He joked about the fact his name was misspelled “Lindsey” for the 1949-50 championship, saying “it didn’t bother me as long as we won the Cup.” And it was Lindsay who as captain of the Red Wings began the tradition of carrying the trophy around the ice for fans to have a better look.
“In those days (before shatterproof glass), everything was chicken wire at the end of the rink, from the faceoff dots and around behind the net,” he remembered. “Where the screen ended, the fans would lean on the boards, over the ice. They’d move back when the play came by.
“These were the people who paid my salary. When I saw the Cup sitting on a table after Clarence (Campbell, the NHL president) presented it to (Red Wings GM Jack) Adams, I guess I saw these people by the penalty box. So, I just picked it up. Adams was probably thinking, ‘What’s that idiot Lindsay going to do, throw it?’ The fans all wanted to see it.”
The small gesture was one of Lindsay’s many, part of his impressive, important legacy that is celebrated a century after his birth.
Today, the footprint on hockey of this small giant remains immeasurable. He is still larger than life, still heavier than the scale suggested, still taller than the tape measure read.
“I hope it’s good, what they would say,” he said of how he’d like to be remembered. “Maybe I didn’t always have a good night, but I never cheated them.”
Top photo: Detroit captain Ted Lindsay in a 1953-54 portrait (r.), and back with the Red Wings for his final NHL season in 1964-65.