Interview With Los Angeles Kings Legend Kelly Hrudey

The Islanders have recently moved away from Uniondale, NY and the historic Nasauu Coliseum and into Brooklyn.  As a former NY Islander, what are your thoughts and feelings about the move?

Well they have a dedicated fan base that absolutely love the Islanders and for good reason. They were an absolute powerhouse. They got their start in the 1970’s with Bill Torrey and when he hired Al Arbour their level of play endeared Long Islanders to the team. So when they moved I think some people might have felt maybe betrayed or something but I don’t think that’s it at all.  It was an aging building. It already seemed old and beaten up when I played there so if you fast forward to 2015-16, something had to be done, either a new arena or a new location. And they found a location quite close to where many Long Islanders live and hopefully it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for them to go to Brooklyn and watch the games.

This year marks the return of the World Cup of Hockey. You were selected to play for Team Canada for the 1987 Canada Cup* tournament. How was that experience and what was it like to be a part of team with Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers and Mario Lemieux?

First of all there’s an enormous sense of pride that goes through you when you’re invited to represent your country. So for me I was lucky enough in 1986 to have been asked to play for Canada in the World Championships in Moscow. And boy talk about feeling proud.

And then the following year, I was asked to try out for the Canada Cup team, the stakes had been raised for sure when you’re talking about the players that were trying out for that team. For the goaltenders alone there was Grant Fuhr, Ron Hextall, myself and Patrick Roy that tried out.  I think Patrick had just finished his second year in the league so it was decided that Ron, Grant and I were gonna stick around. Grant of course played every game, Ron and I rotated as the backups.  Just the experience alone to be around those guys and knowing that the entire country was following that team and then when you look back upon about it, and people were saying that might have been the greatest hockey ever played, now it clearly has been surpassed in my opinion but back at that time, that was the pinnacle of great hockey. So to have witnessed it and to have practiced with those guys is a memory that will never fade in my mind.

*(The original name for the World Cup of Hockey was the Canada Cup).

In 1988, Wayne Gretzky was traded to the LA Kings in the trade heard around the world.  Later that season, you were traded to the Kings and joined him.  What were your initial thoughts and feelings when you learned that you were being traded from the Islanders to the Kings?

I was furious and felt betrayed. I did not want to leave the Islanders organization. I loved it. I was hopeful like everybody else that joins the league that I’d have a career like Steve Yzerman where I would play for one organization my entire life and I’d win multiple Cups and the world ends happily. But for me, my world was turned upside down with the trade. I was not expecting it. I didn’t hear any rumblings. I didn’t know until the day before that there was a possibility that I was getting traded and to make matters worse, my wife was due to give birth to our second daughter about two weeks after the trade so it was very, very difficult to move and be away. Luckily for me I was able to get back to Long Island when she had Megan. But what ended up happening is that it turned out to be the best experience of my life. And it was just so phenomenal to go to L.A. and play on a regular basis with Wayne and so many of those incredible players there and just see the growth of hockey and the amazing job our owner Bruce McNall did in elevating the sport and making hockey important in California.  It was really cool to see that growth and then of course Anaheim and San Jose joined the league and who would’ve known back then in 1989 when I was traded there and say that 25 years later that California would be considered a hockey hotbed for junior hockey in Canada? And then personally my biggest years of growth happened there.  I think I was 28 when I was traded there and I left there when I was 35 so in those years it was just a tremendous amount of change in my life and my play and my family as we ended up having another daughter in Los Angeles so those were the fondest memories that I had for my playing career.

In those 1989 playoffs, in a classic touch of epic storytelling by the Hockey Gods, You and the Kings played against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers which just happened to be the team that had traded Gretzky to LA at the beginning of the season.  Could you take us back to those intense playoff games and tells us about your experience in it, especially when the Kings made a comeback after being down 3-1 to win it?

Well heading into the playoffs our team got hit by the flu bug so our final regular season weekend, we had a home and home with Vancouver and I was only supposed to play one of the games, I believe the game at home on Saturday if I recall correctly versus the Canucks and Glenn Healy was gonna play Sunday in Vancouver. Unfortunately for Glenn he got bed ridden with the flu and in fact I think he might have been hospitalized because he was so sick and then there were a couple of other guys who were sick. We had a couple of days in between the end of the regular season and the start of playoffs series and then I ended up getting violently ill. So I had to check in to the hospital for 3 or 4 days, something like that so Glenn started the first game in the series and we ended up losing. I checked out of the hospital for game 2 and we won the game and I then went right back into the hospital to spend the night. Then the team flew the next day I believe to Edmonton and I went on a commercial airline because they didn’t want me around the guys.  So I was still extremely worn down and we ended losing both games in Edmonton quite handily if I remember correctly. I started to get my strength back and my teammates were starting to get healthier and we won a really close game 5 at home and we still had to go back to Edmonton and try to extend the series.  We had a fantastic game up there. Randy Gregg scored on me in the first minute so the Oilers were up 1-0 but we ended scoring a monumental goal by Mike Allison!

We ended up winning that one 4-1 so now we had the opportunity to go back home and clinch the series. We knew it was going to be a dandy of a game and it was tied 3-3 after 2 periods and we ended up scoring some late goals in the 3rd and won it 6-3 I believe. And it must have been awfully difficult for Wayne to play his former teammates and I don’t think it was the most enjoyable series that he ever had. It was just an epic battle.