Westfall: The Isles' Voice of Reason

By Mark Herrmann | Staff Writer

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THE FIRST INDICATION went right past Ed Westfall. The Bruins' forward was arriving home from a European trip, and the customs agent in Boston said: ``We'll never forgive them for what they did to you, but thanks for the great years.''

Westfall didn't know what the guy meant. He nodded politely and kept walking through the airport. ``Then I looked at the window and saw my kids' faces up against the glass,'' he said. ``They were crying. That's how I found out.''

That's how he found out the bad news that day in 1972. He had become an Islander. ``I didn't know exactly where Long Island was,'' he said.

What's more, he was in no hurry to find out. He considered retiring instead of reporting to the ragtag expansion team. He weighed an offer from the rival World Hockey Association. He spent a lot of time just feeling bitter toward the Bruins, with whom he had won two Stanley Cups in three years. Then he figured, what the heck. He'd make the best of it.

Westfall has been connected with the team ever since. As the first captain, he gave the fledgling Islanders a leader around whom they could grow. He scored their first goal. He helped get them into Stanley Cup contention, then broadcast their games during the four-year reign. Since the late 1980s, he has had to figure out ways to make the telecasts interesting when the games often weren't.

And, at every step, he has been a staunch Long Islander. He was back in Boston recently and a friend asked him if he was still in exile. ``I told them, `Well, I am on an Island, although it's not exactly Elba. It's a wonderful place to live,''' the Locust Valley resident said.

From the first days, he had been determined to make teammates feel that same way. Westfall organized team parties. He took in rookies on holidays, and occasionally invited them to stay with him and his family for the season. He forced himself not to dwell on the fact he had gone from a championship team to a laughingstock.

``After you get through that initial stuff -- that private stuff that says you want to quit - you start to think, well, you can't change it. Horses get traded, cows get sold. I'd seen this happen to my teammates before,'' he said. Referring to the owner and general manager, he added: ``Then I met Roy Boe and talked with Bill Torrey, heard the enthusiasm and I said, `You've got to get over everything and get on with this.'''

It was gratifying for him to see the team catch on. ``There was a pattern to it all,'' he said, referring to the step-by-step additions of draftees Billy Harris, Denis Potvin and Clark Gillies; coach Al Arbour and role players such as Andre St. Laurent, Bob Bourne, Dave Lewis.

``I laugh when I hear players today say `I've got to work harder, work harder, work harder.' They're good at saying it. I don't know if they're very good at doing it,'' Westfall said. ``Those guys, Bert Marshall, Jude Drouin, J.P. Parise - they said it and did it.''

Westfall was on the ice when Parise scored the franchise-turning goal - the overtime goal in Madison Square Garden that beat the Rangers in the decisive game of a 1975 playoff series. Westfall scored another watershed goal the same year -- in a 1-0 triumph over the Penguins in Game 7, which sent the third-year franchise to the Stanley Cup semifinals and capped a rare comeback from a three-games-to-none deficit.

``That shocked the heck out of Roy Boe and Al Arbour and Bill Torrey. Nobody expected the team to get to that point that quickly,'' Westfall said. ``We all just dug in and worked at it.''

At about the same time, Westfall became more entrenched in Long Island. He started working for an electronics firm, entertaining clients. He met banker Tom Goldrick and became a stockholder and customer-relations officer of State Bank on Long Island.

He became friendly with Nelson Doubleday, a former minority partner in the team, who suggested a residential neighborhood in Locust Valley, recommended the Meadow Brook Club for golf and asked Westfall to start broadcasting after he retired in 1979.

Westfall wasn't on the air when Bob Nystrom scored the dramatic first Cup-winning goal in 1980 because CBS telecast that game nationally. But the alumnus known as ``18'' for his old jersey witnessed his share of history. ``To do all the games through four Stanley Cups - I get a thrill out of it, even today, when I think of it,'' he said.

While the play-by-play broadcasters have changed -- Steve Albert, Tim Ryan, Jiggs McDonald, Howie Rose - Westfall has been a constant. He has analyzed the Islanders when they were great and when they've been not-so-hot. ``There's always the hope that the next person who comes in is going to come in and regenerate this and make the team competitive,'' Westfall said.

``We have to do our jobs anyway,'' he said referring to the announcing/production staffers. ``You should hear some of the meetings we have. We almost get in each other's faces. Sometimes you think, `I hope this is going on in the dressing room.'''