Maloney Brothers Finally Reunited by Rangers (Published 1979) (2024)

It took 12 years, including their turbulent teens, but the Maloney brothers from the Ontario farm country were reunited last month as teammates on the New York Rangers.

Well, actually, only two of the brothers, Don and Dave, were reunited. Bob, the one who is supposed to be the best skater, is picking oranges on a kibbutz in Israel.

“The last time we played together I was 10 years old and Don was 8,” says the Ranger captain, Dave Maloney. “Although we were on different teams after that, we always had competitive jealousy. Each of us would be wanting our folks to be at our games. And there was always talk by other people over which of us was the best player.

“We lived on the farm with 100 acres, and when we fought, mother booted us outside and whatever happened, happened. We had all that room to fight in. Now, we appreciate each other.”

At 22, Dave is the oldest of the three hockey‐playing Maloney boys. Bob is 21 and Don, the Rangers’ top choice of the 1978 amateur draft, called up a month ago from the minors, is 20.

Mention the Maloneys to the Ranger assistant coach, Mike Nykoluk, and there is a wide smile.

“Those Maloney kids,” says Nyko luk, “Money doesn't mean nothing to them. They put on that uniform, and they try like heck.”

Dave is the youngest captain in the club's 53 seasons. When he appeared briefly for the Rangers at the age of 18 in 1974, he was the youngest player to wear their uniform. Although he performed in only a few games, observers were impressed with his settled attitude. Most players knew, after a few seasons, that he would be the team leader.

And when Phil Esposito suddenly decided, the day before this season opened, that the captaincy was a burden and resigned, Coach Fred Shero immediately named Maloney to take over.

His Style Is Control

His style on defense is traditional; he doesn't run wild with the puck. It is rare to find such sophistication in a young defenseman.

So the New Yorkers made him their No. 1 draft choice and then, in a move unusual even in this era of watered‐down talent, gave him his chance as a teen‐ager. Not too many years ago defensem*n rarely saw action until they were well into their 20's. Of the five skaters on the ice, the defenders have to be the headiest and the calmest. They are, after all, the last line of defense.

Don, a left wing, has never been much of a scorer. But he has presence, with a knack for holding onto the puck while around him 17,000 people scream and players charge.

Since arriving and being teamed with Esposito, he has probably been the big center's most effective left wing since Espo played with Wayne Cashman at Boston.

Indeed, in Don's first game he fed Esposito such a perfect pass from a difficult angle that Esposito wasn't expecting it and missed it.

“I'll never do that again, baby,” he told Maloney.

Through his junior career Don was a feeder, not a scorer. Last season with the Kitchener Rangers — in a league that produced nine players with 50 or more goals — Don had only 30. But he also had 74 assists in only 62 games. In 38 games the season before that, he registered 34 assists with 22 goals.

Don continued to be a playmaker, rather than a scorer, this season, when the Rangers assigned him to their New Haven farm. Before coming up to the National Hockey League, he played 38 games in the American League, with 18 goals and 26 assists.

He has done even better in the big league. In the first 21 games since his arrival he amassed 17 assists, an unusually high number for a winger, and seven goals. In those 21 games, Esposito tallied 15 times, with Don assisting on nine of the scores.

Aide to Esposito

Dave says: “When he came up, I told Don, ‘They brought you here to play your game. Don't go running around’ “.

“My game is in the corners,” Don concedes. “I'll never be a great scorer.”

According to Nykoluk, “Don Maloney is the kind of player Espo needs — go in the corner, muck around, get the puck to him.”

When Don came up from New Haven, Nykoluk took aside Esposito and the right wing on the line, Don Murdoch, and told them not to wander behind the net, but to stay in scoring position. “Let him go in there and get the puck for you,” Nykoluk advised them.

Bob, the middle brother, is the best skater among the brothers, but he didn't have “that extra zip,” according to Dave. So Bob took a football scholarship at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He got restless there, though, and left recently to begin his travels. He started in Europe, and found a cheap flight to Israel some months ago. For now, that is home.

Brotherly Help

“I used to tight with Bob more,” said Dave. “Once we got so tangled up my mother had to separate us by hitting us with a broom.”

Although Dave has been known to smash tennis racquets in fits of anger, it is difficult to imagine the Maloneys fighting among themselves. Don speaks often with gratitude over the way Dave helped him in New York.

“It's an advantage having my brother on the team,” he said. “New York's such a big city you feel intimidated. He tells me where to go.”

And Dave admires his younger brother, “who has had to work so much harder than I did. Things were always easier for me.”

Dave followed the traditional Canadian route to a professional career. There was no outstanding team near Lindsay, where he grew up, so he was shipped to Kitchener. Finally, at the age of 15, he was sent to Toronto, where he played for a prep school.

“My father never could imagine going to Toronto when he was 15,” says Dave. “It was unheard of in St. Columbin, to leave the farm for the big bad city and look at the girls at that age.”

When Don was called up to the big club from New Haven last month, his parents and aunt and uncle came to Madison Square Garden. In his first shift, and with his first shot, he scored.

But Don was only doing his job. That is what Dave has been trying to explain to him and to anyone else who is curious about what life is like for brothers on the same team in a big‐league sport.

“People have to realize that we're here to play,” says Dave. “We're the last ones out of the locker room.”

“There's no place to go,” adds Don.

“It's our own little world, the locker room,” says Dave. “It's our home together.”