with 19 goals and 42 assists, and his 61 points left him in sixth spot in the league race. Boston's highest scorer totalled 42 points.

 

But the deal was long-awaited justice for Sullivan himself. Judged on ability alone, he deserved a better break than Lady

Luck had given him in the five seasons he spent attempting to prove himself in professional hockey. In fact, few people were surprised last season when he stepped up from minor league hockey to gain recognition almost overnight as one of the NHL's best centremen. It was regarded generally as ability that had been present, but undeveloped. all along.

 

“I was never given much of a chance to make good with Boston,” Sullivan says. “Or maybe I should say I never had much of a chance, because I certainly don’t blame the Boston management for the way things worked out. Every time I was brought up to play with the Bruins, they had plenty of established big league centres, men like Milt Schmidt, Eddie Sandford, Dave Creighton and Fleming Mackell. I certainly didn’t expect them to bench one of those fellows to let me play. They were fighting for a spot in the playoffs every year and they couldn't afford to gamble on a green kid like me.

 

“So,” Red relates, “as much as I thought of the Boston Bruins--I had dreamed all my life of playing for Boston--it was the answer to a prayer when Chicago bought me in 1954. I knew I’d get a good chance with them because they were in a position where they had to gamble with something different.

 

“But don’t get me wrong on one thing. Although I feel I might have made the grade in the NHL sooner than I did, I don‘t regret for a minute all the time I spent in the American league. I got a world of experience down there and, believe me, it has made a big difference to me."

 

Speed and Drive

 

WHEN Sullivan was playing junior hockey with St. Catharines TeePees of the Ontario association, he was billed as a “Bill Cowley with speed.” Cowley, it will be recalled, was a Boston centre about 15 years ago, a pivot of almost incredible playmaking ability. He was the best passer of his era and they said of him that he made more wings than de Havilland. But he was an annoyingly slow skater. Sullivan, his supporters claimed, had Cowley’s passing proficiency, plus a wealth of speed and drive. The comparison would be a flattering one for any player and, while Sullivan’s record indicates he is indeed a capable playmaker, he hasn’t quite attained Cowley’s status. But no person will deny he has that abundance of hustle. So far in his career, that has been his chief asset.'

 

“Sullivan is a really good hockey player," says Jim Morrison, Toronto Maple Leaf defenceman. “One of the things that makes him good is the way he works. He's always digging, always hurrying, never lets up or lets you relax and that’s bound to pay off for a player."

 

In that respect, Sullivan can be likened to Ted Kennedy, the recently retired captain of the Maple Leafs. Not endowed with an excess of native ability, Kennedy became a star by dint of sheer hard work

 

"If you asked me to describe my overall theory about hockey," Red declares. “l’d say it's first, to be in A-1 condition at all times and. second, never to stop working. Condition, I think, is most important. If you’re in condition. hockey comes easy. And never stop working. If you’re a centre, you’ve got to keep digging for the puck and making plays. If you keep at it, why, you’re bound to get results.”

 

That's hardly an original theory, although Sullivan’s earnestness lends it a bit of freshness. All in all, he’s Mr. Average Guy. His only conspicuous feature is his flaming red hair. Otherwise, he could escape notice quite easily. Hockey is a business to him, albeit an enjoyable business, and he goes about it in a businesslike. efficient manner. His slight build helps to merge him with scores of other young players. It is when the statistics are toted up that his proficiency begins to be apparent.

 

He Had Two Idols

 

IN short, the keen hockey student will perceive Sullivan’s on-the-ice cleverness. just as he will see greatness in Gordie Howe’s relaxed movements. The occasional fan, who looks for the end-to-end rush, the resounding body check, the booming shot, may ask: “Who’s Sullivan?" But the same fan will tell you that Howe is a lazy player who does little on the ice. Like Howe, Sullivan is a connoisseur’s hockey player.

 

George James Sullivan is as-Irish as Paddy‘s porker. He joins another carrot-top, Detroit’s Red Kelly, as successors to King Clancy in keeping the honor of Erin at the top of the hockey totem pole.

 

The family of Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Sullivan —five girls and twin boys. in addition to Red himself—-helped to bolster the Irish segment of Peterborough, Ont. Mr. Sullivan, Sr., died in 1940, when George was 11. -That was about the time Red had made up his mind—as almost every 11-year-old Canadian boy does—to be a big-league hockey player.

 

“I had two idols then,” Red recalls. “One was Dit Clapper, who came from Peterborough and was a great star for Boston. All the youngsters in Peterborough were Boston fans because of Dit. My other idol was Milt Schmidt, who I thought and do think was the best centreman there ever was. The only ambition I ever had was to do at least some of the things those two did in hockey.”

 

Oddly enough, it was Clapper who gave Sullivan a big boost toward becoming a pro hockey player. He had observed young Sullivan’s play with the Peterborough junior “B” team and told Harold (Baldy) Cotton, Boston Bruins’ chief talent scout, that the youngster might be worth a look. So, in 1947, when the Peterborough team was playing a University of Toronto squad in Toronto’s Varsity arena, Cotton was on hand to observe Clapper’s protégé. He liked what he saw, and the following season found Sullivan playing for the Bruins’ top junior farm team at St. Catharines.

 

For two seasons Sullivan was the scoring star of the Ontario junior league. His big break came in late 1949 when he was embarking on his third junior campaign. Centre Ed Sandford of the parent Bruins was injured and Red was summoned to Beantown to fill in. By the time Sandford was ready to return, the Bruin brass had decided Sullivan was too good to stay in junior hockey and made him a pro with their No. 1 farm team, Hershey Bears of the American league.

 

That ushered in one of the unhappiest periods of Sullivan's life. He never could seem to fit in with the Bruins. despite the fact he seemed almost out of the American league class. In 1950-51 he played 70 games at Hershey and scored 28 goals and 56 assists. That seemed to call for promotion and he spent the 1951-52 campaign with Boston, where he again failed to make a good impression. Back to Hershey he went, only to be recalled during the ‘52-’53 season.

 

Small But Tenacious

 

In January, 1953, he thought he finally had arrived when he equalled the Boston team scoring record by collecting six points --a goal and five assists--in one game. But he faded quickly and was back in Hershey for the 1953-54 season. His scoring feats that year bordered on the fantastic. He rapped in 30 goals and a record of 89 assists for 119 points, also a record, and was voted the league’s most valuable player and all-star centre.

 

What happened then is somewhat of a mystery. Perhaps the deal with Chicago was negotiated during that winter, before it became apparent What a tremendous season Sullivan was going to have. Or perhaps the Bruins were then sceptical about Sullivan’s American league accomplishments. They may have concluded that he was one of those players who’s a major leaguer when he’s in the minors and a minor leaguer when he’s in the majors. Anyway, they sold him to the Black Hawks for a reported $25,000. If that figure is at all accurate and if last season’s performance is any indication, Sullivan was a bargain. Certainly, it’s doubtful if Boston would make the same deal over again.

 

Skinny at five-feet, 11 inches, and only 160 pounds, Sullivan is a trifle on the feathery side for today’s rugged game. “I find being this small is a real advantage,” he says. “It gives you extra speed and it makes it tough for opposition defencemen to get a piece of you. Then if they do connect with you, you’re generally on the move and sort of rolling with the check.”

 

Sullivan's speed and tenacity make him an ace defensive player and he does double duty with the Hawks, killing off penalties as well as doing his regular hitch at centre. An alert forechecker, he has an uncanny knack of breaking up an enemy attack as it is forming and turning it into a scoring thrust of his own.

 

Having just turned 26 last Dec. 24, Red looks forward to a lengthy pro career. Afterwards, he plans to go into business back home in Peterborough. He spends the off-seasons there working in Dit Clapper’s sporting goods store and has bought a house there for his family—his wife, Marion, a childhood friend. and children, Danny, three, and Jane, who was born last September.

 

So, in his orderly way, Sullivan has everything planned—how he is going to make a success of hockey, how he will put that success to use and what he will do on that inevitable day when he will no longer be of use as a professional hockey player. In the meantime, though, he’s enjoying himself, too, despite the arduous life of a big-time hockey player. Sullivan’s road-trip roommate, defenceman Lee Fogolin, figured out that the Hawks travelled 30,000 miles last season in keeping their NHL engagements.

 

“The games are a cinch," says Sullivan. “It’s that travelling that tires you out. But I’m not complaining. I think l’m a lucky guy. I’m doing what I've always wanted to do and I’m getting paid good money for doing it. That's an arrangement any man should count himself lucky to have.”

 

END

 

(Copyright 1956. The Star Weekly)