The Game I'll Never Forget - Terry Ruskowski recalls game that won the World Hockey Association's Avco Cup
Hockey Digest, Feb, 2001 by Chuck O'Donnell
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Terry Ruskowski
The perennial leader recalls how a team once divided came together to, win the final Avco Cup title
I HAD ONE OF THE WORST injuries of my career--a hyperextended shoulder or a sprained shoulder or something--during the 1979 World Hockey Association Finals. Whatever-I had done to my shoulder, I had trouble just putting on my Winnipeg Jets jersey because I couldn't raise my arm over my head.
Someone had checked me into the boards during our Finals series with the Edmonton Oilers. My shoulder was so sore, I sat out Game 5. There were a couple of days between Game 5 and Game 6, so the trainers worked on it nonstop. They treated it with therapy and messaging and all that.
Before Game 6, coach Tom McVie approached me in the locker room. "Can you play?" McVie asked. I was a young kid back then. I didn't know any better so I just looked at him. "Oh yeah, I can play," I said. It didn't matter that I could barely move my arm, I was going to play in Game 6--although I knew that there was no way I would be able to play if the series had to go the distance. It was pretty amazing that we were just one victory away from winning the Avco Cup considering everything we had been through that season. What a weird year. In November, Bobby Hull retired. Then, our captain, defenseman Lars-Erik Sjoberg, was lost for a chunk of the season with an injury. Veteran defenseman Ted Green retired. When the Indianapolis Racers folded during the season, that left only six teams in the league, and every team was really good.
We were hovering in the middle of the pack for most of the season. One of our biggest problems was that the team was splint into two factions. On one side of the room, you have the Jets On the other side, you had all the players the Jets obtained when the Houston Aeros folded. John Ferguson was brought in as the team's new general manager. Eventually Ferguson's patience ran thin and coach Larry Hillman was fired. Ferguson brought in McVie with about 40 games remaining in the season.


