Gilles Gratton: Goalie, sailor, Spanish count & other things

Hockey was often the furthest thing from former New York Rangers goalie Gilles Gratton’s heart and mind.

Eccentric would be an understatement in describing former New York Rangers goalie Gilles Gratton.

The Quebec-native has streaked across the ice after practices, executed handstands in the shower, insisted he’s lived several past lives, lost playing time with the Blueshirts after a locker room confrontation with team captain Phil Esposito, and was banished to the minors by them after getting in the middle of a feud between their all-time scorer and general manager.

By all accounts, Gratton, now 68, was a talented goalie who might well have enjoyed a long and productive NHL career if not for the fact that he didn’t like playing hockey. Unlike his late older brother, Norm, who had an assist in three games as a Ranger in 1971-72, Gilles viewed hockey simply as his best way to make enough money to pursue other interests.

“I really didn’t want to play but I thought, ‘If I can make some money, then I can meditate, go to ashrams, do my spiritual stuff, and uncover life’s secrets,'” Gratton told Greg Oliver in Gratoony the Loony. “Like many in the 1970s, I had become interested in expanding my mind, though that had long been a part of my life anyway. …Meditating with the Monks in Tibet was something I always wanted to do as a kid. It was a dream of mine. I couldn’t wait to have enough money to travel. For me, hockey was a way to gather up enough money to travel, to fulfill my dreams.”

Gratton was taken in the fifth round (69th overall) of the 1972 Amateur Draft by the Buffalo Sabres. However, when the Ottawa Nationals of the World Hockey Association offered more money than the Sabres, he followed the green to Canada’s capital city. After three seasons in the WHA (the Nationals by then had moved to Toronto and became known as the Toros), Buffalo traded his NHL rights to St. Louis in July 1975.

The Blues, who had just signed their first-round pick, goalie Ed Staniowski, now had a three-headed goalie jam in their crease (sound familiar, Rangers fans?). Thus, a young goalie by the name of John Davidson became expendable and was traded to Broadway with winger Bill Collins for wingers Ted Irvine, Jerry Butler, and Bert Wilson.

Gratton hardly made a great first impression with the Blues.

Before he even played a single game in a St. Louis uniform, Gratton ran into Garry Young, an old acquaintance from their days together with the Ontario Hockey League’s Oshawa Generals. The two ran into each other shortly after Gratton was traded to the Blues. As Gratton recalled, the two got onto an elevator when Young asked, “How do you feel coming and playing with St. Louis?”

“I don’t give a f–k, as long as they pay me,” Gratton replied. “F–king hockey, I hate it.”

Unbeknownst to Gratton, Young was going to be announced as the head coach of the Blues.

“Five minutes later, I learn he’s my coach,” Gratton recalled. “I knew then that I was screwed. Sure enough, he gave me a hard-time from the get-go.”

Gratton played just six games for the Blues in the first two months of the 1975-76 season. Frustrated, he walked off the team after a game against the New York Islanders on November 28, claiming he wanted to return to Toronto to play for the Toros.  St Louis placed him on the “voluntary retired” but understandably refused to place him on waivers, blocking his attempt to sign with Toronto.

“When my agent called to tell me that the Rangers wanted to sign me I really didn’t want to play hockey anymore,”

Gratton eventually secured his release from the Blues and on March 24, 1976, signed with the Rangers, albeit reluctantly.

“When my agent called to tell me that the Rangers wanted to sign me I really didn’t want to play hockey anymore,” Gratton’s quoted in George Grimm’s Guardians of the Goal.

“Coming to New York was a mistake. I was out of shape. I hadn’t played in a year and I really didn’t want to play anymore. But I figured that John Davidson would play most of the games so I thought, well, I’ll go and sit on the bench, get into shape slowly, and get my money because I wanted to travel and go back to India. But J.D. got hurt right away and I had to play. That year was hell for me. I smoked pot every day when I was there.”

Gratton started and won the Rangers’ season-opener, 6-5, on October 6, 1976, at Madison Square Garden over the Minnesota North Stars. He went on to play 40 more games for the Blueshirts that season, finishing with an 11-18-7 record,  4.23 goals-against average, .859 save percentage, and zero shutouts.

Forty-one appearances in 80 matches wouldn’t be enough for the likes of Mike Richter, Henrik Lundqvist, and John Vanbiebrouck. But it was too many for Gratton, who feigned illness many times and even once told head coach John Ferguson that his planets were not aligned properly to avoid having to play.

It wasn’t until a run-in with Esposito that Gratton was told he was not playing anymore.

“I had a situation with (Esposito), a bit of a conflict, and a few days later I was told that I wouldn’t be playing again,” Gratton recalled.

“At that time Esposito was kind of king of the locker room, so I was told by Rod Gilbert, who I lived with, that there had been a meeting and that I was not going to be playing anymore. That was around January, I guess. After that (Ferguson) asked me to play a few times so I told him my planets were aligned. But that wasn’t true. I was just playing with his head. I just thought that since they told me I wasn’t going to play, I wasn’t going to play. So I told him my planets were not aligned or I had an injury from a past life.”

More from History

• Jacque Plante Trade Tree Between the Rangers and Canadiens
• Jean Ratelle Trade Tree Between the New York Rangers and Boston Bruins
• The Hilarious Tale Of the Mike Richter Trade Tree With Edmonton
• Mark Savard’s Trade Tree With the Calgary Flames in 1999
• Mark Messier’s Trade Tree Between the New York Rangers and Edmonton Oilers

According to an excerpt in Guardians of the Goal, “Gratton believed that in a past life he was a Spanish count who enjoyed throwing rocks at commoners and stoned people to death in Biblical times and that being a goaltender was his punishment for his deeds. He also thought his recurring abdominal pains were a result of being stabbed during the Spanish Inquisition.” He also insisted he had other past lives as a twelfth-century sailor, a fourteenth-century Indian hobo, a seventeenth-century Spanish landowner, and a nineteenth-century British surgeon.

None of that spelled Gratton’s demise on Broadway, however. Backing a teammate in a feud against the team’s general manager in training camp the following season did.

Gilbert and Ferguson “just didn’t like each other,” Gratton recalled. “Fergie had played the game with his fists (as a player with the Montreal Canadiens), and Rod was a skilled player who would skate away from conflict on the ice. They butted heads and Rod told the press that Fergie had lied to him. He also called him a moron and an egomaniac. A writer came to me and asked, ‘What do you think of Gilbert calling Fergie a liar?’ I just agreed: ‘Yeah, Fergie’s a liar.'”

Soon thereafter, Gratton was banished to the Rangers’ AHL affiliate, the New Haven Nighthawks, and never played another NHL game. In fact, he played just one game for the Nighthawks and lost after surrendering six goals, but even that wasn’t enough for the Blueshirts to cut ties with the 25-year-old goalie. Gratton’s end with the organization didn’t come until later that season when he told a Toronto reporter: “(New Haven) is a prison, but a well-paying prison. I am happy to take my money and do nothing.”

Gratton told his co-author Oliver that Ferguson placed him on waivers, asking for $40,000 in return from any team that claimed him. When no other clubs called, the Blueshirts finally decided to buy him out. Gratton was unapologetic, telling Oliver: “(Players) talk about pride and desire, but they are all hypocrites. Give a man $200,000 and he’ll forget all about the Stanley Cup. Money changes everything.

Gratton does have at least one hockey-related regret, that of having left behind his trademark lion mask, which he says was inspired while reading National Geographic. After receiving his buyout from the Rangers, Gratton abandoned the mask (and all his goalie equipment) when he bolted for an ashram in India.

“I should have taken my mask with me,” recalled Gratton, “because I would have gotten a lot of money for it today.”