Broph: On and Off the Ice With John Brophy, One of Hockey's Most Colorful Characters

by Gregg Inkpen

John Brophy was the quintessential teammate. He had the backs of each player on his hockey, baseball and rugby teams while growing up in depression-era Antigonish, Nova Scotia. His attitude carried over into his adult years as a rough and tumble professional hockey player starting in the early 1950s. He wore his heart on his sleeve—a heart that ached at times due to several childhood tragedies. His string of bad luck carried over into his adult life: a car accident in 1967 resulted in the death of his girlfriend; another wreck in 2000 at the age of sixty-six nearly killed him.Before reaching the pinnacle of hockey heaven—being named head coach of the storied Toronto Maple Leafs in the mid-80s where he coached Leafs’ legends such as Wendel Clark, Borje Salming and Rick Vaive—Brophy was known as a notorious “bad guy” defenseman in the minor leagues in a career that spanned twenty years beginning in the 1950s. He ended his playing career in 1973, immediately going behind the bench and putting in four decades of coaching, winning three championships with one team alone; his professional coaching wins (1,027) placing him second behind legendary NHL Head Coach Scotty Bowman (1,224). Often misunderstood and maligned for his unorthodox coaching techniques, Brophy commanded respect and enabled many of his players to reach NHL status, but only if they adhered to his coaching style. Many players resisted his ways, causing one, Dave Semenko, to retire due to his tactics.You either “got” Brophy or you didn’t. Separating fact from fiction, Broph is a no-holds barred account of one of hockey’s most colorful characters. Through interviews with Brophy himself and the people who knew him best, this is Brophy, uncensored and unplugged.

Genres: Hockey

365 pages, Paperback

Published November 8, 2018

About the author

Broph is Gregg Inkpen's debut work of non-fiction. This project was nearly 14 years in the making (on and off.)

Gregg has worked in television since 1988 (he took his first tv course in 11th grade of high school) and has covered the NHL, NBA, MLB, and college sports since that time. He has won 3 Sports Emmy Awards for his tv work at four of the Olympic Games he's worked: 1996 Summer (Atlanta), 2002 Winter (Salt Lake City), 2004 Summer (Athens).
He has written for the Society of International Hockey Research and Long Island Press.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in high school in the early 70's, I worked as a vendor at the Long Island Arena. I have great memories of watching the Long Island Ducks and of seeing John Brophy play in what were his final seasons as a player.
It was great fun reading about the Ducks and the old Arena and Brophy's time in Commack, which is where I grew up.
If you're a hockey fan you'll enjoy this book. It has lots of game stories and evokes the feeling of what life was like in the minor leagues.
As far as Brophy's story itself, like it says in the book you'll either get him or you won't. If it's the latter, you'll wonder why anyone cares about an angry, obnoxious hockey coach. If it's the former, I think you'll enjoy reading this book.

[Aubrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Broph was my the first read of my Christmas haul-2018. Kudos to Gregg Inkpen for diligently capturing the life and time of a significant hockey personna, John Brophy. I was admittedly never a fan of Brophy, and am even less so after reading Gregg’s biography...nevertheless, I think it was valuable to capture what is known about the man, the player and the coach. I was left thinking that there were many impressions and less savoury stories that Gregg could have included but elected to forego telling. Another writer might not have exercised the same restraint and have condemned Brophy for his short-comings in his roles as a father, husband and violent, win-at all-cost bully style of playing and coaching. Thank you for recording this part of hockey history, Gregg.