder championship in 1994.
Kev McCarthy was a young netminder with the Royals at the time and he spoke highly of his former teammate and coach when asked about his presence with the team.
McCarthy was so impressed with Greco’s ability to take over the Royals in 1987 with a room full of stars at the tender age of 24.
The Royals had two Herders, two Bolton Cups as Eastern Canadian senior hockey champs and an Allan Cup victory in their pockets when he walked into the dressing room at the start of the season.
He feels it took somebody special to come in and take command of the room when the players were so close to him in age.
“He came at a time that nobody could teach anything and he taught us a load of stuff,” McCarthy said Thursday.
McCarthy said Greco was a smart hockey player who always put the team first.
“He was a team man and did whatever was good for the team,” he said.
“He always said ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say’. He said ‘I’m going to make mistakes too.’”
McCarthy has fond memories of Mr. Greco, but one particular incident still stands out more that 20 years later.
It happened during a game against the Stephenville Jets when Greco found himself squaring off in a heavyweight battle with Tim Brantner, one of the toughest rearguards to suit up in the league at the time.
As McCarthy remembers it, Brantner was getting the upper hand in the toe-to-toe battle at Humber Gardens when Greco connected with a big round-house punch that buckled the knees of Branter to end the fight.
“That was what he did for our team. When we needed something big he did it,” he said. “He could have took a beating and dropped to his knees like everyone else would when they were beat, but no, never say die.”
Roy Morey was a member of the La Scie Jets when Mr. Greco guided the team to its only Herder win.
Morey joined the team after Christmas after the coach asked him to come back to help out a roster depleted by injuries at the time. It’s a decision he never regretted.
Morey has the utmost respect for his former coach and was saddened by the news.
“I was very shocked over it. It was unexpected. I would say a lot of people in La Scie don’t even know,” Morey said from La Scie while repairing some nets in his shed Thursday afternoon.
Morey got to know his coach off the ice, on many occasions sharing a meal with his coach at the family’s kitchen table, something most of the players/coaches from out of town got used to while playing in the hospitable community.
He will always remember him as a wonderful man and a knowledgeable hockey mind.
“The year we won the Herder, as far as I’m concerned, he was a big part of it,” Morey said. “You know you got to have a coach, and he knew hockey.”
Bill Breen of St. John’s was a teammate of Mr. Greco with the Capitals and the Royals’ Allan Cup championship squad.
He knew something was up earlier this week when he received telephone calls from three of his former teammates — Dan Cormier, Dave Matte and Stan Hennigar — on the same day. His wife Marilyn told him about the phone calls and then he heard the news from Cormier when he returned his call.
“Gus was a great teammate and he knew his hockey. He was a great hockey player and he was tough. He could handle himself,” Breen said.
Breen enjoyed going for a cold beer with his buddy after games and considered him a fine person who treated everybody equal. Breen was known as a tough customer in his day, so he appreciated the fact Mr. Greco always had his back.
“If he had to (fight) he would, but like myself, you weren’t out looking for it, but if you wanted to go, we would go with you,” he said. “He was a great teammate like that. You always knew he was there to help you.”
The Corner Brook Royals will hold a moment of silence for Mr. Greco before the Royals tangle with the Mount Pearl Blades in Newfoundland Senior Hockey League action Saturday 7:30 p.m. at the Pepsi Centre.
You don't know me. So please don't judge me.
You don't know my accomplishments or my failures.
My sorrow or pain, my fears or losses.
My goals, wishes or dreams.
You don't know anything about me.
You left me. When I was confused and afraid and broken.
I'm not alone anymore.
I run and I laugh and oh can I skate.
Remember?
Now I am free.
I am happy and feel loved.
Cast the first stone.
— Gilda Greco, sister
