Jim Dorey • Robert James Dorey "Flipper"

Height: 6-1
Weight: 195
Shoot: L
Born: 17 Aug 1947, Kingston ON

Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)

year	team	gp	g	a	pts	pim		gp	g	a	pts	pim
1972-73	New England	75	7	56	63	95		15	3	16	19	41
1973-74	New England	77	6	40	46	134		6	0	6	6	26
1974-75	New England	31	5	17	22	43
	Toronto	43	11	23	34	69		6	2	6	8	2
	Totals (2 teams)	74	16	40	56	112
1975-76	Toronto	74	9	51	60	134
1976-77	Quebec	73	13	34	47	102		10	0	2	2	28
1977-78	Quebec	26	1	9	10	23		11	0	3	3	34
1978-79	Quebec	32	0	2	2	17		3	0	0	0	0
	Totals:	431	52	232	284	617		51	5	33	38	131

Security Draws Dorey to Whalers • by Dick Dew • The Hockey Spectator • November 17, 1972 By his own admission, strapping Jim Dorey was making a pretty good salary by toiling in the National Hockey League. But there was still something missing insofar as the handsome, rugged defenseman was concerned. Security. And that single word is why the 25-year-old Dorey is playing for the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association this season. Dorey, one of what seemed to be a small army of hard-hitting defensemen to pour out of Toronto over the past several years, was concerned with a career embracing a wife, a family and a shoulder when he opted to play in the new league. It wasn't easy for Dorey to turn his back on his new owners, the New York Rangers. Sin City can be, after all, both an expensive and enriching place to live. The Rangers can pretty much guarantee a fat slice of playoff money and public appearances, those surprisingly lucrative off-hour dates, are plentiful in New York. Dorey told his attorney he wanted security for himself and his family. The first team, Whalers or Rangers, to build that word into his contract would get Dorey's services. Jim chuckled just a bit over a recent story out of New York which indicated he hadn't really negotiated with the Rangers but, rather, had jumped without waiting for New York's best offer. Nothing could be further from the truth. It just wouldn't make much sense for a hockey player or any available athlete to neglect to play one against the other. It's called negotiating and can result in the realization of fond dreams and distant hopes. There was, Jim says, no lack of communication between him and the Rangers. The New York report isn't hard to understand. Ranger general manager Emile Francis kept almost his entire squad intact, moving quickly with pay raises so large and terms so generous he had other NHL executives shaking their heads in disbelief. But when the first faint trickle of player defections became a small but serious flood in many establishment cities, the other general managers recognize The Cat's reasoning was sound. For some, it was much too late. How, then, did Francis let the personable Dorey get away? And there comes that word again, security. "Cat phoned me in Toronto for an appointment, Dorey recalls. "I saw him at the Royal York Hotel at 4:00 p.m. one day. My lawyer was tied up and couldn't get there until 5:00 o'clock. So we met just to talk and I told him any lawyer would be coming, that he would have to do the negotiating with him. The lawyer discussed it with him and Francis phoned me three or four times. Sure I was making a pretty good salary. And maybe the money wasn't going to be too different between the two teams. But they didn't wanna give me the security I wanted. I didn't want to wind up like Eddie Westfall," Jim said of the Boston veteran shipped to the Islanders in the latest expansion draft. Dorey's insistence on long and firm contract terms was based in large part on his shoulder. He suffered a separation to his right shoulder in the first and only regular season game he ever played for the Rangers. He underwent surgery and got back for a brief, almost token, appearance in the playoffs. "I didn't know how the shoulder would be," he admits. "A thing like that can change your career. You don't know whether you'll be playing for several years or maybe just two," he said of an injury which has not noticeably hampered his play in the early stages with the Whalers. That concern for the future was what eventually brought Dorey to Boston. "The Rangers wouldn't give me a long term contract," he explained. "They wouldn't guarantee a no-trade, no-cut situation. They just wouldn't offer what it was I wanted." Dorey had played the better part of four full seasons for Toronto before his brief New York stopover. And he has no regrets: "I don't owe them a thing and they don't owe me anything. I wanted security and I've got it."

Excerpts from Pro Hockey, WHA 1975-76 (by Dan Proudfoot) In Toronto Toros' playoff series against San Diego Mariners, Jim Dorey demonstrated that in his 28th year he finally had matured as a defenceman. Possibly, of course, he matured earlier. Toronto fans only knew that this was a far different Dorey than the impulsive, sometimes foolish player who had toiled for Toronto Maple Leafs until 1972. Perhaps his years with New England Whalers had tempered him. No Toro worked harder than Dorey in that losing series against Mariners, and no player seemed to care so much. Maple Leaf Gardens fans hadn't been so impressed with him since his first game as a Leaf back in 1968. As a rookie starter it had been Dorey's record penalty totals that impressed; in 1975 it was his overall play. Then came the bad news. New York Rangers were making a major pitch for him, as they had for Wayne Dillon and Pat Hickey, the two young Toro stars who switched to the NHL earlier in the summer. The question was if Dorey would be moving on again, immediately after gaining stature in Toronto.

Excerpts from Zander Hollander Complete Hockey Handbook, 1975-76 (by Reyn Davis) Only regret Toros have about the Wayne Carleton-for-Jim Dorey trade with New England is that it didn't happen sooner ... Toros had an option on Dorey's services, but waited more than 30 games before exercising it ... Undisputed leader ... Has a knack of annoying crowds on the road with acts of arrogance ... Easily Toros' best defensemen, though inclined to make one classic goof per game ... Can handle most situations, no matter how bizarre ... Has been known to turn an orderly Toro pregame warm up into a knockdown, drag out scrimmage.

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