"Hockey Hall of Fame Coach Scotty Bowman: 'Those four guys, they made all the difference'
The Grind Line, featuring some of the most popular athletes in Detroit sports history, is one of the most successful units in the history of the National Hockey League, and without peer among so-called 'fourth' lines, for those who insist on numbering them. Kris Draper, flanked by Kirk Maltby and Joe Kocur, and later Darren McCarty, deserve their rightful place in Detroit shoulder to shoulder with The Production Line – the most famous line in NHL history: Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay alongside Sid Abel, and later Alex Delvecchio, four men whose numbers hang from the rafters at Hockeytown's Little Caesars Arena. This book argues – and has the receipts to prove it – that the Grind Line was every bit as important in its era (1997-2009) as the Production Line was in the dynastic 1950s.
This is the remarkable story of how the Red Wings acquired all four players, one of them in a trade that cost Detroit $1 – for a player who went on to become only the fifth man to play more than 1,000 games for the club. Another was acquired in a trade that was widely considered a minor-league deal. The other two had to plead their way back to the NHL with Detroit after it appeared their careers were over. One of them had been playing beer-league senior hockey before his second chance, and he made it count by winning three Stanley Cup rings with the team.
Bowman, the Hall of Famer widely considered to be the greatest coach in the history of the sport, wrote the foreword to this book. And it's only fitting since he was most responsible for putting the line together and deploying it with lethal results.
