Windsor’s Motor City Smitty
He played hard over 242 National Hockey League games as a fan favourite and fearsome forward who racked up 640 minutes in penalties while backing down from absolutely no one. He has since been an NHL scout since 1991, first with the Edmonton Oilers and, for the past 30 plus years, with the Colorado Avalanche.
And before that, Brad (Motor City Smitty) not only played for his hometown Windsor Spitfires of the Ontario Hockey League as a star right winger but he later coached them with a good measure of success.
To be sure, there are few who I have ever met in the game who are quite as engaging and likeable as the man who is known as Motor City Smitty. A down to earth individual with an upbeat personality, the now 67 year old Smith — he will turn 68 on April 13 — has long been a Windsor hockey legend.
Both as a player and a coach, however, ‘Motor City Smitty’ was moved out of Windsor by then Spitfires’ general manager Wayne Maxner.
It was during the ’77-78 season that Maxner traded Smith to the Sudbury Wolves in exchange for fellow forward Wes Jarvis. This, despite the fact that Smith was leading the Spitfires in scoring at the time with 18 goals, 16 assists, 34 points in just 20 games.
Undaunted, Smith went to a lengthy career in the NHL as a hard-nosed, free-wheeling, journeyman forward, suiting up for the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs.
It was after retiring as a player that Smith returned to Windsor to coach the Spitfires in 1989, having been hired by general manager Terry McDonnell. McDonnell was fired after the ’89-90 OHL season and Smith was retained as coach when the aforementioned Wayne Maxner returned to the Spitfires for another go-round as GM after being let go by the London Knights..
With Smith as coach and Maxner as GM in ’90-’91, the Spitfires put together a 33-29-4 regular season record and upset the favoured Knights in seven games in a thrilling, opening round playoff series.
The next season, the ’91-’92 campaign, Maxner — in a self serving, power play move — foolishly fired Smith just 10 games in and named himself coach. But the move did not pay off and within a year, Maxner himself was out of a job in Windsor, never to return to the OHL as a coach or GM.
Firing Smith was seen by some — including me — as a big mistake on Maxner’s part. And while the late Maxner remained a friend of mine, I never liked the way he treated Smith and simply put, had no reason to fire him.
As for Motor City Smitty and me, we have remained in touch over the years via Facebook and talked on the phone more than a few times. But we haven’t crossed paths face to face for many years and one of these days I would love to see Motor City Smitty in person — and sit down and have a beer or two in some Windsor watering hole.
Besides hockey, Motor City Smitty and I have another thing in common — lineage. That is, we are both of 50 per cent Croatian descent through our mothers.
Which means, along with a few beers, we might have to share a few shots of Slivovice, which is a potent Croatian plum brandy. Pijmo!
Brad Smith (at left) with assistant coach Dave Prpich, behind the bench of the Windsor Spitfires back in 1990.