Redmond's back problems torpedoed his career 50 years ago

As news hits that the longtime Red Wings TV analyst faces neck and vertebrae surgery, yours truly recalls the end of his playing career.

Bingo-bango—it’s neck surgery.

Mickey Redmond, whose analysis of Red Wings games on television goes back some 40 years, will be away from the booth until March as he recovers from neck surgery.

More specifically, it’s cervical fusion, which joins two or more vertebrae in the neck to stop movement between them and reduce pain.

"This has been in the works probably for six months or so, six, seven months," Redmond told the Free Press on Sunday afternoon. "It has gotten progressively worse in my neck and with my arm and shoulder and things like that.”

Redmond described his situation as “9 out of 10 bad.”

I don’t know if even Mickey is aware of this, but it was 50 years ago this month that Redmond played his last game for the Red Wings, his career cut short at age 28.

That, too, was back-related.

Redmond was the main piece that GM Ned Harkness wanted from the Canadiens when he sent Frank Mahovlich to Montreal for three players—an entire forward line (Redmond, Bill Collins and Guy Charron)—in January 1971.

Mickey was 23 years old, had great potential but was buried in the depth of the Habs roster in those days.

It was perhaps the best trade that Harkness made as the Red Wings GM—although it doesn’t have much competition.

Redmond played for Team Canada in the celebrated series with the USSR in 1972.

Mickey became the Red Wings’ first 50-goal scorer, and he did it in two consecutive seasons (1973 and 1974). I was in attendance when Mickey scored #50 in March 1974, as he blasted his lethal slapshot past the Rangers’ Eddie Giacomin from the top of the face-off circle. My seeing that in person was made possible by Mickey scoring a hat trick in the previous game, giving him 49 goals.

But then things went downhill as his back betrayed him.

It cropped up in the 1974-75 season, as Redmond played in just 29 games, though he managed to score 15 goals—a 40-goal pace.

What was mysterious is that no one seemed to be able to figure out what was wrong. All Mickey knew was that he had numbness in his right leg, and thus couldn’t push off the leg properly, robbing him of his skating ability.

He even went to the Mayo Clinic for help.

After some rest and rehab, Mickey gave it another go in fall 1975, but it didn’t go well. He suffered through 37 games, scoring 11 goals, when he was finally taken out of the lineup for the rest of the season.

His last appearance was Jan. 18, 1976—50 years and one day ago.

Then Redmond got into a tiff with GM Alex Delvecchio, his former coach and teammate.

Their relationship was already frosty because of Alec’s frustration with the mysterious back injury.

It got worse when Redmond was photographed in the summer of 1976 playing tennis, by a Free Press photographer. Mickey and the photog had a brief confrontation.

After Delvecchio saw the photos in the next day’s paper, he was, shall we say, perturbed.

Redmond insisted the tennis playing was part of his rehab; Delvecchio wondered why Mickey could play tennis but not hockey.

It was moot; Redmond’s career was over.

He reported to training camp in September 1976 but quickly made it official: he was retiring.

Redmond had scored 233 goals in 538 games—about a 30-goal per season pace. His was a blistering shot and he could skate like the wind. After the two 50-goal seasons, it looked like Redmond was going to be a superstar. He was just headed into his prime.

But his back betrayed him.

Yet that wasn’t the end of Mickey Redmond on the ice.

In 1979, at age 31, the itch to play again, plus the curiosity getting the best of him, led to Redmond announcing that he was going to make a comeback.

Ironically, Frank Mahovlich, the man the Red Wings traded to get Redmond in 1971, ALSO announced a comeback attempt with Detroit. The Big M was 41 years old and hadn’t played since the 1977-78 season, in the WHA.

Mahovlich’s comeback lasted through camp and all the exhibition games before the Red Wings cut him.

Redmond?

Just a few days after taking the ice with Red Wings rookies in Glens Falls, NY, Mickey called it quits—for good this time. The back didn’t hold up.

At the time, while Detroit hockey observers were saddened, it was suggested that Mickey hitch on with ON-TV, a paid service that covered Red Wings and Tigers home games. Maybe Redmond would be good in the booth, eh?

And thus launched his decorated broadcasting career, which included some formative years as one of the voices for Hockey Night in Canada.

Today Redmond is 78, still doing his thing for the Red Wings and he plans on returning to the booth in March. He is a Detroit hockey institution.

Here’s hoping that the surgery will take care of his pain and suffering for good. His back robbed him of many more playing years, but it looks like it’s not going to derail his broadcasting gig, even at his age.

Bingo-bango!