The Sabres traded Gare the following December to Detroit in the deal that brought Mike Foligno to Buffalo
Written by Bill Libby for the Hockey News on April 24, 1981
Danny Gare’s dad died earlier this year. He was not only the father of a great hockey player, but a great hockey man in his own right. Ernie Gare coached the hockey club at Notre Dame University in British Columbia for many years until his sickness became too much for him and he became the assistant athletic director at the college.
Ernie Gare introduced athletic scholarships into the Canadian college hockey program. He brought the first junior team to his area. He worked with the Canadian national ski team, but he was primarily a hockey man.
In ceremonies last year, he received an award for service to amateur hockey in British Columbia. Danny and all of his teammates on the Buffalo Sabres were able to attend because the event was scheduled around a visit to Vancouver for a game.
Danny scored 50 goals for the second time in an injury-racked six-season National Hockey League career last year. He did not reach 50 this season, finishing with 46, but he was deeply distracted by the slow death of his father. “I don’t want to use it as an excuse,” Danny says. “He wouldn’t have wanted that. You play your game. When you’re in the game, you think only of the game. You do your job. But it was something that was always on my mind.” Even so, Danny led the team in scoring, with 85 points.
Ernie Gare suffered from what has come to be called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”—amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—which progressively destroys muscle tissue until the muscles cease to function and for which there is no known cure. The heart is a muscle and eventually, it stops working.
Before it was discovered what was weakening him, Gehrig ended his enduring record of 2,130 consecutive baseball games played, in 1939. Two years later he was dead at the age of 38. Gare died at 52, older, but relatively young. “He had gotten a lot out of life in that time,” Danny says.
“He had retired two years earlier from regular work at the university, but he was relatively active until almost the end. He conducted clinics. I got home at Christmas time and he went on the ice and skated with his sons and daughters not too long before the end. He wanted to. That was a thrill for all of us.
“As a young man, he played amateur hockey. He went to training camp with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Tim Horton went to the same camp. They wanted to send Dad to Oklahoma City but he came home instead. He played in Lethbridge, Trail, and Nelson. He became a coach and physical education instructor.
“Hockey was a large part of his life, but he and my mom—Cathy—had six children—three boys and three girls—and they made a good home for us. However busy he was, dad always had time for us. He always skated with us.
“The three girls became figure skaters. All are teaching now. My older brother played senior hockey, my younger brother is playing junior hockey. Dad was proud of me, that I made the majors, but he was just as happy with the others.
“He was so healthy and active all his life, his illness and inactivity came as a shock to us. It is a brutal illness and he lost a lot of weight as he wasted away. In the end, he couldn’t eat and couldn’t talk. He had pain but didn’t complain.
“The last time I saw him, we watched a hockey game on television. We held hands. It was hard not to cry. Then he was gone. He was suffering so, it was some relief, but 1 still wish it hadn’t happened. I don’t know how mom got through it. She’s a fighter. He fought to the end.”
Danny’s been a fighter, battling a variety of physical problems throughout his career. He cracked a couple of vertebrae in his back a couple of years ago and has suffered from severe muscle spasms since, though stretching exercises have eased the pain.
He came down with mononucleosis two seasons back and that debilitating disease laid him low for a while. He has been bothered by a bad ankle in the last couple of campaigns. He had one year when he missed more than half a season. But he bounced back to fire in 56 goals last season.
Gare’s most recent injury occurred in the final game of the Sabres’ sweep of the Vancouver Canucks in the preliminary round of the playoffs. He was blindsided by a check during a play in front of the Canucks’ net and suffered strained shoulder ligaments. As this went to press, Gare—who had three goals in the series against Vancouver—was expected to be back in time for the Sabres’ opening quarterfinal game.
Only 5-9 and 175 pounds, Danny never has been afraid to take on the toughest foe. He is aggressive, opportunistic, and extremely quick. He is competitive and comes through in the clutch.
He is a good-looking lad, intelligent, personable, and easy to talk to. It hurt to talk about his dad, but he wanted to because he admired him so much and the way he lived his life and death, and wanted others to know him a little, too.
Danny will be 27 next month. He is single and lives alone in a house in the Buffalo suburb of Williamsville, but says he is ready to marry now and his girl, Mary Ann Cassiol, may move in.
He took teammates into his home in the past, but they moved on. “We got along good, but I like living alone,” he admits. “I wanted to establish myself in my sport and live a certain life before I settled down, but I think it’s time now.”
This regular season wasn’t like the last one. It wasn’t as good on the ice and it was as bad as it could be off the ice, but the experience served to settle down Danny and mature him. “Going through what we did, you’ve got to realize you must make the most of your life while you can,” he says.
Danny recalls that near the end, his dad was afraid to close his eyes for fear he’d die in his sleep. Ernie Gare did die in his sleep. The funeral fell on a sunny day, for which Danny’s mom was happy. “Remember, I’m still here,” she told her children. They all feel that going through the ordeal together strengthened their feelings of family. Danny says, “I’m ready to start a family like the one I’ve had.”
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