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Elmer Vasko

Elmer Vasko

Mention “Elmer Vasko” in 1961 in Chicago, and nobody would have a clue as to whom you were referring, but mention “Moose Vasko”, and everyone would know. Like most men nicknamed “Moose”, Elmer was big, but different from most men called “Moose”, as he could skate, and in fact he could skate quite well. Moose Vasko played defense on the 1961 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks.  He wasn’t a high scorer like Bobby Hull or Stan Mikita or an exceptionally smooth skater like Pierre Pilote or Todd Sloan. However, he was a very important piece of this championship team for he (along with Reggie Fleming) was the “enforcer”.

For those unfamiliar with hockey, the job of the enforcer in hockey is to respond to dirty or violent play by the opposition (Wikipedia). Moose would protect his teammates, maintain order, and retaliate, especially if the bullies on the other team took cheap shots against his smaller teammates. While Bobby Hull (5’10, 195lbs) could take care of himself, undersized Stan Mikita (5’9″, 169lbs) and slender Todd Sloan (5’10”, 152 lbs) knew that Moose (6’2″, 200lbs) had their back. Hockey is a very rough sport, and, the smaller guys on any team
would take quite an unrelenting beating unless their own feared and respected enforcer had their back. The presence of an enforcer on a hockey team in essence was telling the other team, “Be careful because your actions will have consequences”. Everyone on the other teams knew that if they crossed the line against the smaller Blackhawk players that Moose would kick their ass. In fact he did his job quite well – well enough that the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 1961.
Well now one might say, “Interesting, but actually who cares about Elmer Vasko, aka Moose, and the 1961 Blackhawks other than some near-senile old Chicago hockey fans”? Actually an interesting analogy can be drawn between the 1961 Chicago Blackhawks and today’s world situation. Just as hockey is a very rough game, our world is a very rough place. If an opportunity arises, the bullies on the hockey rink will go out of their way to pick on and then beat up on the little guys, just as the world’s “bullies” abuse those who cannot fight back. Just as the bad guys can become more and more emboldened on the ice, the bad guys on the world stage become more emboldened when they realize that they can act without fear of retaliation.
Russia, Assad, North Korea, and ISIS are the “bullies” of the world. For the past 8 years they have been able to act with impunity as they learned that no one could, or would, stand up to them. Russia took Crimea without any consequence. Assad gassed his own people in 2012, and there was no enforcement of a “red line”. For years, North Korea marched on with its nuclear program, as it knew that no one would attempt to stop them. ISIS was a “JV team”, yet it took land and slaughtered innocents as the good guys in the world just stood by.
There was no enforcer, and you don’t win the Stanley Cup without an enforcer!

Finally after years of kowtowing to all the world’s bullies, we finally have an enforcer, who in essence is saying, “Be very careful because your actions will have consequences. If you gas innocent women and children, we might fire off cruise missiles into your airfield. If you kill an American Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan, we might drop a MOAB to destroy your underground caves.”

Maybe now that our team has an enforcer, we can win the Stanley Cup.

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