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Before: ockeyNHLSports2023-05-04T13:22:14+00:00Match: McDonald
After: ." data-has-syndication-rights="1" data-license-id="2062520" data-portal-copyright="" src="https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/calgaryherald/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/flames-copy.jpg" title="Copy of page from May 26, 1989 of Calgary Flames' Lanny McDonald."/>

Lanny McDonald’s teammates from this special season still rave about his shot and recall his favourite spot. They marvel at his final stat line — and understandably so. The star right-winger racked up a remarkable 66 goals

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Before: in 80 appearances during the 1982-83 campaign.

Four decades later, there has been no need to update this particular line in the Calgary Flames’ record book.
Match: McDonald
After: remains a local legend and this remains the greatest goal-scoring season in franchise lore. In fact, no Flames shooter has come close to notching 66 since.

Even by Lanny’s lofty standards, this was pinch-me territory.

Despite a cold spell that spanned most of November, the mustachioed marksman from Hanna, Alta., buried his 30th of the season on Boxing Day. He hit 40 in mid-January and joined the prestigious 50-goal club with a quarter of the schedule still

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Before: to be played. Along the way, he registered five hat tricks, netted eight game winners and duelled with Edmonton Oilers dynamo Wayne Gretzky for the NHL’s lamp-lighting lead. Always a trigger-happy type and with the hottest hand of his career, McDonald added 32 assists, falling just shy of the century mark in total points.

Match: McDonald
After: : “That year was just absolutely incredible. I got off to a good start, went into a slump for a while and then came out of it and just got on a roll and never stopped. It felt like you were going to score every game. And it just lasted, like, forever.”

Reggie Lemelin, one of Calgary’s masked men and McDonald’s road roommate for several seasons: “Sixty-six goals … Incredible, isn’t it?”

Jamie Hislop, former Flames forward and later a coach for the organization: “

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Before: score 66 in 80 games, it’s unbelievable. That is absolutely crazy, doesn’t matter what era it’s in.”

Eric Duhatschek, who covered the team as a beat reporter for the Calgary Herald and now writes for The Athletic: “They didn’t keep track of shooting percentages in those days, but he would have had a career shooting percentage because anything he flung at the goal somehow magically went in.”

Steve Simmons, who chronicled that season for the Calgary Sun, co-authored
Match: McDonald
After: ’s memoir and is now a sports columnist for the Toronto Sun and Postmedia: “Duhatschek had a great line at the time. He referred to Lanny as having the Midas touch. He said, ‘Everything he touches turns to goals,’ instead of, ‘Everything he touches turns to gold,’ which is the old expression. That’s always stuck in my head.”

Cliff Fletcher, general manager for the Flames from 1972 to 1991: “Every time he shot the puck, it ended up in the damn net. He was a constant offe

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Before: nsive threat. He drove our power-play. Every shift he was out there on the ice, that one year in particular, he was dangerous. That was a challenge for opposing teams — how do you play Lanny? It, more or less, was their total focus, which allowed other players on our team to chip in.”

Al Coates, a jack-of-all-trades executive who was Fletcher’s right-hand man: “It was a really magical year for a great player and a great person.”

Eddy Beers, fellow forward and
Match: McDonald
After: ’s sometimes-sidekick during that record-setting season: “It was magical. Because he couldn’t miss.”

McDonald, reminiscing with his wife, Ardell, on speakerphone: “Pretty damn cool. And October 18th is when Barrett, our first son, was born. So what a year that was and that became a huge part of the family celebration all the way through.”

Peter Maher, the legendary radio voice of the Flames: “There was an awful lot of excitement about him scoring all those goals, es

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Before: that the assists that he generated were rebounds off goalies’ pads. He was just a born assassin, a born shooter. It’s a hair-tingling experience for me, even playing pond hockey with Lanny now. When he gets the puck going down the right side, or when we’re playing pond hockey and it’s 4-4 and you change ends at 5, when he gets the puck, it’s all he can think about is to score and to shoot and to shoot again. He just shoots and shoots and shoots.”

Guy Chouinard, who skated as
Match: McDonald
After: ’s centre in 1982-83: “We used to tease him quite a bit about, ‘Give the puck to Lanny and let’s go for the rebound. Because it’s not coming back. It’s going to go at the net.’ I think Lanny was OK with that. Because most of the time that he shot, it was a goal for us.”

THE TRADE

You can’t tell the story of McDonald’s record-setting season without circling back to Nov. 25, 1981, when Fletcher landed the future Hockey Hall-of-Famer in a swap with the Colora

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Before: do Rockies. The Flames, off to an awful start that season, traded forwards Don Lever and Bob MacMillan to Denver in exchange for
Match: McDonald
After: and a draft pick. The Rockies had been in Calgary the previous evening, waxed 9-2 by the home team, and Lanny had just landed in Winnipeg when he learned of the move.

Fletcher: “The challenge we had was very obvious with that juggernaut developing 180 miles up the road. And quite frankly, the deal for Lanny was the greatest thing that happened to the Flames’ franchise in that it brought instant credibility. It gave us something to offset Gretzky and (Mark) Messier and (Paul) Co

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Before: respect of all his teammates because of what he’d accomplished in the NHL. I had a sense of how important he could be. I mean, you never project he’s going to score 66 goals. But being from Alberta, being a charismatic player, being a productive player, coming home … I thought that was all very important and it certainly changed the franchise when he arrived.”

David Poile, the assistant general manager in Calgary in 1981-82 before being hired by the Washington Capitals prior to
Match: McDonald
After: ’s first full season in the Flaming C: “Don Lever and Bobby MacMillan were very good players for us. So it was a big, big trade. But it was Lanny McDonald. That was huge and, as it turns out, a little bit of a turning point with the team and the franchise.”

Poile, now the winningest GM in NHL history and set to retire from that role after a 26-year run with the Nashville Predators: “In my tenure here in Nashville, I traded for Peter Forsberg from Philadelphia. He was at the end o

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Before: f his career and I gave up a first-round pick and a couple of other players, but that two or three months was fantastic for our franchise. I mean, it was like a rockstar for our fans and I think it was one of the things that took our franchise to a higher level. I just equate that to Lanny
Match: McDonald
After: , Calgary, Alberta … He just had that IT. He had it.”

Duhatschek: “Lanny arriving, to me, closed the chapter on the Atlanta Flames and opened the chapter on the Calgary Flames. That was the single-most important moment of a process that took about two years. When the Flames moved here from Atlanta, a lot of the players and a lot of the players’ wives had a really difficult time adjusting. It was because of the climate, it was because of the interest … It was just so overwhelmin

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Before: he market that wanted to be there.”

Duhatschek, continued: “I think Lanny was that coalescing piece. He was the starting point, really, of the Calgary identity of the Flames and the end of the Atlanta identity of the Flames.”

That doesn’t mean it was a dream scenario from Day 1.

Peplinski: “I remember going into the dressing room and Lanny was in the whirlpool, and I think my first words to him were, ‘We made a trade for damaged goods?’ ”

Match: McDonald
After: : “I was hurt when I came over in the trade. I had a separated shoulder, played before I was ready to, but you didn’t want to let your new team down. I don’t think I scored a goal until my seventh game with the Flames and then got on a roll. But until then, you put all kinds of pressure on yourself because you’ve been traded for two very popular guys in Bobby MacMillan and Donny Lever and you obviously don’t want to let your new teammates down.”

Lanny scored 34 goals in 5

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Before: 5 outings with the Flames that winter. Combined with his count in Colorado prior to the trade, he finished the 1981-82 NHL campaign with a total of 40. He also made an important tweak to his equipment at the suggestion — insistence might be a better word — of Al MacNeil, who was then the head coach at the Corral. MacNeil moved upstairs after that season, replaced by ‘Badger’ Bob Johnson.

Match: McDonald
After: : “When I played in Colorado, I just darkened the blade, just scuffed it up with the side of the old tape to discolour the blade so it was kind of half black and half blond. And then I get to Calgary and Al MacNeil says, ‘No, no, you’ve gotta put tape on that stick. It will hide your shot from the goalie when it comes off the blade.’ I just said, ‘OK, Al, whatever you think.’ Well, it turned out pretty darn good.”

GOALS, GOALS, GOALS

Pretty darn good is an under

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Before: statement. What’s especially telling is when you quiz
Match: McDonald
After: ’s former teammates about his offensive exploits during this wow-calibre winter, there is hardly consensus on how he scored all those goals. As a twine-tickler, he had a variety of tricks up his sleeve.

Simmons: “At the time, I think he had the best wrist-shot in the NHL.”

Kent Nilsson, who led the 1982-83 Flames with 104 points and was second on the team charts with 46 tallies: “Lanny was so strong. He was like Popeye. He had an unbelievable wrist-shot.”

K

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Before: osed player. He really was, more than I think he ever gets credit for. Lanny played above his weight class all the time, every shift. He just had an unbelievable competitive streak.”

Nilsson: “He paid a price for those 66 goals.”

Hislop: “He was a shooter and he competed and he was physical and he fought. He was similar to Jarome (Iginla) in that regard. He did it all.”

Maher: “By my count, Lanny scored 41 of the 66 goals in the Corral that season.”

Match: McDonald
After: , after Maher had shared that stat: “That kind of shocked me. And then when I looked at it, holy crap, you score a goal a game at home for the entire year?”

McDonald, continued: “I loved playing in the old Corral. It felt like you were in a gladiator pit because the boards were so high. The people were right there with you.”

Beers: “My brother, Bill, happened to be at one of the games, and he told me this story … He was sitting right behind the net and there was a fac

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Before: come more toward the front of the net and then when the goalie goes to fish, beat his stick and rap it right in the five-hole.’ And because we were working on that in practice all the time, I started to develop a new way of stopping it, which is paddle down. I thought, ‘Instead of fishing, I’m going to bring my stick down to the five-hole and let the guy do whatever he wants. All he can do is shoot it on the ice anyway.’ So I started to use paddle down.”

SETUP ACE

Match: McDonald
After: and Chouinard were basically joined at the hip in 1982-83, skating with a rotating cast of left-wingers. While Chouinard was actually the first 50-goal man in franchise lore, achieving that feat on behalf of the Atlanta Flames in 1978-79, everyone seems to agree he was most dangerous as a playmaker. Of McDonald’s record haul, he assisted on two dozen of those.

Peplinski: “There hasn’t been a handful of people in the history of the National Hockey League who can pass better th

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Before: and Lanny on the same line. It was a bit unusual, because Chouinard is a right-handed centre and Lanny is a right shot, and usually you’d want a left-handed centre to pass to your best shooter. But Guy Chouinard is one of the great underrated, undervalued players in NHL history. He scored 50 in Atlanta. He had 100 points in Atlanta. If he’d been able to skate, he’d be in the Hall of Fame. That’s how great he was. And him and Lanny just had incredible chemistry. They just fit.”

Match: McDonald
After: : “Guy was probably the purest passer I’d ever played with. Darryl (Sittler) was a totally different player. I would always ask Guy, ‘How the hell did you find me?’ He’d throw it up over three sticks and land it flat, right on your blade. And he would say, ‘I can’t tell you, I’d have to kill you.’ He’d say, ‘I need to keep some secrets to myself.’ He was just a fun guy to be around, to play with.”

Chouinard: “I always thought of myself as a passer more than a

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Before: shooter. Although I scored those 50 goals, it was one of those years that everything went in. But to me, I felt that as a centreman, my first quality was if somebody was open and I had the puck, let’s give it to him. And that year, Lanny was open most of the time.”

Duhatschek: “They just had magical chemistry. Lanny would go to the open areas in that Lanny
Match: McDonald
After: way, and Chouinard would find him with the puck and in it would go.”

THE SKIPPER

While you won’t find this name on those archived scoring summaries, another pivotal figure for the 1982-83 Flames was Johnson, working for the first time behind an NHL bench after his oh-so-successful stint at the University of Wisconsin. The late ‘Badger Bob,’ known as fountain of optimism, guided the team to a 32–34–14 record in his first of five campaigns in Calgary. The Flames, a

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Before: is up and he comes out of the box, if the puck is in the area where he is, then he gets a breakaway or a great scoring chance. And although that didn’t happen every time, it did happen a couple of times that he went in and scored a goal. So I think Lanny got used to that.”

‘LANNY’S SPOT’

Lanny was even more dangerous when one of the enemies was seated in the sin-bin. The 1982-83 Flames cashed in on 23.8 per cent of their power-play opportunities. Not surprisingly,
Match: McDonald
After: was tops on the team with 17 man-advantage markers. Chouinard ranked third in the league with 41 power-play points, including 34 assists in those outnumbered scenarios.

Chouinard: “We had a good power play. We had a great power play, I should say.”

Reinhart, also a fixture on that top unit: “We had a hell of a power play. It was a power play that had a lot of creativity, with guys like Kent Nilsson and Guy Chouinard putting that puck around. We had a very, very strong

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Before: presence as a power play, and that had a big impact on our season, for sure.”

Beers: “Lanny was the triggerman on what was a very potent power play.”

Chouinard: “I was playing the point, and Lanny was on my radar. If he was open, most of the time, I’d just give him the puck.”

Risebrough: “In those days, penalty-killing chased more. They weren’t that positional. And so Guy could find the seams and get it right to Lanny.”

Match: McDonald
After: : “That cross-ice pass to where (Alex) Ovechkin scores all his goals … That was my kind of office. They would throw it across for a one-timer, and it couldn’t have worked out better.”

Duhatschek: “My memory is Lanny scored a lot of goals from that Ovechkin spot on the power-play. That’s something that is so common today but it was practically innovative back then where you’d play the off-wing on the power play so you get a better angle at the net. When I started, the right-

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Before: n example about. Sometimes, during practice or after practice, you’ll give some passes to the shooters and sometimes, the kids will bring the puck back and say, ‘Well, it wasn’t really at the right place.’ And I’ll say, ‘I played with a guy that it didn’t matter where it was, left foot, right foot … He practised to shoot it, didn’t matter how.’ And when the puck goes behind the goaltender, they never ask how it went in. Just did it go in?”

HITTING FIFTY

Match: McDonald
After: had potted 40-plus goals in five of the previous six seasons but had yet to reach 50, which has long been considered one of the NHL’s magic marks. That changed on Feb. 18, 1983, just two days after he turned 30. While the Flames were on the wrong end of a 5-1 result against the Sabres in Buffalo, McDonald had something to smile about after burying a rebound behind Bob Sauve early in the third period. Beers and Flames captain Phil Russell earned the assists.

McDonald: “Even not

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Before: having scored 50 goals before, you never think that it’s not going to happen.”

Match: McDonald
After: in a post-game interview that evening in Buffalo: “When you’re reaching a milestone, you try not to think about it, but you press a little bit more even though you don’t mean to. I’m glad it’s over now though, and now 51 is next.”

Duhatschek: “Sixty-six was the number at the end. But it was the run-up to 50, that was a big deal.”

Duhatschek, continued: “I think most people, at that time, thought of Lanny as a 40-goal guy. In a really good year, he could be an a

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Before: ll-star and he’d score 40 goals and then he added that toughness and grit and leadership and all these tangible qualities that Lanny
Match: McDonald
After: always brought to your lineup. But he was a 40-goal guy. So to suddenly erupt into a 66-goal guy that one year, it was extraordinary.”

Nilsson: “You could just see it in his eyes, the closer and closer to 50 goals that he got. And then he just kept going.”

Maher: “When I think back to 1982-83, the first thing that comes to mind is how Lanny kind of saved our broadcast one night. The night he scored his 50th goal, it was a Friday night in Buffalo and there was no televisi

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Before: dn’t have cell phones in those days — but then we lost communication on that, too. So the game is going on and I’m sitting there and saying, ‘If Lanny scores this goal while we’re off the air, that’s not going to be good.’ I was going crazy up in the booth. But he waited until the third period to score it. I was so frustrated when we weren’t on the air and then so excited to get on the air before he scored the goal. And it was the only goal the team scored that night.”

Match: McDonald
After: , who spent seven winters with the Maple Leafs before he was traded to the Rockies in 1979: “I remember scoring my 50th goal in Buffalo and we headed to Toronto the next day. And how cool was it to go back to Toronto and have scored 50 goals? And we still had, like, a month left in the season.”

The team still had another trip to the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, too, and that turned out to be another memorable affair. On March 16, again in a losing cause, McDonald joined an exclus

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Before: ive club by becoming just the eighth player in NHL history to register 60 goals in a single season. The others, up to that point, were Phil Esposito, Reggie Leach, Steve Shutt, Guy Lafleur, Mike Bossy, Gretzky and Dennis Maruk.

Match: McDonald
After: : “Bob Sauve was the goalie for my 50th. And a few weeks later, we go back to Buffalo and I score my 60th against the same goalie. I remember going behind the net and him screaming at me, ‘You selfish a–hole! You already got 50, and now you scored your 60th on me!’ Just some of those crazy little things that happen along the way that you laugh about later. I’m coming out from behind the net after I scored, laughing, and I’m saying, ‘Sorry, Bob.’ He’s screaming at me, ‘You’r

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Before: e still an a–hole. I don’t care if you said you’re sorry.’ It was quite a year.”

RACING GRETZKY

One of the biggest storylines of 1982-83 was a Battle of Alberta for the NHL’s goal-scoring crown. Gretzky was running away with the overall points lead — he piled up 196 that winter — but
Match: McDonald
After: challenged for the title of top marksman. In fact, as he headed to the 1983 NHL All-Star Game in Uniondale, N.Y., he had pulled ahead. Gretzky ultimately finished with 71 goals, five clear of his provincial rival. Both, it should be noted, earned end-of-season accolades. Gretzky captured the Hart Trophy for the fourth time in what would be an unprecedented eight-year run, while McDonald was saluted as winner of the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, which recognizes perseverance, sportsmanship and

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Before: s shot that he was known for. Gretzky was never really known for his shot, he was more known for his creativity and just unbelievable awareness on the ice. Lanny was, and I don’t think this term was really used back then, but he was a power forward. He was just a powerful guy, and he wouldn’t back down from anybody. In fact, the tougher the game got, I thought the better Lanny played. He liked when it was physical. He relished that and he almost brought his game to another level.”

Match: McDonald
After: : “Going into the all-star game, Gretzky and I both had one game to play and I think we were tied (at 44). They played the night before we did, before the all-star break, and he scores in his and the boys are all over me, saying ‘You’ve gotta find a way to at least tie him going to the all-star game.’ We’re playing Pittsburgh, and I’ll never forget — I had been out late filming a commercial. It was for Apollo Muffler. It was supposed to be done filming at 11 p.m. Well, I think we f

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Before: e had 10 or 11 shots in the first two periods. The boys, even if they had basically a clear breakaway, they were looking over their shoulder, like, ‘Ok, where is he?’ They were trying to feed me the puck.”

Lanny notched a power-play goal in the first period, then potted a pair in the third. His hat trick propelled the Flames to a 7-4 victory over the Penguins and he headed to the all-star festivities with a league-best 47 snipes, already equalling his career-high.

Match: McDonald
After: : “I think the boys were happier than I was. I was more relieved that we won the game and I didn’t get in trouble for doing this stupid commercial. And all they wanted was to make sure that I found a way to be one-up on Gretzky at the all-star break. It was pretty damn cool.”

Beers: “That was before the ‘Rocket’ Richard Trophy. There was no award for the top goal-scorer, other than bragging rights. But that was definitely an interesting part of that season. And that Lanny did

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Before: n’t have more than Gretzky at the end, that doesn’t take anything away.”

McDonald, asked if there was any disappointment that he couldn’t keep up with the Great One: “Are you kidding? Yeah, I would have loved to get him but at the same time, when you look at his totals … That was a fun, fun year.”

TOO HOT TO HANDLE?

As if it wasn’t difficult enough to follow up a 66-goal outburst, there was bad news prior to training camp in 1983-84.
Match: McDonald
After: had been using a Koho stick since his stint with the Maple Leafs — he was introduced to the Finnish brand by then-teammates Inge Hammarstrom and Borje Salming, both Swedes — but would need to switch weapons.

Coates: “He scored 66 with a Koho and that summer, the factory burned down in Finland.”

McDonald: “That is true, and I had to go to Titan. I thought, ‘Well shoot, if Gretzky can score with a Titan, so will I.’ And I’m sorry, but they might have been the

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Before: Lanny’s appeal wasn’t limited to his lethal shot or his signature ’stache. He was an Alberta boy, through and through. As a junior, he’d filled the net for the Lethbridge Sugar Kings and Medicine Hat Tigers. He put the town of Hanna — located about 200 kilometres east of Calgary — on the map long before anybody had heard of Nickelback.

Duhatschek: “The values of Western Canada, if they were ever going to be embodied in a single person, they were embodied in Lanny
Match: McDonald
After: .”

Simmons: “He phoned me from the airport in Winnipeg after the trade and I remember the conversation being, ‘I’m coming home.’ Even though the Flames were still such a new thing, it meant so much to him to be in Calgary, to be that close to family, to be that close to Ardell’s family.”

Risebrough, already a four-time Stanley Cup champion when he was acquired by the Flames: “Coming to Calgary from Montreal, I knew Lanny from playing against him with the Leafs. We

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Before: , like, every seat to shake hands and to sign autographs. It took him forever to get to his seat. And somebody turns to me and says, ‘What a phony.’ And I said, ‘Nah, that’s him. That’s who he is. That’s who he wants to be. That’s who he cares to be.’ ”

Risebrough: “The fans were just intoxicated by what he was doing … and then he reciprocated. Lanny was tireless in his off-ice commitments to charity. But he was so happy. This was how he could add value.”

Match: McDonald
After: on his fan-favourite status: “When you score consistently, it certainly helps. But I think as much, Ardell and I just completely immersed ourselves in the city and everything that was going on, and we still do. We love it.”

Risebrough: “Peplinski and I, we both had motorcycles at this time. One day, after the season was over, we decided we were going to go to the Hanna rodeo. I think we must have called Lanny and said, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing,’ but he wasn’t going.

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Before: So that wasn’t the reason to go. It was just to go see it, see where Lanny was from. And it was so neat. Everybody would talk about Lanny. We were recognized because of being Flames, and it was really cool to see his roots. And even that just told me why he was so happy to be in Calgary.”

LANNY’S LEGACY

Four decades after that record sharpshooting spree, and 34 years after he capped his career by helping to hang a championship banner at the Saddledome,
Match: McDonald
After: remains an icon in Calgary. He and Ardell are now chasing around eight grandkids and continue to be difference-makers in the community.

Risebrough: “I know that this is a long ways from 1982-83, but Lanny winning the Stanley Cup in 1989 and scoring his last goal that night, it was just a poetic ending.”

Chouinard: “Whenever I think Calgary Flames, I think Lanny McDonald. He meant so much for me, for the city, for the team.”

Beers: “Playing with Lanny was r

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Before: eally one of the highlights of my life.”

Nilsson: “As a teammate, he was one of the best.”

Poile: “Have you ever heard anybody say anything bad about Lanny McDonald? The way he carries himself, the way he interacts with not only his teammates but the public and fans … It’s hard to have a better ambassador, in a player, for your team than Lanny
Match: McDonald
After: .”

Beers: “The best way I can say it is that he wasn’t just an ambassador of the game for the Flames, he was an ambassador of hockey. The way he conducted himself, the way he played, the way he treated people, all people, always visiting kids and going to the hospital and that stuff … Those are my best memories of Lanny. He was just an excellent humanitarian.”

Fletcher: “He’s as good an ambassador for our sport and the National Hockey League as we’ve ever had.”

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Before: dom reached. In fact, no NHLer has buried that many since the mid-1990s. (Oilers wunderkind Connor McDavid finished with 64 this season). While there has been some terrific talent through Cowtown, nobody has even scared Lanny’s club record. Gary Roberts scored 53 in 1991-92, the next-best total in team history. Iginla topped out at 52. Joe Nieuwendyk, Joe Mullen and Theo Fleury all peaked at 51. So will Lanny’s franchise mark ever fall? There is one guy who certainly hopes so.

Match: McDonald
After: : “Honest to God, that would make my day. Because I would have to think that, along with that, the Flames would be having a pretty damn good season. And I’m a huge Flames fan.”

BONUS — POOL PARTY

Nobody is sure exactly when this happened, or exactly where it happened — other than at a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet. But this story is so good that we had to include it.

Konroyd: “We flew commercial back then and typically all the players sat back in c

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Before: eve this, we have a pool up here in first-class!’ And he did this in front of a full plane. That’s the kind of guy he was. He just wanted to have fun and be around the guys and wanted to rub it in that he was up in first-class and we weren’t. That’s one memory I’ll always have of Lanny. You know how the curtains are drawn so you can’t see anything? Well, he comes through the curtains and his hair is soaked and he’s talking about the pool they have up in first-class. That was Lanny
Match: McDonald
After: in a nutshell. He was all-business on the ice, but being around the guys was always a big part of the game for him.”

Peplinski, chuckling at the memory: “We typically always flew steerage. We were in the back of the bus. You were happy if you got more than a couple of rows behind the smoking section. And the rookies sat in the middle, right? Those were the 737s, three seats on each side, and the rookies sat in the middle seats. But that was a TWA flight, and it was a 747, so there w

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Before: nglasses. So he goes to this passenger behind him and he goes, ‘Hey buddy, can I borrow your sunglasses?’ Did Stevie tell you this part? So the guy kind of grumbles and Mac goes, ‘No seriously, I just need to borrow them for a minute. I’ll give them right back to you.’ This guy looks up at him, takes his glasses off and it’s Frank Burns from MASH (Larry Linville). And then Lanny came back and said, ‘Hey guys, why don’t you come on up for a swim?’ People just roared.”

Match: McDonald
After: : “It was actually John Lithgow (of Footloose/3rd Rock From the Sun fame). He was sitting in first-class and he said, like, ‘What are you going to do with these sunglasses?’ I said, ‘Honest, you’ll see in a minute, I’m playing a trick on the boys.’ ”

McDonald, continued: “That was a flight from Chicago to L.A. They oversold it, so they bumped several of the old guys up to first-class to make sure they got everybody there. So we get halfway to L.A. and I think, ‘Oh my

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Match: McDonald
After: County Press stories: Newsen-usThu, 14 May 2026 04:10:00 -0500https://mdcp.nwaonline.com/news/2026/may/14/goodman-veteran-park-dedicated/About 200 people gathered on May 2 for the dedication of the new Veteran Memorial Park, an initiative of the Goodman Betterme

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Before: rall seed. The Roughriders outscored the Roadrunners 28–1 in two run‑rule victories on May 1 and 2 in Neosho.Staff ReportsThu, 14 May 2026 04:00:00 -05003773329https://mdcp.nwaonline.com/news/2026/may/14/library-program-to-unearth-summer-reading/PINEVILLE --
Match: McDonald
After: County Library and its branches are preparing to launch the annual Summer Reading Program on May 28, with a 2026 theme of "Unearth a Story."Glory ReitzThu, 14 May 2026 04:00:00 -05003773331https://mdcp.nwaonline.com/news/2026/may/14/omaha-teen-drowns-in-elk-river/SOUTHWEST CITY

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Before: ir lasting quality and craftsmanship, but when they began thinking about opening their own antique store, they wanted it to be about more than just antiques. So began the concept for County Mercantile & Antiques, a store designed to showcase well-made products, old and new.Glory ReitzThu, 14 May 2026 04:00:00 -05003773362https://mdcp.nwaonline.com/news/2026/may/14/mcdonald-county-sheriffs-office-checks-alcohol/The McDonald County Sheriff's Office conducted alcohol compliance checks at 28 locations throughout the county on April 24, in partnership with the Alliance of Southwest Missouri and the McDonald County Community Coalition.Staff Reports

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Before: ong with the 75th National Square Dance Convention.Staff ReportsThu, 07 May 2026 04:00:00 -05003771073https://mdcp.nwaonline.com/news/2026/may/07/local-artists-invited-to-submit-art-for-exhibit/PINEVILLE -- Local artists will be featured in an art exhibit at the
Match: McDonald
After: County Historical Museum in June.Rachel DickersonThu, 07 May 2026 04:00:00 -05003771075https://mdcp.nwaonline.com/news/2026/may/07/mcdonald-county-rotary-club-chartered/PINEVILLE -- There are over 45,000 Rotary Clubs in the world, according to Rotary International, and ma

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Before: ny clubs across the United States have been in place for many years, so a new club is somewhat rare. But this year, community members have pulled together to launch a new Rotary Club in
Match: McDonald
After: County -- with a remarkably large number of charter members.Glory ReitzThu, 07 May 2026 04:00:00 -05003771097https://mdcp.nwaonline.com/news/2026/may/07/local-candidates-for-aug-4-primary/Associate Circuit Judge

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The post BRICK AND MORTAR STORES appeared first on Kevin
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After: ---Author, Editor and Aviator.

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Before: >I will be signing books at the Bee Cave, Texas, Public Library on April 30th, from 2:00 to 3:45 pm. If you don’t already have a copy, there will be hardcover editions available for purchase at the event.