Dec 31--Terry Ruskowski

Terry Ruskowski

Selected by Chicago Blackhawks round 4 #70 overall 1974 NHL Amateur Draft
Selected by Houston Aeros round 2 #30 overall 1974 WHA Secret Amateur Draft

Terry negotiated with Chicago all summer long and when it was apparent that Chicago's plans was to ship him to their CHL farm team in Dallas he jumped on Houston's offer instead. They not only offered him better money but they also seemed more eager to acquire Terry than Chicago.

At the time of the WHA-NHL merger the four new teams were allowed to protect two players each. The Winnipeg management dreaded having to leave Terry unprotected, but they had little choice. John Ferguson, the Winnipeg GM at that time said: "I'm not only giving up probably the best player in our league, I'm giving up the heart of our hockey club. They have a name for that. It's called rape."
Ferguson grabbed Bobby Hull in the Expansion draft from Chicago who had claimed Hull from Winnipeg only four days earlier. Ferguson knew that the Chicago crowd would love to have Hull back in Chicago, so his plan was to trade Hull for Ruskowski, but the Chicago management were not interested in such a deal and nothing happened.

Just 12 games into Ruskowski's NHL career, long time Chicago favourite Keith Magnuson had to retire and Terry Ruskowski was named captain of the team. This wouldn't be his first stint as a captain for an NHL team. Terry later captained Pittsburgh and Los Angeles as well which clearly shows the great leadership qualities that he had

At the age of 33, Ruskowski grew weary of his pugilistic role. Exchanging punches with a bunch of twenty-something upstarts no longer held any appeal. As such, he retired after the start of the 1988-89 campaign

For some reason, I only got this card signed of the 12 mainstream cards that were available. I have sent upwards of twenty cards to some players to sign so I don't know why I didn't. I had them but only sent two of these. Received blue sharpie signed card TTM.

But I did get his business card. For any requests I sent out, I asked the player if they had a business card or photo that they could send to me. Had a lot of success. Since he was the coach for the 94/51 season and part of the next season, that narrows down the time when I got this signed.

<> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <> CAREER NHL STATISTICS Years Teams GP G A TP PIM 1979-1988 CHI, LA, PIT, MIN 630 113 313 426 1,354

<> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <> <> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <><> <> CAREER NHL PLAYOFF STATISTICS Years Teams GP G A TP PIM 1980-1985 Chicago, Los Angeles 21 1 6 7 86

Terry's WHA stats were a very solid 337 points in 369 games, including 83 goals and 254 assists. He also had 761 PIMs.

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For the month of December, my total was 22 out of 31 days. around 70 %. Starting to get tougher and tougher.