Played for: Montreal Canadiens (1969–1973), Los Angeles Sharks (1973–74), Michigan Stags (1974), Quebec Nordiques (1974–1983)
NHL stats: 194 goals, 207 assists, 401 points in 517 games (62 playoff games [13 G, 15A, 28 P]
WHA stats: 316 goals, 350 assists, 666 points in 446 games (44 playoff games [27 G, 32 A, 59 P])
Professional hockey total: 510 goals, 557 assists, 1,067 assists in 963 games
(106 playoff games - 40 goals, 47 assists, 87 points)
Stanley Cup champion (1971, 1973)
Avco Cup champion (1977)
Gordie Howe Trophy [WHA Most Valuable Player] (1976, 1978)
WHA First All-Star Team (1976, 1977, 1978)
WHA Second All-Star Team (1975)
1982 NHL All-Star Game
Admittedly, his case rests on the Hockey Hall of Fame actually honoring its mission goal: honoring the best players of hockey, not just the NHL. But this blog is a haven for the World Hockey Association and all of the great things that it did for the sport of hockey. Marc Tardif was born to be a player for his native Quebec. He was born in Granby near Montreal to a large family that was "very poor" but he was fortunate enough to have the time to hone his abilities and skills for hockey in local rinks and was recruited to play for a private school at the age of 14. Eventually, he became a star with the Thetford Mines Canadiens and later the Montreal Junior Canadiens of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, where he won the Memorial Cup in 1969 (which included players such as Rick Martin and Gilbert Perreault). In the final year of the Montreal Canadiens being allowed to pick two French Canadians prior to the start of the NHL amateur draft (yes, really), the Canadiens selected Tardif and Rejean Houle. Tardif played most of the 1969-70 season in the AHL before playing eighteen games at the end of the year for Montreal, where he recorded three goals and two assists. But he stayed on with the NHL for the 1970-71 season (which had ten Hall of Famers on the roster*) and made a clear impact, scoring 19 goals with 30 assists in 76 games (he was 6th in points for Montreal and he had a "plus/minus" of 25). Tardif would play in each and every Stanley Cup playoff game for 1971, where he scored three goals and recorded an assist while Montreal narrowly won the Stanley Cup. Tardif recorded back-to-back 50-point seasons (1971-72, 1972-73) and got to win a second Stanley Cup in the latter year while scoring six playoff goals in 14 games. However, he had gripes by 1973 with Scotty Bowman that had media outlets speculate that called him a "gifted athlete with much to offer and much to receive for it in return, but he is drowning that talent in a sea of apathy."
What Tardif wanted in the summer of 1973 was a "a long-term, no-trade, no-cut contract". He found it with none other than the World Hockey Association (soon to be in its second season) with the Los Angeles Sharks that would pay him $150,000 a year and gave him a $100,000 signing bonus (in comparison, Montreal paid him $14,000 the previous season). Tardif took some time to get going, not recording a goal until the 10th game of the season, but when he got on, he got hot, recording 30 goals and 40 assists for a 70-point season as a highlight for a team that finished in the cellar. The Sharks moved to Michigan for the 1974-75 season but found themselves in the gutter (read: no fans) and traded Tardif away to the Quebec Nordiques in late 1974. After scoring 12 goals/5 assists in 23 games for Michigan, Tardif exploded for 38 goals in 53 games for the Nordiques for a grand total of 50 goals and 89 points in 76 games (in the seven-year history of the WHA, Tardif was the only player to have been traded and scored 50 goals in the same season). He scored 10 goals and recorded 11 assists in the playoff run that saw the Nordiques lose in the Avco Cup Final to the Houston Aeros.
Quebec City, if you didn't know, has plenty of Francophone heritage and the Nordiques for most of their years as a team (the only major league team based in the city in the last 70 years) wore the fleurs-de-lis on their jersey. He signed a ten-year deal with the franchise that year and immediately became a beloved icon for the region. The next four seasons for Quebec would be dynamic for Tardif. In the 1975-76 season he became the third pro hockey player [Phil Esposito, Bobby Hull], to score 70+ goals (71) in a season, and his 77 assists meant that he recorded 148 points on his way to the WHA MVP selection; Tardif, alongside teammates Réal Cloutier, Christian Bordleau, Réjean Houle, and Serge Bernier, all recorded 100 point seasons for Quebec (in comparison, the NHL has never had a team with five 100-point scorers for one team). And then came the big hit. In the 1976 Avco Cup playoffs, with the Nordiques playing the Calgary Cowboys, Rick Jodzio gave Tardif a serious head injury when he crosschecked him into the boards and proceeded to hit him when on the ice. It resulted in him being knocked out not just for the playoffs but also triggered an entire furor in Canada, as Jodzio actually was charged in court for assault (the Nordiques were beaten in the playoffs but at least the scumbag Cowboys lost in the next round). Tardif had dizzy spells for a time and didn't skate for four months - he stated that he "was never really the same", i.e. he did not have as much stamina (along with having trouble with noisy places).
With a more careful Tardif (now wearing a helmet), he played 62 games in the 1976-77 season and scored 49 goals with 109 total points. In the run to the Avco World Trophy, Tardif recorded four goals and 10 assists, with Tardif scoring the go-ahead goal in Game 3 and Game 7 as the Nordiques won their first and only WHA title over the WHA dynasty-era Winnipeg Jets at home in Quebec. On April 4, 1978 in the 1977-78 season, Tardif recorded a historic assist on a goal that got him his 150th point of the season, the second pro player to do so; in total, Tardif had 65 goals and 89 assists for 154 total points, a new pro record for a couple of years that saw him named WHA MVP for the second time. In the 1978-79 WHA season (the last one before the merger*), he recorded 96 points on 41 goals and 55 assists. The 1979-80 NHL season saw Tardif play in 58 games for a gutted team that saw him score 33 goals and 35 assists for 68 points. Injuries and disputes saw Tardif record 50-point seasons again and again until his last season. A contract dispute marred a final season in 1982-83 that saw him score just 21 goals in 76 games. Since I subscribe to the idea that the WHA and NHL, are, well, equals, Tardif's 500th professional goal came on December 18, 1982 (with his 11th goal of the season) against the Buffalo Sabres (as seen here) in the third period of a 5-4 loss at the Colisée de Québec. His last game was in April of 1983, right before he turned 34. In October of 1983, he announced his retirement, having been left unprotected by the team in the annual NHL waiver draft.
Has He Been Voted On?: The Hockey Hall of Fame isn't exactly the type you can just find finalist info unlike the NFL or with MLB. You want to know how many Hockey Hall of Famers there are who played five years in the WHA? Three: Gordie Howe (actually he was inducted into the HHOF in 1972, but who's counting for a man who scored 975 professional goals), Mark Howe, and Bobby Hull. Probably the one outlier among the 17 WHA-connected HOFers was Vaclav Nedomansky, the first defector of the Soviet Union to go play hockey - he was inducted...in 2019. The HHOF has systematically ignored the World Hockey Association as if it hindered the game when the league clearly delivered positives to the players and regions that got to see hockey on the pro level for the first time that ranged from Edmonton to Houston to Arizona. To say nothing of the demise of the reserve clause as a direct result of the WHA challenging the NHL in court. The Hall will say Norm Ullman is a Hall of Famer with 490 goals in the NHL before they acknowledge that his 47 goals in the WHA made him a 500-goal scorer. For professional players of hockey from the 1970-71 season to the 1978-79 season (for the purposes of my system, pretend that this link had WHA players), only Phil Esposito (475) scored more goals than Tardif (391), and his 818 points is behind Esposito and Bobby Clarke. From 1969 to 1983, only Esposito and Marcel Dionne scored more goals in a pro hockey league than Tardif, and you might recognize that Esposito, Dionne, and Clarke are all Hall of Famers. The Hockey Hall of Fame induct Russians that play in their own leagues but can't find a place for one of the top WHA players ever? The only place to honor him is the World Hockey Association Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 2010.
In closing: Look, I know and you know that hockey gets a bum rap for honoring history. But a player who scored 500 combined goals in the professional ranks deserved better than to be ignored by the higher ups. He did all of his talents and didn't even play to age 35 but found time to win two league MVPs and multiple championships, that alone should be something people remember and cherish. I leave it with some closing words from a Tardif interview:
“I follow what’s going on but not actively. It’s been a long time since I played. But I’m amazed that people still remember. I still get cards and letters almost every week from people telling me how much
they enjoyed seeing me play in a game or scoring a goal. That’s really nice.”
On behalf of the Unsung Hall of Fame, it is my privilege to welcome Marc Tardif to the Hall.
N O T E S
*Jean Beliveau (1972), Yvan Cournoyer (1982), Ken Dryden (1983), Jacques Laperriere (1987), Guy Lapointe (1993), Jacques Lemaire (1984), Frank Mahovlich (1981), Henri Richard (1979), Serge Savard (1986; DNP), Rogie Vachon (2016)
*Tardif videos at least exist: The Most Underrated Player of the '70s & the Violent Act He Can Never Forget. The Marc Tardif story
*The NHL pretends the 1979 deal that got the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, and Hartford Whalers was an expansion rather than, duh, a merger. WHA forever.
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