Tony Tanti: with his family in the stands and facing his childhood heroes, the Toronto native scored his first NHL goal - The Game I'll Never Forget

Hockey Digest, Summer, 2003 by Chuck O'Donnell

IN 1983, I WAS CHOSEN TO PLAY for the Canadian World Junior team. We were getting set to go to Russia to play in the tournament. At the time, I was just an 19-year-old kid. I had been drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks in 1981 and actually played in two games for the Blackhawks during the 1981-82 season.

It just so happened that the training camp for the world junior team was in Toronto, my hometown. The Blackhawks also happened to be in town to play the Maple Leafs the night before camp opened.

I don't remember if I was sitting home having a bowl of cereal or what exactly I was doing when the phone rang. But on the other end of the line was someone from the Blackhawks telling me that I was being called up and I would be playing that night.

As I said, I'm from Toronto, and the fact that the game was going to be at Maple Leaf Garden was perfect. As a kid, I was the biggest Maple Leafs fan. I didn't get to go to see many games live, but you bet I would watch every game on Wednesday and Saturday nights on my TV at home.

So that night, everybody was there: my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Just about everyone in my family was there, and some of my friends were there to, I'm sure. It turned out to be a great night. We ended up beating the Maple Leafs and I ended up scoring my first NHL goal and being named first star of the game. That was "the game I'll never forget," no matter how long I live.

As I said, I was a huge Maple Leafs fan growing up. Darryl Sittler and Lanny McDonald and Tiger Williams--those guys were some of my heroes as a kid. Even going back to Dave Keon and Norm Ullman, guys from the early '70s, I remember rooting for them as a little, little kid. Those guys were great.

So, you can imagine what it was like to suddenly be playing against a lot of the guys I grew up watching. I remember standing in the faceoff circle and looking across and seeing Borje Salming and Rick Vaive standing there. It was a world of difference between seeing them on television and being on the same ice as them, let me tell you. It didn't seem real.

I had done well in juniors and throughout my career on every level up until then, but that didn't mean that I wasn't really nervous that night. Between being 19 and playing against my heroes and playing in front of my family, there were a lot of things going through my mind. I was as nervous as you could be.

Chicago, at the time, had a real good team, a big-time veteran lineup: Tony Esposito, Denis Savard, Al Secord, Keith Brown, Bob Murray, Grant Mulvey, Tim Higgins, and Tom Lysialc And they had other guys like Steve Larmer and Darryl Sutter who were younger but coming into their own.

It was tough: Imagine having Tony Esposito out there as your goalie. I thought back to watching the Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union in 1972 with Tony as one of the goalies for Canada. And now I'm playing with him. It was unbelievable, unreal. It was just like a dream that had come true.

I started out on a line with Troy Murray and Steve Ludzik. We were the fourth line, I guess. Well, we got a couple of chances to get on the ice and we must have been doing a pretty good job because we kept earning a little more ice time. We kept earning more and more ice time, and by the end of the game, we were on the ice every third shift.

We were playing so well, I even got my first NHL goal.

Here's how it happened: There was a shot from the point and there was a deflection. The puck just bounced. For some reason, I just said to myself, "Oh, the Toronto defenseman is going to miss the puck." And sure enough, for some reason, he did. So, I anticipated that was going to' happen and I rushed in. I went around the defenseman--I don't remember who it was--and I got the puck and had a partial breakaway.

The Toronto goalie was Mike Palmateer. Since I grew up watching Palmateer, I knew that he was a bit of a flopper, so I waited for him to go down. And when he did, I put the puck fight in the top shelf.

It was such an awesome feeling. Someone fished the puck out for me to keep. I still have it. In fact, I have it on display in my house. It was a very special moment in my career.

We ended up winning the game. I think the final score was 8-5. I was voted first star of the game. It was just one of those games where afterward you then know you can play at that level. You just need a chance to prove that you can play, and I think that game really helped me through my career. That game gave me a big-time shot of confidence.

Then the weirdest thing happened: The Canadian World Junior team had a practice fight after the game. So, I went back to the locker room, took off my Blackhawks jersey, and got out of my equipment. Then I had to get fight into my equipment to practice with the world team.

We eventually went the Leningrad for the tournament. The Blackhawks traded me to the Vancouver Canucks while I was on the flight home from Russia. My stay with the Blackhawks wasn't long, but it was memorable.

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