Maloney recalls Sasson commercial, good times playing with Duguay for Rangers

TORONTO -- Dave Maloney was never surprised to see how Ron Duguay valiantly fought his battle with cancer. 

It was with a positive attitude and a zest for life that had come to define the way Duguay lived until he died Thursday at the age of 69.

“It was commendable, it was commendable to his family,” Maloney told NHL.com on Thursday. “His daughters really, and his son, his family, were really the basis for his fight. We're culturally, as hockey guys, we're not going to give up, right? I just think that it was admirable but I wouldn't expect anything other than that from who I knew him to be when we were all young.”

Maloney and Duguay were teammates with the New York Rangers for six seasons, from 1977-83, which began when Maloney was 21 and Duguay was 20. Maloney said Duguay, and Dave’s brother, Don, who joined the Rangers for the 1978-79 season, stood out to him for being on the forefront of physical fitness during an era where the expectations that players face today were not the same.

“He and my brother were two guys that were ahead of the curve believe it or not, in taking care of themself,” Maloney said. “I know the dynamic story of Ron and there's a lot of reality to those dynamic stories, believe me, but he took care of himself. He really did. He was physically fit. His father was a fitness guy. He was a physical guy, and that's the thing, that cancer doesn't care whether you or this or that.”

Known for being someone who enjoyed a bon vivant lifestyle in New York, Duguay enjoyed all the perks of what the city had to offer, especially to a young, good-looking player with the Rangers during a time of success. Maloney laughed when asked about what he remembers from those days because in truth, he got out of the single life fairly quickly.

“I got married young,” Maloney said. “I was 24 when I got married. And I was the first one of the group to get married. So the better stories that are told over a beer happened when I was married, and Ron (and other teammates) were travelling in the circles they were travelling in. It's funny because there was an alumni tournament, obviously, every year, and I forget how long ago it was and Ron was talking about what they were up to. And I was like, ‘What? You got to be kidding me.’”

When Duguay joined MSG Network as an analyst from 2007-2018, Maloney, the longtime color analyst for the Rangers, said he was essentially the same person he came to know when they were teammates.

“When I think of him, I think of a really dynamic character,” Maloney said. “Our lives took different directions. It's funny when he was working with us in the network, I would be asked, ‘do you hang out with him?’ And my response would be, ‘I couldn't hang out with him when I thought I had game.’

“So he travelled in different circles, but he was always, I don't know if there's an assumption that a reputation that there would be an arrogance about him but he was he was who he was. He was a really good guy.”

Coming out of the 1978-79 season was perhaps the height of the Rangers popularity during that era, a season in which they fell just short of the Stanley Cup, in five games to the to the Montreal Canadiens.

Maloney, Duguay, future Hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito, current Buffalo Sabres senior advisor John Davidson and Pat Hickey, recorded a song, called the “The Hockey Sock Rock,” to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Thought it wasn’t a top 10 hit, another pop culture moment that Maloney and Duguay shared is still talked about that. That would be the TV commercial for Sasson designer jeans that also featured Esposito and Rangers forward Pat Hickey. 

In the ad, the four skate around in Rangers jerseys and their jeans singing, the “oh, la la Sasson” jingle. 

“Oh, there's no question, you had a lot of fun, but I often use that as an example of when you win, a lot of things happen that you don't expect,” Maloney said. “That came on the heels of us losing in the finals so much in 1979. We had a pretty dynamic group of young guys. It was a magical mystery tour, and we were probably even naive at that age to expect anything other than this is really cool. And now it lives on, and that's the thing, you can run, but you can't hide anymore, and when it gets shown, now I look back and I go, I know I probably thought they look good, but I'm like looking at it now, I go, holy smokes.”

Maloney said the ad perfectly illustrated who Duguay was at his core, someone who loved life and who was loved by those who had him a part of their lives.

"I've texted with Ron over the times of his severe illness and urged him to keep up the good fight,” Maloney said. “This suddenness with which it's happened, of course, is sad. Our moments together, the longer we live become just a smaller window in our lives. We were all young and innocent and having fun.

“That little window where our time together, I mean, when we were single and stuff like that, my life has interesting stories, having spent time with Ron Duguay”