Height: 5-11
Weight: 170
Shoot: R
Born: 6 Sep 1940, Ottawa ON (d. 1995)
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Regular Season & Playoff Scoring Record (key)
| year | team | |||||||||||
| 1972-73 | Houston | |||||||||||
| Totals: |
• Brother of Gary Smith.
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From the Alps to Space City • by Joey LeBourgeois • The Hockey Spectator • January 27, 1973
It's good to get away sometimes, but it's also good to get back. Thus it was with Brian Smith, son of one-time National Hockey League star Des, who's now a left winger with the Houston Aeros. After eight years of the American continent's style of professional ice hockey, Brian got a chance to do what hundreds of thousands of young people long to do — make it to Europe. He spent two and a half years, hardly a quickie tour, in the city of Berne, Switzerland, a stay he wouldn't trade for the Alps. But all good things must come to an end, and Brian ended up in Houston. "I spent those two and a half years playing hockey, mainly, and also helping with the coaching for a club there. I wanted to see a bit of the world, and it was a good chance to do it," he said as the Aeros traveled to Chicago recently. "For me it was a great experience. There's a whole different way of living there. It's much more relaxed. But I'm glad to be here now." What led to Smith's leaving the seat of world harmony was a combination of the lure of the World Hockey Association and some minor problems in Switzerland. "Billy (Dineen, Houston Coach) had drafted me last winter. We'd played together in Denver before I went to Berne. We talked about it then, and I was tempted to sign. But I had already signed in Switzerland, so I decided I would go back to play there. When I went back, I was thinking about whether or not it was the right decision. It gets pretty frustrating over there as far as playing goes. There are no Canadians to play with, and all the other guys are working. There's one pro on a team and the rest just play after work — they're semi-pros, you could say. So it's a strange situation for someone to be in. Finally, I just had enough. Two and a half years of that was all I could take." So in November, Dineen got a call from one of his summer draft picks, and six days later Brian Smith donned the uniform of the Houston Aeros. He's glad he did. "Hockey is really big over there — we drew an average of 11,000 people last year, and were averaging 13,000 while I was there this year. But the caliber of play is not nearly as goodasin Canada. They're all pretty good skaters there, but they lack hockey sense. It's a matter of exposure. The Canadian kids all grow up playing hockey, and the kids there all grow up learning how to skate. They just don't think like hockey players." Smith certainly does. After turning pro with the Hull-Ottawa Canadians, a member of the defunct EPHL, the handsome 31-year-old native of that city played in Springfield for three seasons. Then he broke into the major leagues at Los Angeles, where he suffered a dislocated shoulder early in the year. He didn't get to play much, as a result, and went to Minnesota the next year. Then a year in Denver preceded the stint in Europe. Now that he's in Houston, Smith is a happy man. "We've got a really fine hockey club here," he said, "one with a lot of balance. That's the important thing over the long haul. And lately we've been playing the kind of hockey that works in the playoffs. Most of our scores have been like 4-2 or 3-1, which is the way it is in the playoffs. By the time the regular season is over, we'll be used to playing playoff hockey, and it'll be a great help to us." "Us" is typical of Smith's way of thinking, He's anything but selfish. "Everybody likes to score," he said, "but you have to play what the situation calls for. Right now I'm playing more of a defensive game, I'm playing with Ed Hoekstra and Duke Harris, and they're our penalty killers. I lose a lot of ice time because of that, but that's not important. It doesn't matter who scores the goals, just as long as someone does. Sure, I'd like to pick up a few goals, but I'll be happy as long as we're winning." As long as members of the Aeros have attitudes like that, winning will come a little easier. |
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