by Joe Daly

Posted in News

In an age where the role of the enforcer continues its inexorable recession into the dark annals of NHL history, Brian McGrattan is not so much a relic of the past as an anvil-fisted embodiment of hockey’s golden age. Towering over opponents at a pant-shitting 6’6″, the Canadian right winger entered professional hockey in the 1999 draft, scooped up by the L.A. Kings as their fourth round selection. Over the next seventeen years, he’s bounced up and down between the NHL (Ottawa Senators, Calgary Flames, Nashville Predators, Phoenix Coyotes) and the AHL (Birmingham Senators, San Antonio Rampage, Providence Bruins, Milwaukee Admirals, et al.), and while he’s collected his fair share of points, McGrattan is best known as one of hockey’s surliest enforcers, protecting his team’s elite scorers through the feral administration of bone-crunching hits and glove-tossing beatdowns. Today he plays for our beloved San Diego Gulls and while McGrattan – the team’s Assistant Captain — holds the AHL single season record for penalty minutes (spending 9 hours and 18 minutes in the penalty box during the ’04-05 season — the same amount of time it would take to watch all three Lord Of The Rings movies back-to-back), off the ice, he’s a decidedly more genteel and all-around-chill dude, serving as a partner in the NHL’s substance abuse program and donating time to a number of charities. His nickname, it’s well-worth mentioning, is “Big Ern,” after Bill Murray’s character, Big Ern McCracken, in the movie Kingpin.

Earlier in the season, McGrattan squared off against Daniel Maggio in a road game against the San Antonio Rampage — a grueling, bare-knuckled melee which ended abruptly when Maggio seemed to hit McGrattan’s off switch, knocking the Gulls winger out cold with a single shot that, in the context of the fight, wasn’t exactly lucky, nor was it a full-tilt haymaker, either. Rare are the AHL plays that bubble up to the national sports media, but outlets across the globe quickly seized on the fight as an example of hockey’s unchecked brutality. Well duh.

While the sight of McGrattan, face-down and unmoving on the ice, inspired alarm in most viewers, the tasteless cackles and beer-sodden guffaws of the San Antonio fans cast a dark pall over the chilling scene. McGrattan recovered speedily, reassuring fans that the ordeal hadn’t spooked him a bit, saying, “It was a good shot. We were going pretty good there. There’s a couple spots on your chin, you get pegged there, you’re going down. It’s the way it is. I’ve been doing it a long time. I’ve been a very, very good fighter for a long time. I haven’t lost a whole lot, and I’ve never really been vocal about that. I’ve been very humble about it because I know losses do come and sometimes they come like that. When I lose like that, that doesn’t change anything for me. That’s not going to change the way I approach going to the rink, change how I’m going to play. It’s not going to change anything. I’m always ready for something like that to happen. That’s why maybe I’ve won so much … You’re going to lose. You’re going to lose bad some times.” For his part, Maggio was quick to send support. Hey, it’s just business, man.

This past Wednesday night, the Gulls, now deep on the playoff hunt, faced off against the Rampage in a home game. It wasn’t the first time the two teams had met since the knockout fight — the prior game had seen some chippiness among the teams — but nobody was surprised when, just before the end of the first period, McGrattan and Maggio shook their gloves off, skated towards center ice, and resumed their rivalry with ferocious abandon as the refs pulled back in a wide berth. This round would see McGrattan avenge his knockout, landing a flurry of shots before bringing Maggio to the ice. Though collecting a ten-minute misconduct, he left the ice to the rapturous howls of Gulls Nation, receiving another standing ovation when he eventually re-entered the game.

Big Ern, we salute you.