Jeff Odgers:

Chip-it-off-the-boards type of guy

As told to: Steve Matthes

I was tooling around with some Mission sticks. I had this one stick that I just loved but was scared to use it in a game. It was a little bit of a different curve and it was way out of my comfort zone. I was going to use it for the guys but I would always chicken out.

So Andrew Brunette and Ray Ferraro went and hid all my other sticks. I go down the wing, it’s my first shift of the game, and I take a wrist shot. To my surprise, it’s just a missile, off the bar and in. So I skate by the bench and I make a big M for Mission Hockey by the bench like The Village People did for YMCA, y’know? The guys are absolutely killing themselves laughing. Hey, they hid my sticks; I had no choice but to use this stick before the game. I kept it for a while and then I realized I couldn’t play with it. It was great to shoot with but I was more of a chip-it-off-the-boards type of guy. I didn’t get too many one-timers in a slot to fully utilize it if you know what I mean.

****

I always drove a big truck. One of those Ford F350 Diesel ones. And I had a big trailer hitch on the back. In Atlanta, the airport parking where we flew out was always really tight. This one time I pulled in and just whipped it right to back into a stall. So I throw it in reverse and unbeknownst to me, Brunette had just pulled in behind me. So him and Denny Lambert are behind me, and he’s in his wife’s Saab or Audi or whatever. I couldn’t see them with this big truck so I started backing up and all of a sudden, bang. I ran my trailer hitch right through the hood of his car.

But I didn’t know what was up. So I go forward, come back and I hit the gas again. I rammed this trailer hitch right through the hood of his car even deeper. Him and Denny are in the car and I’m on top of them with my giant truck. The only thing that would have made this whole situation better is if the airbags would have went off. I hit him up so high on the top of the hood that I was even above the bumper, but I ran right over his car. I think I had to put it in four-wheel drive to get off the hood.

Ferraro was sitting beside Brunette and he said that as he was trying to sleep on the way to wherever we were going. Every 10 minutes Brunette would go, “I can’t believe Odgers ran over my car.”

****

We were in New Jersey towards the end of the year and we were doing these line rushes in practice. And for whatever reason I decided that I’m going to be Mr. Fancy. I come down and try and put a puck through my legs against a d-man. I ended up stepping on the puck, going 100 miles an hour, and I go head first into the end boards (with) the guys all laughing. Then they realize I’m not getting up. I’m really hurt. I ran my neck right into the end boards so they pretty much carried me off. It was so stupid it was funny. What was I really trying to do with putting the puck between my legs? That was not my game in the first place.

Well, after they found out I wasn’t going to die they all had a good laugh.

(This is an excerpt from the Jeff Odgers Podcast on Pulphockey.com. If you want to hear the whole thing, visit http://www.pulphockey.com/ or get the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher app)