Basking in the everlasting pride of a hockey mom

It’s been 20 years now since her son last laced up his skates in an NHL game, yet Mary Ann Secord has no problem whatsoever reminiscing about his hockey career.

Hockey moms, and in this case hockey “grammas,” carry a special place in their hearts for their toddlers who ventured out on the ice.

And while Al Secord, who netted an impressive 273 goals over a career which spanned 13 seasons, is most closely associated with the town of Espanola, there remains a very strong tie to the City of Greater Sudbury.

In 1962, Mary Ann, a native of Toronto, and her husband, Alan Sr., purchased a resort property in Espanola. The new business venture meant the Secords would spend summers about eight miles south of the mill town, finding an apartment in Sudbury for the winters.

It was on the local playground rinks that Al Secord received his initial introduction to the sport in which he would eventually rise to the highest level, selected in the first round of the 1978 NHL draft by the Boston Bruins.

But long before that, at the tender age of seven, the youngster informed his parents he needed a pair of skates, looking to try out for the playground team at Antwerp, despite never having previously played the game at all.

The results were predictable — Al Secord was cut by coach Mickey McKinney, who may well have been the last coach not to select the talented winger on his roster. Undeterred, Secord set out to prove McKinney wrong.

“Every night after school, Al would be over at the rink, skating and skating and skating,” his mother recalled. In a matter of a few short weeks, a very determined Al Secord had improved drastically, to the point of earning an invitation back with McKinney’s team.

“Years later, Mickey McKinney would share the story that about a month later, he went and asked this kid to join his team. Al apparently told him that he would never play for him, since he cut him.”

No surprise that, to this day, Mary Ann Secord cites her son’s incredible work ethic as likely his most notable attribute in pursuing his dream of playing professional hockey.

By age eight, the Alan Sr. assembled a team at Spiegel Playground, primarily comprised of young Italians from the Donovan, along with a few French Canadians.

The team went on to capture the city championship, and it didn’t take long before young Al Secord was making a name for himself on the ice. One more season of playground hockey at Carmichael was in store before the Secord’s made the permanent move to Espanola.

Stints with Labarge Lumber bantams, the Espanola Eagles (as a 15 year old) and the Wexford Raiders, gave way to an OHL career with the Hamilton/St. Catherines Fincups.

“He was a force,” Mary Ann laughed, citing her son’s tendency to drop the gloves. More appropriately, Al Secord encompassed that wonderful combination of toughness and talent, a testament to the matching of almost 500 points with more than 2,000 minutes in penalties through his career.

The fit with the Bruins, then coached by the affable Don Cherry, seemed only natural. Yet Secord’s stop in Beantown was limited to just more than two seasons, before he was dealt to the Chicago Black Hawks.

“It broke his heart when he was dealt from Boston,” his mother noted of the 1980 trade that found Al Secord shipped to Chicago in return for defenseman Mike O’Connell.

But he wasn’t about to let his disappointment affect his on-ice production.

Playing alongside crafty centreman Denis Savard, Secord’s offensive production was highlighted by a 54-goal campaign, as well as hitting the 40-goal plateau on two different occasions.

Still, Secord was not one to take success for granted. “We’re a hard-working family and Alan was always the kind of guy the coaches just loved to have play for them,” Mary Ann proudly stated.

It’s a trait that remained with the soft spoken member of the Chicago Sports Hall of Fame, even after his retirement from the game. While playing junior hockey in Ontario, Al Secord enjoyed a summer working with the Ministry of Natural Resources as a forest firefighter.

Flown in to fight fires across northern Ontario, Secord became quite fond of flying, obtaining his pilot’s license soon after hanging up the skates. These days, he calls Dallas, Texas home, keeping busy with his second career as a pilot with American Airlines.

But in the eyes of his mother, Al Secord has never ceased to fly high — and that’s a feeling not likely to change.

Randy Pascal is the voice of Eastlink Sports and the founder of SudburySports.com.