Chicago Blackhawks To Honor Al Secord With “One More Shift”

Al Secord, one of only three Chicago Blackhawks to ever score 50 goals in a season, will be honored with “One Last Shift” before Sunday’s game against the New Jersey Devils

Al Secord spent twelve seasons in the NHL.  Eight of those seasons were playing with the Chicago Blackhawks, where he was part of arguably the most prolific line in Chicago Blackhawks history. Now he’ll get one more shift with the team, as the Blackhawks announced this week he’d receive that honor ahead of Sunday’s game against the New Jersey Devils.

Secord lined up with Hockey Hall of Famer Denis Savard and should-be Hockey Hall of Famer Steve Larmer, and they put the madhouse in the “Madhouse on Madison.”

In the 1982-83 season, the line of Secord-Savard-Larmer combined for 298 points (133G, 165A).  In that season, Secord scored 54 goals, joining Bobby Hull as the only other Blackhawk to score 50 or more goals in a season.  Jeremy Roenick would join that club later.

By the numbers

Secord did not just have a scoring touch.  He was a power forward who also used his fists to provide power.  In the same season when he had scored 54 goals, he also had 180 penalty minutes.

Back then, seasons were also only 80 games long.  Take away the three full games of penalty minutes he spent in the box that season, and he scored 54 goals in just 77 games.  The prior year he scored 44 goals and accumulated 303 penalty minutes.

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I would like anyone to find a player in a two-year span who had numbers adding up to 160 games played, 161 points (98G, 63A) with 483 penalty minutes!  He was the tough guy to protect Savard in case anyone wanted to have their way with a cheap shot.  He backed down from no one.

Secord was part of three Blackhawks teams that would make it to the conference finals in a span of four years.  Unfortunately, they came up short to the Vancouver Canucks (1983) and the juggernaut Edmonton Oilers (1985 and 1986).

When you think Secord, you think true power forward.  In those eight season with the Blackhawks, his stats were: 466 games, 372 points (213G, 159A) and 1,426 penalty minutes.

Back then, Blackhawks fans my age thought that the mid-80s were the glory years.  The decibel levels of the noise coming from Chicago Stadium from either a Secord goal or a knockdown, drag-out fight was what hockey was back then.

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Secord will get his night Sunday before the New Jersey Devils game, but the Blackhawks should take that one step further and bring back the entire Secord-Savard-Larmer line, for “One More Shift.”