DU Alum Keith Magnuson Still Remembered
Editors Note: Keith Magnuson died in an automobile accident in 2003. This article appeared soon thereafter. Magnuson won two National Championships at DU before playing for the Chicago Blackhawks from 1969-1980.By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun
Thirty plus years later, Maggy is still there, right in the cornfield where DU Alum Cliff Koroll left him.
"The thing about snipes," Stan Mikita had told the young Keith Magnuson, "is they only come when you call them."
They probably broke in Howie Morenz with the snipe gag. NHL veterans speak knowledgeably of the hunt. Rookies, eager to be accepted, are volunteered.
Snipes don't exist, of course, but the cops brought in on the gag to bust the rookies for trespassing are real enough.
"I was about six rows of corn behind him," Koroll was saying, "just killing myself laughing. You could hear Maggy for miles, yelling 'Here snipes. Here snipes.'
"That was the thing about Maggy. He was so competitive, and so gullible."
They grew up in Saskatoon. Koroll was the goal scorer, Magnuson the red-headed barbarian, whose face always held out longer than the fists punching it.
"I brought Maggy to the University of Denver the year after I got there and I was responsible for keeping him there," Koroll said. "We knew each other for 45 years.
"Maggy was a guy who wrote himself a lot of notes. We would sneak into his room and read the notes and they were things like, 'wake up,' or 'brush teeth.' One day, he came out and asked us if we knew anyone named Bill. We racked our brains trying to remember who Bill was until we looked at the note. It said 'phone bill.' "
As rare as the snipe was the fight Keith Magnuson won.
"Maggy told me about the time we were playing Philadelphia," said Troy Murray, a longtime Chicago Blackhawk. "The Flyers were a pretty bad bunch and we were winning big.
''Every Flyer who came over the boards wanted to fight Maggy. Back in those days, you could go from fight to fight. Anyway, Maggy would fight one guy, get through, and there would be another guy waiting for him. He would finish and it would be 'Next.' ''
When an attempt was made to knock down the great Bobby Hull or bait the once-combustible Mikita, the men on the Blackhawks bench knew what was next.
The record book shows 11 seasons, 14 goals, 1,442 penalty minutes for Keith Magnuson. Koroll put Magnuson's career fighting record at 2-97.
"If you would have asked Maggy, he would have told you it was 97-2," Murray said. "He knew it wasn't whether you won or lost the fight. What mattered was showing up."
Keith Magnuson showed up every time. When Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz asked him to coach in 1980, he took the job and lasted a respectable two years.
Magnuson, Koroll, Dennis Hull and a few others organized the Hawks alumni association.
The alumni have awarded 54 scholarships to Chicago-and-area hockey players. The kid's skill level did not matter, only that he played.
.
NOBLE WARRIOR
Magnuson was a sales executive with Coca-Cola, but it was in the service to the game that he died Monday. He was in the Toronto area for the funeral of an ex-NHLer, Keith McCreary, when a car driven by one-time Maple Leaf Rob Ramage was involved in a horrific accident. The passenger side of the car was obliterated. So died a noble warrior, on a trip to pay respects to a player who never wore the Blackhawks red.
Keith Magnuson was a Blackhawk, and if that sounds quaint, patriarchal and outdated, well, it is.
But the warrior was important to Magnuson and to the acre-wide field of comrades he called his friends.
"That symbol, the Indian warrior, meant more to Maggy than to anyone else I've ever known," Murray said.
Now, from outside the fishbowl, the Chicago Blackhawks are a dysfunctional mess headed by Wirtz, the last pillar of the old-guard NHL, and Bob Pulford, his silver-haired gofer.
But you should know that four men -- Wirtz, broadcaster Dale Tallon, Pulford and Koroll -- arrived at Cindy Magnuson's door a few minutes behind the news of her husband's death.
Wirtz worked the phones, spoke to police and hospital staff, called funeral homes and arranged to bring Keith Magnuson, a Prairie son, home to Chicago.
The delegation left the Magnuson home at 3 a.m. when Cindy had safely passed into sleep.
Cliff Koroll left for work and his first day in 45 years without the redhead in the cornfield, the one who fought many and hated none.
"The thing about snipes," Stan Mikita had told the young Keith Magnuson, "is they only come when you call them."
They probably broke in Howie Morenz with the snipe gag. NHL veterans speak knowledgeably of the hunt. Rookies, eager to be accepted, are volunteered.
Snipes don't exist, of course, but the cops brought in on the gag to bust the rookies for trespassing are real enough.
"I was about six rows of corn behind him," Koroll was saying, "just killing myself laughing. You could hear Maggy for miles, yelling 'Here snipes. Here snipes.'
"That was the thing about Maggy. He was so competitive, and so gullible."
They grew up in Saskatoon. Koroll was the goal scorer, Magnuson the red-headed barbarian, whose face always held out longer than the fists punching it.
"I brought Maggy to the University of Denver the year after I got there and I was responsible for keeping him there," Koroll said. "We knew each other for 45 years.
"Maggy was a guy who wrote himself a lot of notes. We would sneak into his room and read the notes and they were things like, 'wake up,' or 'brush teeth.' One day, he came out and asked us if we knew anyone named Bill. We racked our brains trying to remember who Bill was until we looked at the note. It said 'phone bill.' "
As rare as the snipe was the fight Keith Magnuson won.
"Maggy told me about the time we were playing Philadelphia," said Troy Murray, a longtime Chicago Blackhawk. "The Flyers were a pretty bad bunch and we were winning big.
''Every Flyer who came over the boards wanted to fight Maggy. Back in those days, you could go from fight to fight. Anyway, Maggy would fight one guy, get through, and there would be another guy waiting for him. He would finish and it would be 'Next.' ''
When an attempt was made to knock down the great Bobby Hull or bait the once-combustible Mikita, the men on the Blackhawks bench knew what was next.
The record book shows 11 seasons, 14 goals, 1,442 penalty minutes for Keith Magnuson. Koroll put Magnuson's career fighting record at 2-97.
"If you would have asked Maggy, he would have told you it was 97-2," Murray said. "He knew it wasn't whether you won or lost the fight. What mattered was showing up."
Keith Magnuson showed up every time. When Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz asked him to coach in 1980, he took the job and lasted a respectable two years.
Magnuson, Koroll, Dennis Hull and a few others organized the Hawks alumni association.
The alumni have awarded 54 scholarships to Chicago-and-area hockey players. The kid's skill level did not matter, only that he played.
.
NOBLE WARRIOR
Magnuson was a sales executive with Coca-Cola, but it was in the service to the game that he died Monday. He was in the Toronto area for the funeral of an ex-NHLer, Keith McCreary, when a car driven by one-time Maple Leaf Rob Ramage was involved in a horrific accident. The passenger side of the car was obliterated. So died a noble warrior, on a trip to pay respects to a player who never wore the Blackhawks red.
Keith Magnuson was a Blackhawk, and if that sounds quaint, patriarchal and outdated, well, it is.
But the warrior was important to Magnuson and to the acre-wide field of comrades he called his friends.
"That symbol, the Indian warrior, meant more to Maggy than to anyone else I've ever known," Murray said.
Now, from outside the fishbowl, the Chicago Blackhawks are a dysfunctional mess headed by Wirtz, the last pillar of the old-guard NHL, and Bob Pulford, his silver-haired gofer.
But you should know that four men -- Wirtz, broadcaster Dale Tallon, Pulford and Koroll -- arrived at Cindy Magnuson's door a few minutes behind the news of her husband's death.
Wirtz worked the phones, spoke to police and hospital staff, called funeral homes and arranged to bring Keith Magnuson, a Prairie son, home to Chicago.
The delegation left the Magnuson home at 3 a.m. when Cindy had safely passed into sleep.
Cliff Koroll left for work and his first day in 45 years without the redhead in the cornfield, the one who fought many and hated none.
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