Height: 5-10
Weight: 170
Shoot: L
Born: 28 Sep 1944, Hull PQ
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | Philadelphia | |||||||||||
| Quebec | ||||||||||||
| Totals (2 teams) | ||||||||||||
| 1973-74 | Quebec | |||||||||||
| 1974-75 | Quebec | |||||||||||
| Michigan | ||||||||||||
| San Diego | ||||||||||||
| Totals (3 teams) | ||||||||||||
| Totals: |
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Quebec Will Love Mike Rouleau • no author byline • The Hockey Spectator • November 17, 1972
They'll love Mike Rouleau in Quebec, and besides, it was pretty hard to associate him with the city of brotherly love. The National Hockey League Philadelphia Flyers had their share of fistic hot dogs in the past few years, men like Forbes Kennedy, Earl Heiskala and Rick Foley, and this year the Philadelphia Blazers began life in the World Hockey Association with Rouleau on their side. Even though fans everywhere love scrappers — and Rouleau is a quality fighter — Philadelphia has a way of trading those sorts out of town. In the case of Rouleau and the Blazers, everything was amiable except that the Blazers needed defensemen desperately. They sent Rouleau, a center, and Frank Golembrosky, a wing, to Quebec for defenseman Jean Gravel and forward Brit Selby, immediately sending Selby to New England for the Whalers defenseman Bob Brown. On top of that, the Blazers brought in Derek Harker, another blueliner, from Alberta in exchange for future considerations, and also got defenseman Larry Mavety from Los Angeles on the same sort of deal. Their defense thus repaired, the Blazers were without Rouleau, whose big right-hand punches belied his five-foot-nine, 160-pound frame. Some will say Rouleau is mean because he hated those 10-hour bus rides to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, playing five games in five nights for $150 a week and having to fight his way from the ice back to the bus for another 10-hour bus ride to Nashville. This argument has merit and surely it added to his present demeanor. "I got a bad temper," he said. "I take after my dad." "When I got to New Haven, I won my first fight. The fans loved it. It felt really good. I'll never back down from anyone. I don't go looking for fights; I'm looking for goals. I'd rather be known as a scorer than a fighter. But if I have to fight to stay in the Major League hockey, I'll fight." He started with the Blazers first exhibition game, Rouleau and Golembrosky were behind the Ottawa net and Kas Lysionek, a Nationals winger, got careless with an elbow or a stick (it doesn't really matter to Mike). Wham. Lysionek went down with one punch. Not just down for a few seconds, but down and out. Poor Kas never did make the Ottawa roster by the start of the regular season — maybe he had trouble breathing through a nose that was fractured in two places courtesy of Rouleau. The Ottawa newsmen said it was a cheap shot. "Nothing is cheap when you have your gloves off," said Mike. Opening the regular season in Boston Garden against the New England Whalers, Mike continued his rough stuff by decisioning Mike Hyndman. On the Blazers' first trip to New York, Jean Gauthier, a 200-pound Raider defenseman, took a run at Mike by starting out in the Bronx and nailing Rouleau somewhere in Brooklyn. Charging was called against Big Jean but this didn't satisfy the Blazer center. He proceeded to pound Gauthier into submission. At this point the scorecards read Rouleau 3, opponents 0. Rouleau has not confined his fisticuffs to road games. Into the Philadelphia Civic Center came the Los Angeles Sharks with the most impressive penalty record in the infant WHA. The Sharks had been responsible for riots in Alberta and Los Angeles. They featured heavyweight Heiskala, who is returning to Philly, and Ted McCaskill. By program statistics, McCaskill is 6-foot-1, and tips the scales at 190. The same program generously lists Rouleau at 5-foot-10, and 170. The two met in a wild melee and, you guessed it, Rouleau by a knockout. "I hit him with a good one and he went limp in my arms. I held him up and gave him a few to remember," said Rouleau. Now the record reads Rouleau 4, opponents 0. Bob Leduc of the Ottawa Nationals must have remembered the Lysionek slaughter in the exhibition game. He gave "Malicious Mike" his toughest test to date. But again, Rouleau was equal to the test, and he now goes on to Quebec with a 5-0 record. "I'm the way I am because I had to be to survive," Rouleau said. "I'll never change, I'm ready for anyone who can get their gloves off." Last season, Rouleau scored 105 points in the Eastern League and amassed 224 minutes in penalties. Only time will tell what records he will set this year. |
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