Height: 6-3
Weight: 225
Shoot: L
Born: 4 Aug 1946, Sudbury ON
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | Ottawa | |||||||||||
| 1973-74 | Toronto | |||||||||||
| 1974-75 | New England | |||||||||||
| 1975-76 | New England | |||||||||||
| Edmonton | ||||||||||||
| Totals (2 teams) | ||||||||||||
| 1976-77 | Birmingham | |||||||||||
| Totals: |
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Meet the New Wayne Carleton • by Bob Mellor • The Hockey Spectator • December 8, 1972
Wayne Carleton is playing a new position with a new team in a new league, and it's made a new man out of him. That is the consensus among major league scouts and rival coaches who've been watching the gangly forward in the Ottawa Civic Center this season. They maintain he's been playing the best hockey of his career. Certainly there is no question in the mind of his own coach, Billy Harris, that Wayne Carleton is the offensive leader of the Ottawa Nationals. In the club's first 18 games, Carleton had 12 goals and 12 assists. His best record in major league hockey previously was a 22-24 aggregate when he was dressed for 69 Boston Bruin games in 1970-71. What's made the difference? Is it merely that the WHA is a league which permits Carleton to exercise his talent in a way that wasn't possible in the NHL, or that the calibre of play against him isn't as high? Carleton, who scored one and assisted on another as Nats beat the Quebec Nordiques November 21, admits that may be part of it, but it isn't all. In Boston, two years ago, Wayne Carleton played at 230 pounds. He's an honest six-two, but even for Carleton, 230 pounds is overweight. "In Boston," he said, "the practices weren't really that tough. And if you're a big guy, and not really careful, it doesn't take long to put on the beef." This year, Carleton is playing at 195. "I got off to the best start I've ever had," Carleton says, "because this is the first time I've cut my weight really down. I worked my rear end off all last summer, and I reported to training camp in real good shape. I signed for what I thought was really good money. I wanted to show them — and particularly Buck Houle — I was worth it." Houle and Carleton go way back together. It was Houle who managed that 1964 Memorial Cup team which launched Carleton into pro hockey. And Houle was around here and there, in Carleton's up-and-down career through the Toronto Maple Leaf farm system. When they agreed to terms for the Nationals, the reported figures were that Carleton signed for $60,000 a season. Houle's prior knowledge of Carleton led to one other factor that has made a significant difference in Carleton's performance. Through most of his career, Carleton has played left wing. But he's not a stop-and-go type skater, He's a "cruiser" if that's applicable to hockey, and from the day of his signing with the Nats, Houle saw him that way. So he suggested to Bill Harris that Carleton be used as a centerman. Harris agreed, and that's where Carleton has been since the start of the season. It isn't the first time Carleton has played there. "Anytime I have, I've played my best hockey. The year Sanderson held out in Boston, I played it all through training camp, and I started there in the first league game and scored a goal and had two assists. But then Sanderson came back and they moved me to left wing. Then I got blood poisoning and I never started playing regularly again until the 42nd game of the season." Boston let him go in the intra-league draft to Oakland for last season, and Carleton wasn't happy there. His weight got all the way up to 245. He got 17 goals, 14 assists, and was determined "there was no way I was going back." Oakland was willing to deal him, but Carleton had made his deal with Houle and the Nats In the meantime, and he says, he wasn't jumping "just for the sake of jumping. The other things had to be right." Obviously, the terms were. As for the club's prospects, he says, "We've got a lot of young guys; we've got good goaltending, and our defenses are green, but they're coming. We're all skaters, we don't play a tough style of game, but when we have to, we don't come out second best. The last half of the season, we'll be in there." The Nats have averaged just a bit better than 2,700 a game, and it's a natural thing to wonder if an NHL emigrant worries about that situation. "If we can keep up in the standings and keep winning," Carleton says, "I think we'll get them coming, once football is over." For the time being, though, he hasn't put his mind to that much. He's been too busy enjoying the transformation from fat left winger to skinny center. |
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Excerpts from Zander Hollander's Guide to Pro Hockey, 1975-76 (by Reyn Davis)
Never hides his feelings ... Frankness has managed to get him into troiuble, but Wayne is a big boy now and can handle himself ... Whalers' top point producer in 1974-75, parleying 35 goals with 39 assists for 74 points and a share of 27th place in the league scoring derby ... Nickname is "Swoop" because he swoops down the ice like a big bird coming in for a landing ... Very aggressive forechecker who has been known to trample smaller defensemen ... A jughead --- the affectionate title of someone involved in harness racing ... Owns and trains a stable of standardbreds, which run on a small track in his native Ontario. |
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Excerpts from Pro Hockey, WHA 1976-77 (by Dan Proudfoot)
Mr. Misfortune, Wayne Carleton, carried on his tradition immediately after arriving at Edmonton from New England Whalers. Big Swoop was soaring through his first game as an Oiler when he suffered a bruised back. Problems have followed the 30-year-old Carleton through a full half-dozen stops in big-league hockey. When he did continue in Oiler uniform, Carleton wasn't well received. His swooping style often appears to be lazy, but he did get five goals and 16 assist in 26 Oiler games, so he must have been doing something right. Swoop can be moody and easily depressed, however, and much depends on his getting a good start in 1976-77. |
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