Why Victor Mancini Reminds The Maven Of New York Rangers Legend Brad Park
Attending the Blueshirts training camp in Kingston, Ont., I was scanning prospects for the 1968-69 season and found one who appeared ready to crack the lineup.
Emile “The Cat” Francis, who ran the Rangers, also studied his potential ace. Al Hamilton was a tall, rangy defenseman who intrigued me.
“He’s The Cat’s favorite prospect,” said Gerry Eskenazi of the Times. “Emile likes him a lot.”
After I took a few looks at Hamilton, I wasn’t too crazy about him, but there was a smaller blueliner who really caught my eye. His name was Brad Park and I sat down with the Toronto native and his parents after the workout.
“It looks like I’m gonna wind up in Buffalo,” Park was saying (At the time Buffalo was the Blueshirts’ AHL farm team). “But I sure would like to make the big club.”
As I saw it, Park belonged on the Rangers right then and then. Park was better than the big Hamilton guy in every which way but height.
Park’s problem was that he wasn’t one of Cat Francis’ personal favorites and, personally, I never forgave him for that bit of hardheadedness.
Sure enough, Hamilton made the varsity and Park shuffled off to Buffalo. But not for long. Big Al was a flub on Broadway and medium-sized Brad was playing big-time hockey in Buffalo.
