Height: 5-11
Weight: 185
Shoot: L
Born: 22 Sep 1947, Russell MB
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | New York | |||||||||||
| 1973-74 | NY-Jersey | |||||||||||
| 1974-75 | San Diego | |||||||||||
| Mich.-Balt. | ||||||||||||
| Totals (2 teams) | ||||||||||||
| Totals: |
• Name pronounced "Rye-tch-mooth"
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Craig Does His Thing: Checking and Hitting • by Larry Bortstein • The Hockey Spectator • March 23, 1973
Craig Reichmuth was playing for the Flin Flon Bombers of the Western Canada Junior Hockey League in 1967-68, he had teammates named Bobby Clarke and Reg Leach. Now a superstar with the Philadelphia Flyers, Clarke scored 51 goals for Flin Flon that season, while Leach, now with the California Golden Seals, scored the unbelievable total of 87 goals. With teammates like those it was all a non-scorer like Reichmuth could do to gain any attention at all. But he managed. Though his goals for the year numbered and almost infinitesimal (by team standards) 18, Craig, playing left wing on a line centered by Clarke and also including right winger Lew Morrison, now with the Atlanta flames, racked up 333 minutes in penalties. "I used to run after guys all over the ice," Reichmuth laughs in recollection. "I knew, almost from the time I started playing hockey when I was 13, but I was never going to score a lot of goals. It's something you realize about yourself early whether you're not you have the type of ability that produces goals. I didn't have it, so I became a guy who could help the team by checking and hitting. Checking and hitting are precisely the things Craig has been doing this season for the Raiders. While he no longer "runs all over the ice" as he says he is too back in Flin Flon, the 25-year-old forward does hurl himself at opponents with gusto. He has drawn well over 100 minutes in penalties for his efforts, second highest total on the club to defenseman Hal Willis. A left winger by trade and nature, Reichmuth has been seeing considerable action at right wing of late because of the spate of Raider injuries. He finds it a bit strange that he's been able to score points more quickly from the unfamiliar position than he normally does at left wing. "With Brian Perry at left wing and Bob Jones at center, our line has been doing pretty well lately," says the rock hard, 5-11, 188 pounder. "Most of the year I was playing left wing on a line with Mike Laughton at center, and we tried a lot of different guys on right wing. It's hard to score points when, after you dig the puck out of the corner, you haven't got anybody to pass it to. Reichmuth will return this summer to Flin Flon, where he will work at a hockey school with Ted Hampson and Mel Pearson of the Minnesota Fighting Saints, and play a lot of golf. "I've been playing for four years," Craig says, "and I'm still not very good at it, but I love it. I shoot right-handed, which I guess proves the theory that many hockey players play golf because the swings are the same is a lot of hogwash." Maybe Craig's golf will improve when the manufacturers of golf balls develop a model that hits back. Reichmuth might have a better swing if his target was moving, as were Cleveland's Gerry Cheevers and Ray Clearwater and quebec's Pierre Guite, among those whom Reichmuth has dealt out punishment this season. There was also the time at the Quebec Coliseum when Craig try to climb over the glass of the penalty box to get at the Nordiques' Mike Rouleau, who was leaving the premises with a match-misconduct penalty. Reichmuth's dive was a little short and his chest went through the glass shattering it. Now THAT's pursuit. |
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