Height: 5-11
Weight: 175
Shoot: L
Born: 5 Jul 1946, Hamilton ON
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | Chicago | |||||||||||
| 1973-74 | Chicago | |||||||||||
| 1974-75 | Chicago | |||||||||||
| 1975-76 | Denver-Ottawa | |||||||||||
| Edmonton | ||||||||||||
| Totals (2 teams) | ||||||||||||
| 1976-77 | Edmonton | |||||||||||
| 1977-78 | Edmonton | |||||||||||
| Quebec | ||||||||||||
| Totals (2 teams) | ||||||||||||
| Totals: |
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Morris Draws Hull Assignment • by Reid Grosky • The Hockey Spectator • January 12, 1973
Meet one of Bobby Hull's shadows. Rick Morris of the Chicago Cougars is not out to ruin the World Hockey Association by blanketing its superstar. As Morris sees it, he's only doing a job. But he does it very well. Chicago Coach Marcel Pronovost moved young Morris from left wing to right wing for the sole purpose of tracking Hull. So proficient was the plucky Morris that he now is a permanent right winger, no matter who provides the opposition. "When Marcel first told me he wanted me to play right wing, I was really skeptical," he says. And when he said he wanted me to watch Bobby, I was really nervous." Morris, although a fast skater himself, found he still had to play 10 feet ahead of Hull just to keep up with him. "The first time, before I started playing away from him, he held me off with one hand, and nobody ever did that to me before," Morris says. "It was pretty shattering at first." But eventually Morris became so effective that Hull, in his first appearance skating in Chicago for the WHA, hauled off and popped his shadow with an elbow to the mouth. The Chicago crowd booed their Golden Jet for the only time in 15 years. Morris, meantime, was face down on the ice for about three minutes, while Reggie Fleming retaliated and got into a fight with Hull. It was bedlam, and Morris was the reason. "I took him into the boards with a perfect legal check," Morris said. "He swung around with his elbow and hit me in the mouth — loosened a tooth. After the game, he apologized, said he'd gotten frustrated and lost control. Actually he was pretty good. He could have creamed me a couple of other times." Morris plays hockey something like Mohammad Ali fights: floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. "He's our Mercury Morris," says Cougar GM Ed Short. "I'm a natural skater and I think I'm pretty fast," Morris says. "But I feel more at ease if I'm hitting somebody." Says teammate Darrel Knibbs: "There's something about him where other players just sort of get a grudge on him. I know in training camp it was the same thing. He'd go around and hit you and you'd say, 'That little son of a bee.' " Morris, 23, is not very big at 5-feet-10 and 175 pounds. His size will not intimidate players, and when they get mad, Morris usually gets whacked. "One time in Greensboro," he recalls, "this fight broke out between two players and I was just standing there. There was this guy that I had been hitting all night, and he just turned around and blasted me right in the nose. Cut me for 11 stitches and broke my nose." Morris can be more than just a human impact area, He produced 35 goals and 40 assists at Greensboro one year, played for the Dallas Black Hawks, and then starred at Laurentian University, where he is a year away from an honors degree in physical education. "He's a smart player," Pronovost says, "That's why I moved him over for Hull. I'll tell him what I want done and he'll pick it up right away." Morris is fast on the breakaway and a scrambler in front of the net. Although he played but seldom in the Cougars' first 14 games, it did not take him long once playing regularly to produce eight goals and six assists. "I don't want a Bryan Watson reputation," Morris says about shadowing Hull. "I'd like to score some goals, maybe even 20. But my main objective is for the Cougars to do well. And I like the WHA and I'd like to stay here for a long time." As far as the Cougars are concerned, Morris will be around at least as long as Bobby Hull. |
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Excerpts from Zander Hollander Complete Hockey Handbook, 1975-76 (by Reyn Davis) Another buzz saw ... Superb skater who is usually assigned the specialty-checking assignments ... Has a tendency to gamble a bit, knowing his speed will allow him to catch up ... Considered as sound a defensive man as anybody on the team ... Won a Hockey Canada scholarship ... Linemates in junior hockey with Hamilton Red Wings were Renald Leclerc, now with the Quebec Nordiques, and Fred Speck, a WHA pioneer with the Los Angeles Sharks ... Classmate of Detroit's Bart Crashley at Ancaster, Ontario, High School ... His cousin, Barbara Wagner, is a former world champion ice skater ... Attended Laurentian University. |
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