EMILE “CAT” FRANCIS
Emile Francis was lithe, nimble and quick.
As a cat.
When he played junior hockey in Saskatchewan, his quick reflexes in goal made “Cat,” a perfect and fitting moniker.
“Cat” was nifty.
In mind, body, spirit and in every way.
The diminutive goaltender (5’6” 145 lbs.) played for the NHL Chicago Black Hawks and New York Rangers from 1946 to 1952.
After hanging around minor league hockey (WHL) until 1960, he swept his way into the executive arena as the Rangers assistant general manager in ’62, later to become the club’s GM.
The following year, he added the coaching duties to his regimen.
Although he coached a struggling team during his first campaign, Francis would remain behind the bench for ten seasons–save for exclusive front office responsibilities assumed in 1968 and 1973–making the playoffs each year, including the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals.
[The Blueshirts, making their first Finals appearance since 1950, lost the hard-fought series, 4–2 to the Boston Bruins.]
He was virtually a one-man operation.
He set Ranger coaching records that still stand.
Most games: 654; Most victories: 342.
His career winning percentage of .602 was eclipsed only by Mike Keenan, who posted a .667 mark in 1994–his singular season behind the Rangers bench–leading the club to the Stanley Cup championship.
The Madison Square Garden faithful loved him.
What was not to love?
A fiery, successful coach in New York…and a bantam cock, no less.
Two L-shaped scars on his chin accompanying the other 200 stitches in his face; a nose broken multiple times; the loss of teeth.
Guts, toughness, and a fierce will to win.
And to try 150%, at all costs.
No matter what.
“Ninety percent of winning is desire,” he told the New York Times in 1967.
“You have to keep pushing, pushing to create desire, to make some guys realize the importance of each game.”
Francis experienced and endured the fans’ ire on October 31, 1975 when he decided to release revered goaltender, Eddie Giacomin.
A classic stand-up goaltender and a deft stickhandler with an affinity for straying from the crease–exciting to all, if sometimes imprudent–he was the Rangers’ starting goalie for 9-plus seasons.
He led the league in games played for 4 consecutive seasons (1967–1970) and in shutouts 3 times (1967, 1968 and 1971).
He shared the Vezina Trophy in 1971 with teammate Gilles Villemure, an allowance the NHL Board of Governors approved in 1965.
A Hall-of-Famer, he was competitive and tough.
Waived by the Rangers and claimed by Detroit, he was between the pipes 4 days later in New York, sporting a visiting Red Wings sweater.
The fans gave him a long standing ovation and cheered him throughout the contest.
They booed the Rangers when they took shots or scored on Giacomin, and lustily chanted his name throughout.
Detroit won the game 6–4.
And some fans chanted, “Kill the Cat!!!”
The Rangers fired Francis in January 1976.
After that, he joined the St. Louis Blues as general manager and executive vice president, accepting a 10% ownership stake in the franchise.
When NHL president Clarence Campbell announced his retirement in the mid-’70s, Francis was touted as a potential successor.
John Ziegler ultimately replaced Campbell in 1977, but “The Cat,” not surprisingly, landed on his feet.
He was instrumental in finding a local owner for the financially beleaguered Blues in the early 1980s, and he returned to a position behind the bench for two separate stints.
Loyalty.
And hockey coursing through every vein in his body.
In 1983, Francis joined the Hartford Whalers.
He served as their general manager until 1988 and then was team president from 1988–1993.
His playing career was pedestrian.
At best.
He played in only 95 NHL games.
In the autumn of 1946, Francis was summoned from the Moose Jaw Canucks, at the invitation of the Black Hawks, to participate in the parent club’s training camp held in Regina.
In the middle of the 1946-’7 season, he got the call from Chicago.
He led the league in losses–30–and goals against–183–the following year.
73 games played over two seasons, wrapped it up in Chicago.
Interestingly, Francis used a catching glove based on the design of a baseball first-baseman’s mitt, which drew the attention of league officials.
Having played baseball as a teen, he took a Yankees George McQuinn autographed model and attached a hockey-style cuff to it.
He sported it first in junior hockey, and then introduced it to the NHL, while with the Black Hawks.
It snared pucks more easily than the customary goalies’ glove, a five-fingered style with a limited amount of padding.
Goalies around the league began to adopt his creation.
“The gloves were on the market within a month,” he told NHL.com in a 2016 interview.
He recalled that manufacturers–Rawlings, for one–had been able to sell them under their brand name ever since.
“I didn’t have a patent because I didn’t even know what a patent was,” he conceded without a trace of lament.
Using the lawyer-like skills which defined him, Francis argued that the popular gloves of the time put too much strain on the goalkeepers’ hand.
Executive approval was granted and equipment replicating Francis’ glove became commonplace.
Thinking out of the box.
A mighty quick mind too.
His genius was behind the bench and in the executive suite.
But his loyalty to his players–and their loyalty to him–was never more compellingly displayed than in 1965, when the feisty Francis rocketed himself from his stance behind the bench to berate a goal judge who ruled that a puck had gotten behind Giacomin.
Francis got into a fist-fight with a fan sitting near the goal judge, and no fewer than eight of his troops climbed into the stands to defend him.
Hall-of-Fame forward Rod Gilbert marveled that Francis could simultaneously lose his mind but somehow be in control.
As he put it, “I’ve seen Emile change lines while he’s fighting.”
He was hardscrabble tough with an enormous heart.
In 1966, he formed the Metropolitan Junior Hockey League, giving local children the opportunity to play ice hockey.
The future Rangers Nick Fotiu and Brian Mullen–among many others–were involved in the program.
In 2008, the Rangers created the Emile Francis Award, given to supporters of youth hockey.
Emile Percival Francis died on February 19 at the age of 95.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in March 2022.]
