It is somewhat hard to believe that any Sudbury Wolves’ defenseman who scored 32 goals in a single season and finished fourth in team scoring with 93 points could fly under the radar at all in terms of local junior hockey lore.

Yet as John (Butch) Baby noted, the graduating class of his first year with the Wolves featured a Fab Five of Randy Carlyle, Dave Farrish, Rod Schutt, Jim Bedard and Alex McKendry. The next year, he turned pro with the cohort of Ron Duguay, Hector Marini and Randy Pierce.

That is pretty special company indeed.

And the fact is that the 68 year-old who recently retired following a lengthy career with the City of Greater Sudbury did not pursue hockey for all that long, by comparison with some gents that he still calls friends.

Ironically, I had to confess that my first memory of John Baby was through his father, the Johnny Baby’s Auto Body minor hockey rep teams emerging as some of the earliest to make their mark as the landscape shifted from purely playground hockey that would lead to the junior ranks and over to what would now be known as the competitive AAA/AA environment.

The Baby Peewee team claimed an all-Ontario banner as Dale McCourt climbed aboard with a core of Louis Clements, Steve Demarco, Perry McKinney, Dan O’Connor, Bob Levesque and Baby – gents who enjoyed some five years together.

“Different guys came in along the way, but there was a group of us that were there for all five years,” said Baby, who still remains in touch regularly with Rod Schutt and Ron Duguay, both of whom were also members of the 1975-1976 Sudbury Wolves' team that lost the OHA final to the Hamilton Fincups in six games.

“The kicker that year was that they went on to win the Memorial Cup,” said Baby. “We were right there. We had an awesome team.”

The Wolves were not the starting point, however, for Butch Baby, who played one year of midget hockey before cracking the roster of the North Bay Trappers, a group that were listed as Tier II junior ranks at the time.

“I got drafted to the Kitchener Rangers from there – Eddie Bush was our coach, Donnie Edwards the goalie – but got traded in year two to Sudbury,” said Baby.

The defenseman who was equal parts skill and physicality – Baby was second on the team in penalty minute in Sudbury with 118 the same year he racked up 93 points – the local lad would return home in a trade that saw northern product Ray Irwin shipped off to Kitchener.

“I remember my very first game, I scored two goals and had two assists,” said Baby.

He had known Ron Duguay from his minor hockey days, the pair reconnecting instantly. Baby partnered with Mike Gazdic as the second “D” unit on a Sudbury team that lost only three home games that entire season, with Carlyle and Farrish drawing top pairing minutes.

In his final year in the league, Baby and the Wolves were eliminated in round two of the playoffs, courtesy of the Kingston Canadiens – though the 6’0” blueliner would show enough to earn a draft selection from both the Cleveland Barons (NHL) and New England Whalers (WHA).

“Jerry Toppazzini was a big help for me,” Baby reminisced. “He had played (in the NHL), he had coached – and he knew a lot of the players, coaches and general managers.”

Over the course of the next seven years or so, Baby would amass a grand total of 26 NHL games, despite posting a stat line of 18 G / 22 A / 114 PIM with the Oklahoma City Stars of the CHL in 1978-1979.

There were highlights, to be sure.

“I remember my first game – but the biggest thrill from me was playing in Madison Square Gardens and scoring my first goal against John Davidson.”

And while the Barons dropped that encounter, the picture of the Baby blast was captured in one of the primary New York newspapers. The presence of lifelong friend Ron Duguay only added to the specialness of the occasion.

“We would go to Florida together, after the season, socializing together. We were out at the lake (Long Lake), water skiing.”

For as much as trips together that may or may not have involved attending Miss America Beauty Pageants or perhaps stopping in on one of the many well-known watering holes that Manhattan has to offer, stories of same shall remain sworn to secrecy.

By the early eighties, Baby had taken advantage of an opportunity in Europe, signing on with a team in Switzerland. “Once I got there and realized how much I enjoyed it, I wish I had gone earlier,” said Baby. “But we didn’t know what to expect.”

One last NHL training camp with the Detroit Red Wings signalled that moment of truth for the man who still loves the great outdoors of northern Ontario. “It was time to move on and work for my dad,” he said. “That was the plan eventually, with him owning the body shop.”

True, there may have been more hockey to be played in the young man’s body. But given all that ensued, with life and family and work, Butch Baby is not about to complain.

“I am quite happy with where I am, right now,” he stressed.

In fact, his biggest complaint in this casual chat would arise only when discussing elements of the game that he loves that have changed, not for the better, in his humble opinion.

“The biggest thing that drives me out of my mind now is how sensitive players are when one of their guys gets hit,” said Baby. “You nail someone with a beautiful hit, but then you have to fight. Guys were getting nailed all the time when I played – but the guy who got hit would defend himself.”

“He wouldn’t bring the whole team into play. To have guys come and defend you when you didn’t need defending seems silly.”