Kevin McCarthy, Part 1: Intro, Trade, and Investigation
Featured on pages 40 & 41 of the 1980–81 Vancouver Canucks Family Cook Book, and indexed under jersey number 25, is the Canucks’ captain at the time of cookbook publication, Kevin McCarthy, along with his wife, Rhonda, and their dog (with the worst dog’s name of all time), Shannon.
The McCarthys, we learn, had just completed a summer full of exciting activities such as visiting Washington (state) and building a retaining wall at their house in Burnaby.
What we don’t learn from the cookbook (in part, to be fair, because it preceded much of it) is that Kevin McCarthy was in the middle of a five-year tenure with the Canucks that was full of controversy, featuring a disputed trade, a fateful suspension resulting from the 1982 Quebec City brawl, and the heartbreaking loss of his captaincy.
In between it all, McCarthy rose to become one of the Canucks’ top defencemen, their team captain at age 22, and an NHL All-Star with a reputation as a fiercely intense player.
Kevin McCarthy was acquired by the Canucks from the Philadelphia Flyers (along with Drew Callander) on December 29, 1978, in exchange for winger Dennis Ververgaert.
The trade was not particularly well-received in Philadelphia, where McCarthy had just been the Flyers’ first round draft pick in 1977 and was coming off a solid ‘77–78 rookie season.
The Flyers, though, had a logjam of defencemen, and McCarthy had expressed frustration over his lack of playing time. Towards the end of his rookie season, McCarthy suffered a knee injury, and by the time he was healthy again, found himself surpassed on the defensive depth chart by his replacement, Rick LaPointe.¹
The following season, Flyers coach Bob McCammon took to dressing only five defensemen for many games, and trusting only the top four with much ice-time.² McCarthy found himself frequently fifth or sixth in line and therefore the odd man out, and, touted as an offensive defenceman, had managed just three points in 21 games before the trade.
Flyers general manager Keith Allen, meanwhile, had been trying to acquire Ververgaert for at least two years, finding his previous trade offers refused.³ With Ververgaert now rumoured to be on the trading block⁴, Allen offered up Kevin McCarthy to get the deal done.
“I hated to give up a kid like McCarthy,” said Allen after the trade. “He’s the real gung-ho type. But I don’t think Ververgaert has reached his potential. I just hope, surrounded with a little better team, he’ll be able to do just that.”³
Ververgaert, in retrospect widely considered to be one of the Canucks’ top players of the 1970s, had been starting to fall out of favour in Vancouver. His goal-scoring had fallen from a career-high 37 in 1975–76 to 21 the season before the trade, and he found himself also in a battle for ice-time, having been a healthy scratch for the first time in his NHL career in October 1978.⁴ He had also been frequently criticized by the local Vancouver media, with whom he had a contentious relationship.⁵
“I had great sentiment for Vancouver my first two years here, but the last three have been tough,” Ververgaert admitted a few months after the trade.³
His struggles continued in Philadelphia, and he was released by the Flyers after his second season with them. He ended up retiring from the NHL at the age of 28 after one final season with the Washington Capitals.
McCarthy, meanwhile, eventually excelled with the Canucks, taking over as captain the following season and quickly becoming the team’s top offensive defenceman. In the 1980–81 season, he recorded a career-high 53 points and was named to the 1981 All-Star game.
“There’s no getting around it,” admitted Flyers GM Keith Allen of the trade, two years later. “I blew it.”⁶
Although the trade eventually turned out to be a good one for Vancouver, McCarthy’s time with the Canucks didn’t get off to a very good start.
It began when McCarthy was given the news that he’d been traded to the Canucks. He was at the airport, due to fly with his teammates to St. Louis, but instead had to re-route to Los Angeles, where he played that night for the Canucks against the Kings (the Canucks lost 4–3).
McCarthy reportedly broke down crying at the news of the trade.⁷ Despite his on-ice struggles, he’d just gotten married to Rhonda over the summer, bought a house in the Philadelphia area, and formed a close bond with his mentor, Flyers captain Bobby Clarke.
“I went to the agent to pick up my boarding pass… but there wasn’t one for me,” recalled McCarthy.³
To make matters worse, the game in L.A. would turn out to be McCarthy’s first and only as a Canuck that season, as he re-aggravated what was apparently an existing hip condition, ultimately requiring surgery that kept him out for the rest of the season.
The Canucks, feeling as though they’d been dealt damaged goods by the Flyers, asked NHL president John Zeigler to investigate, requesting financial or draft pick compensation from the Flyers.
Although Flyers GM Keith Allen denied any knowledge of an injury, McCarthy himself said that his hip had been especially bothering him since November, and that he’d been undergoing “intensive heat treatments” prior to playing.
“I know myself that I wasn’t 100 percent when I was traded,” said McCarthy.⁸
However, according to Flyers’ trainer Matt DiPaolo, it was nothing serious — just a case of the old “clicking hip.”
“He’s had it since he was a youngster, the thing actually made noises like snap, crackle, pop, but it never kept him out of the lineup,” DiPaolo said.⁹
(In fact, McCarthy had sat out nine games with the Flyers earlier in the season, but the team denied it was due to injury.)
McCarthy, forced now to sit out the rest of the season, never felt quite at home in Vancouver that year.
“Not playing, I felt like I was more a part of Philadelphia than Vancouver,” he recalled a couple of years later.⁶
Without either Ververgaert or McCarthy in the lineup, the Canucks won just two of their next 17 games and stumbled to a 27–37–16 record, losing in the first round of the playoffs to Gilbert Perreault and the Buffalo Sabres.
As for the investigation into the trade, it seemed to come to an uncertain conclusion; the league sent a “statement of facts” to the teams in March without any apparent judgement.
“As far as I can tell there’s no decision in it,” said Flyers GM Keith Allen. “It didn’t blame me or suggest any resolution. I’m surely not going to ask about it.”¹⁰
[1] Flannery, Mary. (1978, May 8). Flyers LaPointed in Right Direction. Philadelphia Daily News.
[2] Greenberg, Jay. (1978, Dec 26). Will Flyers Make a Trade for Wing Help? Philadelphia Daily News.
[3] Ronberg, Gary. (1978, Dec 30). Flyers Trade McCarthy for Canucks’ Ververgaert. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
[4] Olson, Arv. (1978, Oct 28). Ververgaert used to rumor barrage. The Vancouver Sun.
[5] McDonald, Archie. (1979, Jul 14). Ververgaert’s attack on writers sheds light on uneasy relationship. The Vancouver Sun.
[6] Greenberg, Jay. (1981, Feb 12). McCarthy is Flyers’ ‘one that got away’ Philadelphia Daily News.
[7] Greenberg, Jay. (1979, Feb 20). Ex-Flyer McCarthy Calls It A Season. Philadelphia Daily News.
[8] Ronberg, Gary. (1979, Feb 23). Canucks want penalty from Flyers. The Philadelphia Inquirer.
[9] Greenberg, Jay. (1979, Feb 15). Canucks Say Flyers Dealt a Lemon. Philadelphia Daily News.
[10] Greenberg, Jay. (1979, Mar 29). New Playoff Crowded. Philadelphia Daily News.
