I usually don’t post twice in one week, let alone twice in one hour, but literally five minutes after my last post, I read that former Seals executive vice-president, the famously bow-tied William “Bill” Torrey has passed away at 83.Torrey was hired after the Seals’ awful first NHL season, and right away, he helped Frank Selke Jr. and Fred Glover turn the Seals (briefly) into a winner. The 1968-69 Seals remain the franchise’s benchmark for greatness, however fleeting it might have been. Selke called the three of them the “Three Musketeers”, and they should have been able to keep the franchise together, but Charlie Finley wanted everyone to sign new contracts when he bought the Seals. Selke and Torrey, lifelong friends, refused. Selke left first, and then Finley offered Torrey the general manager’s job, which was an excellent move. Had Charlie Finley not constantly interfered with Torrey, he probably would have remained in Oakland instead of moving on to greener pastures. I always remember that scene in Mark Greczmiel’s documentary where Finley announces he knows absolutely nothing about hockey, and then the camera shows the exasperation in Torrey’s face. He knew right then and there it was going to be a lonnnnnnng season, and he was right, to an extent. It was a very long season for the Seals, but not for Torrey. His departure in late 1970 is yet another of those “what if” questions we all ask ourselves when we talk about the Seals.
The Seals had a lot of brilliant and talented people in their organization, at one time or another. You can talk about the brilliance of Gilles Meloche, the speed of Dennis Maruk, the raw skill of Reggie Leach. Even Garry Young proved that you can create a pretty good team if you scout the players properly. But none was as cerebral as Bill Torrey. Of course, as everyone knows, Torrey was best known as the architect of the New York Islanders’ dynasty of the early 1980s. The Islanders became one of the greatest teams in sports history in due part to Torrey’s exceptional talent as a builder and general manager. He was crafty enough to know that bloodsucking Original Six teams like Montreal wanted nothing more than to fleece expansion teams like the Islanders by dangling middling talent or fading veterans in their face in exchange for high draft picks. Torrey always refused to take the bait. He knew that they way to build a champion, was through the draft. It was true then, and it’s true now. You wonder how a team like the Canadiens has fallen on such hard times of late. I’ll tell you why: bad drafting. By 1975, just three years into their existence, the Islanders were winners. By year eight, they were Stanley Cup Champs, mainly because Torrey did his homework and drafted future Hall of Famers like Denis Potvin, Clark Gillies, Bryan Trottier, and Mike Bossy (who many other teams thought was too soft to play in the NHL; Torrey was not fooled by those less-than-accurate scouting reports), not to mention other solid players like Bob Nystrom, Billy Harris, and Chico Resch. Torrey also drafted a future Hall-of-Fame goaltender, Billy Smith, in the 1972 expansion draft. Torrey’s decision-making abilities were nearly flawless, and in the history of the NHL, only a handful of general managers could hold a candle to Bill Torrey.
R.I.P.