Bryan Joseph Watson was a boisterous little defender whose heart was several times larger than his substandard body. He served as the first ‘policeman’ of the Penguins, he earned the reputation as one of the most difficult players in the game. One of his highest vermin too.
“I felt it when Bryan Hello came to say in the corners,” said Pens Teammate Ken SchinkelThose many occasions played against Watson. “You always knew that you were hit when ‘Bugsy’ came to you.”
Watson honestly got his colorful nickname. Like a Callow 23-year-old tool player with the Detroit Red Wings, he was given the great task of shadows chicagos legendary Bobby Hull In the semi -final of Stanley Cup from 1966.
It was like David versus Goliath on Ice. Watson weighed 165 pounds. The powerful hull was a golden -haired Adonis who possessed the body and the power of a blacksmith.
Unfolid Watson resorted to tactics, both legal and illegal, including a liberal dose of sticking, to control “the Golden Jet”. Indeed, he kept holding on so close to Hull that he was labeled ‘the boy on Bobby’s Back’.
Hull was less flattering. Apocrypha or not, as the story goes when he is asked about his tormentor, the normally gracious trunk steamed: “Boy, that guy forces me!” That is why Watson’s colorful nickname.
When “Bugsy” arrived in Pittsburgh in January 1969 as part of a large trade between six players with Oakland, the pens were entangled in the West Division Cellar and hopelessly from Play-Off Stelling. They were fairly competent by expansion team standards, but unfortunately was missing in character and grit.
That all changed from the moment that Watson first stepped on the Civic Arena ice cream. Suddenly, opponents who tried to take freedoms with his less combative teammates were nose-to-nose with the small roublneck. It is no coincidence that the pens gathered sharply and almost .500 hockey played along the Homestretch.
The management has taken this into account. By the start of the 1969-170 season, the pens had added various robust skaters to the mix, including abrasive winger Glen “Slat” Sather. It was also a good thing because the bad blood that had cooked between the pens and broke out the leading St. Louis Blues in an on-ice version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. When the teams collided in the semi -final of the Stanley Cup, Watson and Sather almost drove the heavy favorite blues with their sour opportunities and antics.
“They were constantly towards us at the bank,” she remembered Bob disordersOne of the brothers Blues’ rough-and-tumble teasing. “But if Barclay or I would challenge them to go around, they would just laugh at us and say,” See your next service. “
Watson’s confrontational style made him extremely popular in Pittsburgh. Although far from physically impressive and on average at his best, he was a very effective agent on the ice. He even entangled with the largest player of his generation, Bruins Superstar Bobby ORRNo shrinking violet.
“Pound for pounds, he was the toughest and most hard player ever,” he said John FergusonA former teammate of Montreal and NHL Heavyweight Champion.
The rules of engagement, however, abruptly changed in 1972 when the Philadelphia Flyers collected a gang of two-fists Bawlers that are known as ‘The Broad Street Bullies’. In an attempt to protect his core of budding young stars, the pens Watson and Greg Polis On the hated blues in January 1974 for tough boys Steve Durbano And Bob “Battleship” Kelly. The torch was passed on.
Reunited with Sather, his old partner in Crime, Watson had a short stay with the blues before he returned to Detroit. He soon became a card -supporting member of one of the more difficult teams of that time and skated alongside bruises And Maloney and spicy Dennis Polonich. After he left the Motor City, Bugsy joined the Washington Capitals before he ended his professional career at the Cincinnati Stingers of the World Hockey Association in 1979.
Until the end, Watson told colorful and told a story about how he had a rare escape with the capitals one evening. Puffing all alone on the opposite goalkeeper, he made his move, cut a shot … and missed it with 30 feet.
When he returned to the bank, his annoyed coach, Tommy Mcviedemanded an explanation. Once the cut-up, Watson joked: ‘Coach, I just couldn’t get my stick out of the cross control.
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