Tom Reid

Tom Reid was a defensive defenseman who's play always went unnoticed among the fans, but his coaches always appreciated his work. 

The Fort Erie native was developed in the Chicago Black Hawks system and played for the St.Catherines Black Hawks in the juniors (OHA) between 1964-67. He made his debut in the NHL during the 1967-68 season and played two seasons with Chicago, earning his first point when he assisted on one of the patented Bobby Hull slapshots. Tommy was traded to the Minnesota North Stars in February 1969 together with Bill Orban for Andre Boudrias and Mike McMahon.

Tommy enjoyed almost 10 years of stellar play in the Twin Cities. He only scored 17 goals in 701 regular season games and had 130 points. One of his goals came on a penalty shot against Montreal's Ken Dryden. It was so rare that Tommy was in the offensive zone that he tried to fake an injury so he didn't have to take the penalty shot. Referee Bruce Hood didn't buy it and Tommy had to  take the shot. He burried the penalty shot on a 20-foot slapper that beat Dryden. His goal scoring may have been low but it was his play along the boards and in front of  his own goal that was Tommy's strengths. He always kept things simple and never tried to be fancy and do something beyond his capacity which kept the amount of errors and giveaways at a minimum. Tommy had a great sense of humour and was keeping his teammates laughing for many years.

Reid retired because he became allergic to his equipment. I'll let Reid himself explain.

"In the mid-seventies, a number of players in the NHL had problems with allergies as related to the equipment. The perspiration and the friction actually removed the skin. It started out very small but after three years, getting up to the '77-78 season, I had some terrible problems with it I was spending a lot of time with doctors, trying to combat this thing and it was getting progressively worse. When I finally had to quite playing in 1977, I had no skin basically from my neck to my waist."

He later added - "But fortunately also, I'm not the only one who had to retire because of it. There was about 40 players in the NHL over the course of about three years that were affected Rick Vaive....Lou Nanne, Dennis Hextall.... and I think Jacques Lemaire had it as well. There were players all around the league who were experiencing it."