Cam Neely was a legitimate star performer for the Bruins. In this story from The Hockey News Archive, Neely – and his career as a young actor – were put under the spotlight.
There have been NHL stars who’ve made the jump to acting – and in this cover story from The Hockey News’ March 11, 1994 edition (Vol. 47, Issue 25), editor-in-chief Steve Dryden profiled star winger and budding actor Cam Neely.
(And here’s your regular notice: for access to The Hockey News Archive, you can subscribe to the magazine at http://THN.com/Free).
While still an active star player in hockey’s top league, Neely made some notable appearances in movies, first with a small role in the famous film The Outsiders and a role as himself in D2: The Mighty Ducks. While Neely was far more successful as a power forward at the NHL level, he told Dryden he was attracted to being a potential full-time actor.
“It does,” Neely told Dryden when asked whether acting appealed to him. “But I don’t think I could do it. It’s a lot more difficult than people realize. There’s a lot more to it than trying to remember lines. The Mighty Ducks thing was easy because I just played me.”
Neely’s health concerns limited him to 726 regular-season games as an NHLer, but with 395 goals and 694 points in that span, he was clearly an elite performer on the ice. His teammates – and one teammate in particular, who’d lead him to win a Stanley Cup as a Boston Bruins executive – recognized how talented he truly was as an elite player.
“If I was going to build a hockey player,” Bruins’ defenseman and future GM Don Sweeney said of Neely, “I’d start with him.”
BRUINS’ STAR NEELY PERFECT ACTING MAY BE IN NEELY’S POST-PLAYING PICTURE
Vol. 47, No. 25, March 11, 1994
By Steve Dryden
WILMINGTON, Mass. - Cam Neely is having soup and a sandwich with a visitor near the Boston Bruins’ practice facility. His treat.
A fan approaches and asks him to sign a piece of paper. The woman says if her nephew discovered she had seen Neely and didn’t ask for an autograph, he would kill her.
“We can’t have that,” Neely says.
The Bruins’ superstar smiles and signs his name with a flourish - in much the same fashion he has put his signature on this NHL season.
Neely, goal-scorer, hitman, inspirational leader and now life-saver, is in the midst of a season for the ages.
Just five months after contemplating retirement because of knee problems, Neely is scoring goals as consistently as the legends of modem NHL history - Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
“He’s probably the best player in the National Hockey League at going to the net and keeping goal-scoring simple,” says Bruins’ coach Brian Sutter.
Skate, shoot, take a crosscheck in the back, glare, get the rebound, shoot, score.
Neely is averaging more than a goal per game and threatening unofficial single-season records for scoring goals in the highest percentage of games and accounting for the highest percentage of goals in games he played.
By March 1, Neely had scored goals in 31 of 41 games (76 per cent), accounted for 31 per cent of Boston goals in games he played and led the NHL with 46 goals.
Lemieux set unofficial standards in 1992-93 when he scored in 73 per cent of his games and contributed 24 per cent of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ goals in those games.
Gretzky holds the record for highest goals-per-game average (1.18). Neely was at 1.12.
Neely, 28, is challenging another NHL accomplishment: most electrifying comeback.
Lemieux also established that record last season with a dramatic run to the scoring championship after battling Hodgkin’s disease.
Neely’s return has been similarly compelling.
Consider that his 44th goal of the season, scored against the Winnipeg Jets, meant he had scored twice as many goals this season as he had played regular-season games (22) over the 1991-92 and 1992-93 seasons.
He spent most of the past two seasons working to control pain and fluid buildup on his left knee, the residual effect of a deep charley-horse sustained during the 1991 playoffs.
The injury occurred while he was taking a run at Pittsburgh Penguins’ defenseman Ulf Samuelsson and led to calcification in his left thigh. Its impact migrated south.
Thus, the battle of wounded left knee.
Nearly three years after the ill-advised hit, Neely adheres to a conservative playing schedule to minimize stress on his knee. He had yet to play games on consecutive nights, but is encouraged by his progress and expects to be available for all playoff games.
Teammates marvel at Neely’s return and level of play.
“If I was going to build a hockey player,” says Bruins’ defenseman Don Sweeney, “I’d start with him.”
Neely, a hulking 6-foot-1 and 217 pounds, is the NHL’s consummate power forward. He is a finished product to Eric Lindros’ work-in-progress.
Bruins’ general manager Harry Sinden says Neely is now what the 21-year-old Philadelphia Flyer phenom will be in the future.
Sinden, whose job it will be to sign the free agent during the off-season, says Neely was the best bodychecking forward he had ever seen before the injury.
The GM adds Neely may not have the physique of those oiled-up men whose polished pecs fill bodybuilding magazines, but he packs as much punch.
“I call him truck-driver strong,” Sinden says.
Strongest of all is Neely’s spirit. He keeps on trucking in the face of devastating personal and professional set-backs.
“I’m a firm believer (that) out of everything bad, there is something good,” he says.
It is a philosophy born of hardship and heartache. Both his parents were victims of cancer - most recently his father in December.
He has learned from the emotional and physical trauma.
“With losing both parents,” Neely says, “I’ve realized, as much as you have to prepare for the future. I think people can enjoy the (present) a lot more.
“Everybody has got problems. Commitments. Looking after family, kids. But I think we can all enjoy the day more than we do. And that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Tragedy brings out introspection in all people. What marks Neely as different is a sincere effort to improve his lifestyle, not just talk about it.
A small example: He is trying to cope better with the little things that eat away daily at one’s composure.
“There’s so much more in life that means a lot more than, say, being stuck in a traffic jam and getting pissed off,” Neely says. “I still do (get angry), but not as much as I used to. Sometimes I found myself in a hurry to go nowhere.”
Truth is, though, Neely is still more comfortable playing in traffic than driving in it.
Like Dave Andreychuk of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Neely is most dangerous in the densely populated patch of ice measuring 12 square feet directly in front of the goal.
“He scores where other guys don’t simply because he goes there,” Sutter says.
Fierce toughness provides the time and place for Neely’s goal-scoring talent to take over in the combat zone.
“You don’t really know how far to push him,” Sweeney says. “You can’t blame guys if they test him a little bit and then back off. Because if he turns around and gives you a look, you better be able to back it up because he can.”
Neely has fought only twice this season and is more judicious about accepting and issuing challenges than in the past-partly because of Bruins’ assistant GM Mike Milbury.
“Milbury said to me a few years ago, ‘Cam, we need you more on the ice than we do in the penalty box. Don’t let someone else decide for you when you’re going to fight,’ ” Neely explains.
“Before if a guy wanted to fight, I’d fight. (Milbury was) telling me, ‘If you want to fight a guy, it should be your decision.’ “
A big example: Neely made a split-second decision this season not to fight with defenseman Darius Kasparaitis, after the New York Islanders’ defenseman leg-checked him.
“I was more upset with myself than him,” Neely says. “I thought that maybe it was a bad check, but the ref said no and some of the guys on the team said no.
“With a guy like him, you want to stay wide and I should stay wide anyway, but I cut into the middle. It was my own fault for putting myself in that position. It was my (right) leg. If it was my bad leg, you probably would have seen a different scenario after the hit.”
More common than fistfights are fights over loose pucks in front of the net. All defensemen object to Neely entering occupied territory, but not all choose to confront the enemy head on.
“You don’t try to move him because you’ll just wear yourself out,” says New Jersey Devils’ defenseman Scott Stevens. “You try to tie up his stick because you can’t score without your stick.”
Good in theory, perhaps, but defensemen are having limited success hooking, holding and hounding Neely. Counting playoff and regular-season games, Neely had 70 goals in 67 games since the start of the 1991-92 season.
He scores goals from in close with quick hands and from far out with a crushing slapshot.
There have been many highlights this season, but none more memorable than a natural hat trick in 4:02 of a Feb. 12 game against the Devils. New Jersey rookie goalie Martin Brodeur was bowled over in his first appearance at the Boston Garden.
“It happened real fast,” Brodeur says. “Thirteen minutes and I was out of there.”
He got the Cam-shaft.
Michael J. Fox could have a project on his hands one day.
Neely, fresh from his acting debut in The Mighty Ducks II, may try to trade the Boston Bruins’ black and gold for the silver screen when his NHL career comes to an end.
“Mike has always said he’d give me a million dollars worth of acting lessons free,” Neely says.
The Bruin runs with an exciting crowd of movie and television stars that includes fellow British Columbia native Fox and Woody Harrelson, the Cheers bartender.
Neely and Harrelson are ping pong rivals.
Who’s better?
Let’s just say white man can’t play ping pong…well enough to beat Neely. There is ample and irrefutable proof. On one wall of the hockey player’s rec room is a small indentation. Another is on the opposite wall.
The fiercely competitive Harrelson has been there.
It was through Harrelson that Neely met actress Glenn Close. Neely says widely circulated rumors of a romance between the two are wrong. He has escorted her to a couple of functions, but they are friends. No more than that.
Among Neely’s closest friends is Lyndon Byers, ex-Bruin and current member of the Las Vegas Thunder in the International League.
“People who don’t know Cam think he’s a hard-ass and stuck up,” Byers says. “But he’s one of the most genuine people I know.”
Neely is guarded around strangers, aware of his celebrity status and fearful strangers will get the wrong impression of him.
He plays the strong, silent type on the ice. There’s a place for those kind of men in the movies.
Does that truly interest him?
“It does,” he says, “but I don’t think I could do it. It’s a lot more difficult than people realize. There’s a lot more to it than trying to remember lines. The Mighty Ducks thing was easy because I just played me.”
Fox’s offer has no expiry date. But neither, happily, does Neely’s NHL career.
The knee injury may have rendered him “day-to-day” for the remainder of his career, but it promises to be a longer and more fruitful one than many feared.
Hollywood can wait.
This much we know for sure: If Neely ever does try Tinseltown, his hockey career will be a tough act to follow.
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