The Loss of A Legend

A few years back, Caps winger T.J. Oshie started a successful hockey clothing line called Warroad, named after the small town in the far northern reaches of Minnesota where some of his ancestors lived before him.

Earlier this week, former NHL player Henry Boucha – a full-blooded Ojibwa Native American – passed away at the age of 72. Boucha was also born in Warroad in 1951, and the late Tim Oshie – T.J.’s father – was Boucha’s first cousin. Although Boucha’s own NHL career was senselessly cut short by one of the most violent on-ice incidents in the League’s history, he played a role in the development and advancement of Oshie’s own hockey career.

“Him and my dad were close,” says T.J. Oshie. “When they were together, they seemed like older brother and younger brother, but they were cousins.”

Oshie was born in Everett, Wash., and Boucha counseled Tim Oshie to allow T.J. to move to Warroad at a young age, believing he would face a higher level of competition in the hockey hotbed of Minnesota.

“I think I was out there [in Warroad] when I was 10 maybe, so 1996,” recalls Oshie. “And Hank – I call him Uncle Hank – he got me out there with my age group and I hit it off; I actually got into a fight with Gigi Marvin, surprisingly enough, and I think we both went off the ice crying.

“But Henry had been trying to get me and my family to move out to Warroad, where my grandparents grew up. Eventually, through some hardships in my family, Hank opened his door and I actually moved in with Henry by myself; I just started school and my dad came out a couple months later. I spent my first couple of months in Warroad in the room right next to Henry, and he got my hockey career going by opening his doors to me and introducing me to the town, and in getting me into the mix there in Warroad.”

Oshie proudly brought the Stanley Cup to Warroad in the summer of 2018 after the Caps won it. Like his Uncle Hank, Oshie also represented Team USA in the Olympics, famously starring in the shootout in the 2014 Sochi Games.

“Talking to Hank, you would get snippets of his past and his playing days,” recalls Oshie. “I can’t remember them off the top of my head, but some of them just didn’t seem like they could possibly be true, like stories of guys having cigarettes and shots of whisky in the locker room and stuff like that.

“As the years progressed, Henry moved out to the first hole of the local golf course. So every day when we were teeing off, we’d always stop and say hi to Uncle Hank. Sometimes we were greeted with a beverage that was a little stronger than we would like, but he would sit us down and tell us a quick story, and then we’d go find our balls by the green and continue with our round.”

A center during his NHL days, Boucha was a legendary high school player at Warroad High, where he played defense so he could remain on the ice for the entire 60 minutes if needed. Boucha played for Warroad’s varsity squad as an eighth-grader, and in his final game as a senior – a game played in front of more than 15,000 fans at the old Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, home of the Minnesota North Stars in those days – his squad lost the 1969 state championship game to Edina by a 5-4 score in overtime. Boucha departed that game with an injury in the second period after absorbing a hard check along the boards. The hit ruptured Boucha’s eardrum, and he was unable to return to the ice.

After high school, Boucha played a season of junior hockey in Winnipeg, then joined the U.S. Olympic Team. At the age of 20, Boucha played a big role in Team USA’s stunning silver medal finish at the Sapporo Games in 1972. Drafted by Detroit in the second round (16^th overall) of the 1971 NHL Entry Draft, Boucha led the U.S. National team in scoring in 1971-72 before embarking on his pro career. He also served in the U.S. Army, which released him from his obligation so that he could begin his pro career.

On Feb. 22, 1972, Boucha made his NHL debut with the Red Wings, facing Toronto in a game at the Detroit Olympia. With the Wings trailing 4-0 in the second period, Boucha beat Hall of Famer Jacques Plante for his first NHL goal, a tally that sparked a furious five-goal comeback in a 5-4 Detroit victory.

Boucha soon began wearing a headband to keep his dark, flowing locks from hindering his vision, and before long hockey-playing kids began sporting them as well. Following a 19-goal season for the Wings in 1973-74, Boucha was traded to the North Stars in exchange for former Calder Trophy winner Danny Grant, who erupted for 50 goals in his first season in Motown.

Playing in his home state, Boucha had a dozen goals for the Stars midway through the ’74-75 season, and he was on his way to his best season in the League to that point. But in a lopsided home game against Boston on Jan. 4, 1975, Boucha was the victim of a Dave Forbes butt-end that landed just above the right eye, opening a wound that required about 30 stitches to close.

Worse, Boucha’s vision was blurred in the aftermath of the incident, which resulted in Forbes eventually standing trial for a felony charge of aggravated assault in Hennepin County, Minn. The trial resulted in a hung jury.

Boucha returned to the ice about six weeks later, but his vision was never the same again. His depth perception was altered, and the blurriness persisted. He played the 1975-76 season with the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association, where his teammates included ex-Caps coach Bruce Boudreau. The Fighting Saints abruptly folded late in that season, and Boucha returned to the NHL with the Kansas City Scouts for the remaining weeks of the ’75-76 season. The Scouts transferred to Colorado for the ’76-77 season, and early that season, Boucha reluctantly retired from hockey at the age of 25.

Inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1995, Boucha worked in real estate, coached local hockey in the Warroad area, and gave numerous speeches in his role as a member of the NHL’s Diversity Task Force. In 2011, he established Boucha Films to produce documentaries on Native American Olympians.

“it’s hard for me to put into words how special Warroad is to me,” says Oshie. “And Hank did a pretty good job of doing it in his book [Henry Boucha, Ojibwa Native American Olympian]. I was brought up in Everett, and Warroad was this mythical place to me, a hockey haven where I got to go twice when I was a kid in the heart of winter. It was just this magical place that existed to me on the far, far other side of the earth.

“When we finally got there, we did my dad, my brother and my sister’s Native American naming ceremonies in Hank’s living room. He was just a super amazing person, and he was very influential on my life in those years of me becoming a high school hockey player and eventually, a young man.

“Hank was an amazing human being, and his life story is pretty fantastic, what he was able to accomplish. Obviously, I wasn't around to watch him play, but when I go around Minnesota, people seem to know that that Hank is my cousin, but he’s Uncle Hank to me. And just the impact that he had in so many people's lives in Minnesota is just amazing. He seems like royalty.”

Rest in peace, Henry Boucha.