Craig Ramsay

34 Points North | August 2010 | ptsnorth.com ptsnorth.com | August 2010 | Points North 35

In professional sports and in many other

pursuits, smart managers always look for people with

“intestinal fortitude” to join their organizations. While

new Atlanta Thrashers head coach Craig Ramsay is

the personification of fortitude, he’s short on anything

intestinal.

The former National Hockey League player and assis-

tant coach had his first upper gastrointestinal test at 16

and his first major surgery at the age of 20. He endured

another surgery after turning 30, but in 1993 Ramsay’s

health became perilously short-handed, to borrow a word

from the hockey vernacular.

In August, 17 years ago, Ramsay nearly died due to

an ulcer. His rehabilitation after several more surgeries

lasted more than four months. In 2001, Ramsay had his

gall bladder removed and in 2005, he was diagnosed with

prostate cancer. Through all the tests, surgeries and being

a part of seven NHL organizations, Ramsay has endured

and agreed to tell his “very long story” because he wants

others “to understand that it’s OK. You can fight through

a lot of things.”

Trial and Tribulations

“I [have] had stomach problems my whole life,” said

Ramsay, who was named as the Thrashers fifth-ever head

coach June 24. “I had reflux before they knew what it was.

I was 16 and in Juniors (with the Peterborough Petes of the

Ontario Hockey League) when I had my first upper GI. I

had my first major surgery when I was 20. I didn’t tell the

Buffalo Sabres about it. I was drafted by them and unbe-

knownst to them, I already had major abdominal surgery.

I went to training camp and got the trainer to rig up a little

cover to go over the scar so it didn’t hurt so much when I

got hit,” Ramsay related.

Prior to the 1981 – ‘82 season, Ramsay had his second

surgery on the same issue.

“They lifted the stomach up and did a wrap around

my esophagus and that created a false valve. That was the

first time I didn’t have reflux. I used to have a signal with

the trainer (two fingers pointed up) when I came off the

ice that meant I needed two antacid pills. I chewed them

up and it allowed me to get through the games. I tried a

lot of different things, but none of them had worked,”

Ramsay said.

About two years after he retired as a player, Ramsay

endured a major bleed due to an ulcer.

“I almost bled out. I spit up or lost about eight units

of blood. Two years later I did it again,” Ramsay said. “It

was a slow bleed, and they could never figure out what

the problem was.”

Upon agreeing to join Roger Neilson’s Florida Pan-

thers coaching staff after spending 22 years as a player

and coach in Buffalo, Ramsay and his wife Susan were pre-

paring for the move to south Florida when things got much

worse. Ramsay started bleeding at a charity golf event.

Susan called the doctor to make an emergency appoint-

ment, but no imparity was found and he was sent home.

Staying at a friends’ during the preparations to move,

Ramsay began spitting up puddles of blood. He crawled

out of bed and yelled for help.

“I yelled for (our friend’s) daughter and said, ‘Call

your dad. Call Susan, and call 911 quick.’ ”

“They found an ulcer up over top of one of the

prior surgeries. They fixed that and thought everything

was great, but a week later it was not so great,” Ramsay

continued. “I woke up the next day and they asked if I

wanted to see the pastor and that kind of stuff. I said, ‘No.

Get out.’ ”

Sleep deprived during the entire ordeal, Ramsay said

he awoke the following day only to find himself strapped

to the bed with tubes going in all directions. “They said,

‘we took your stomach out.’ I thought that’s not good. I

like eating. They said I’d be OK, but you don’t know. I had

never heard of that before. I had a feed tube in my side.

During that stretch, I think I went through 32 units of

blood and you only have 14 in your body,” Ramsay said.

After a month in the hospital, Ramsay wasn’t getting

any better. They flew to Florida for a consultation with

Dr. Mark Sesto of the Cleveland Clinic. Being able to take

in only 800 to 1,000 calories a day, Ramsay’s health was

deteriorating.

ResoluteNessthRasheRs head CoaCh CRaig Ramsay [ By Carl DanBury, Jr. ]

an example ofPhoto courtesy of ©Getty ImAGes/frAncoIs LAcAsse/nhLI

Photo courtesy of robIn hArrIson

Normally “composed and calm,” Ramsay won’t miss an opportunity to be vocal with his players when necessary.

[ W R i t t e N By C a R l da N B u R y, J R . ]


Two days later, his fifth abdominal surgery took

place. Dr. Sesto saved Ramsay’s life.

“We made a deal. I told him I’d take him out and

buy him a Guinness if he [saved my life]. It was quite

awesome,” Ramsay said. “When I woke up from the

surgery, I unhooked myself, shaved and took a shower,

that’s how much better I felt. When my wife came in, I

said to her, ‘I’m back.’ There was that big [of] a differ-

ence in how I was feeling.”

During the next few months, Ramsay had to learn

how to eat all over again and to be more careful about

what he ate.

“You have to learn to eat again because there’s no

room. That’s part of the story because when you have

something like this happen, some people can’t get by the

discomfort of eating because you get so full,” he said.

“At first, I could not eat half a sandwich. Now, I can. I

can eat reasonable amounts of food. The doctors said

I’m the only guy with no stomach that puts on weight.

It took seven or eight years, but I eventually got back to

the weight I was before I got sick.”

By Dec. 26, 1993, Ramsay was back on the job and

behind the Panthers bench. He remained healthy until

nearly a decade later when a gall bladder attack occurred

when he was an assistant coach in Tampa Bay. Then, the

battle with prostate cancer occurred in 2005.

“That’s scary. I had been through all of this other

stuff, and you think ‘why me?’ ” said Ramsay, who had

his gall bladder and his prostate removed. These days,

Ramsay can power through a 6-inch submarine sand-

wich when hunger strikes and is no longer sidelined with

health issues. As a matter of fact, he’s back to being a

significant part of the action both on and off the rink.

The Player

Weston, Ont., is a suburb of Toronto, where boys grow

up dreaming about playing in the NHL and winning the

Stanley Cup. At 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds at the time,

Ramsay was certainly no physical dynamo when playing

Junior hockey for the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario

Hockey League (OHL). A breeding ground for the NHL,

16- to 20-year-old players learn the nuances of the game

in the OHL. Ramsay was fortunate to play for one of the

game’s great innovative minds, Roger Neilson.

After four years in Peterborough, Ramsay was

drafted in the second round by Buffalo, and played 19

games in the American Hockey League for

the Cincinnati Swords before making the

jump to the NHL. In Cincinnati, he met

his roommate, and current Thrashers gen-

eral manager, Rick Dudley.

“Craig was mature beyond his years

the first year he played in the National

Hockey League. By his second or third

year, he began to help players who were

eight to 10 years older and a lot of it had

to do with his tutelage,” Dudley offered.

“He grew up playing for Roger. Roger was

as good as it gets. He learned a lot from

that and he also learned tremendous com-

munication skills.”

“Craig was the smartest hockey player

I ever played with by a considerable margin

and it was almost inevitable that he would

become something in management, and in

all likelihood, coaching, because he under-

stood the game so well,” Dudley added.

Ramsay played for 14 years for the

Sabres, amassing 252 goals and 420 assists

in 1,070 games. He scored 20 goals or more

in eight straight seasons, an unbelievable

accomplishment for a player better known

as one of the best defensive forwards in

the entire league during his career. He was

awarded the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the

league’s best defensive forward in 1985, his

last season as a player, in which he dou-

bled as an assistant coach for head coach

Scotty Bowman.

The Mentor

At 18, Ramsay wasn’t sure he would realize

his dream of playing professional hockey.

He was encouraged by his Peterborough

coach Neilson to stick with it. Their paths

crossed several more times during Ram-

say’s NHL career as both a player and a

coach. Neilson was an assistant coach on

one of Ramsay’s Buffalo teams and then

Ramsay joined Neilson for four more

seasons as an assistant coach in Florida

and Philadelphia.

craig ramsay

Right: Ramsay holds the Stanley Cup aloft after the final game of the 2004 playoffs when he was an assistant coach for Tampa Bay.

Below: Ramsay played 14 years for the Buffalo Sabres before joining the coaching ranks.

Photo courtesy of ©GettyImAGes/Jeff Gross

Photo courtesy of ©GettyImAGes/steve bAbIneAu

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Despite all his past physical problems, Ramsay’s mental

toughness was harshly tested in 2000.

Ramsay’s first stint as a head coach came that season. Unfor-

tunately, it was to replace Neilson behind the Flyers bench when

his mentor began treatments for multiple myeloma, a form of

bone-marrow cancer.

Neilson underwent treatments in Dallas and after he began

feeling better, wanted to rejoin the Flyers for the Stanley Cup Play-

offs. The doctors didn’t think Neilson was ready to return, and

Flyers’ management, including general manager Bobby Clarke,

abided by the doctors’ wishes.

“It wasn’t the Flyers, and Clarke took the hit for it, but the

doctors really didn’t want Roger to return to coaching full time.

He could come back and help me, which he did, but it wasn’t

healthy for him to do that, or to do more,” Ramsay related. “We

gave him jobs. He worked in the background.”

Two Canadian reporters told the hockey world that Ramsay

wouldn’t give up the reins to allow Neilson back as head coach,

calling him a “usurper” among other things.

“Eventually, they were abusing me badly in the Toronto

media,” Ramsay said. His mother, who was still living there at

the time, was having heart problems. Neilson was getting sour

about the attention and one of the stories said that the longtime

associates weren’t even talking.

“It was awful around the team. Neither reporter ever asked

me a single question and wrote nasty things. I lost [12 pounds]

throughout that playoff series trying to get through all of that,”

Ramsay said.

“This was one of the greatest people in the history of our

game. Forget the fact that [Neilson] was one of the greatest

coaches. He was one of the greatest people in the world, ever. We

were friends right to the end. That was never an issue,” Ramsay

said of his longtime friend, who passed away in June 2003.

a Positive approach

Ramsay has the natural ability to make others feel better. Ask him

how he’s doing, and you’ll likely get a very positive response, like

“Wonderful” or “Dynamite.”

craig ramsay

Ramsay has the natural ability to make others feel better. Ask him how he’s doing, and you’ll likely get a very positive response, like “Wonderful” or “Dynamite.”

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“When I was [nearly] dead, my sister

sent me something and the story said that

every day you wake up with a choice,”

Ramsay related. “A choice to feel good or

to feel bad, to feel upbeat or to feel sad.

You don’t always wake up feeling good,

but if you use that positive approach, that

word, it helps you feel better and it helps

other people feel better. If other people feel

better, than you feel better again. I want

them to smile.”

While he never won the Stanley Cup

as a player — his Sabres lost in the finals

to Philadelphia in 1975 — Ramsay has

had plenty to smile about during the past

six years. As an assistant coach for the

2004 champion Tampa Bay Lightning, his

patience and perseverance were rewarded

when he won his first Stanley Cup. Five

years later, son Travis’ name was engraved

on the Cup for being part of the Pittsburgh’s

championship coaching staff. And in June,

Ramsay’s second oldest son Jad, won the

Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks.

He is a scout for that organization. The

Ramsays have two other children, son

Brendon and daughter Summer.

Ramsay said he would have never

imagined being named the head coach in

Atlanta, but knows his 40 years of NHL

experience and overcoming his phys-

ical challenges will yield dividends for

Thrashers fans, players and management.

In his mind, future success is linked with a

positive approach and leadership.

“Leadership is a team event. It starts

with the coach I think, but it’s about every

player on the team committed to that

one goal, which is winning and being a

successful team. That’s my idea of leader-

ship,” Ramsay said.

If Thrashers players follow Ramsay’s

courageous example, Philips Arena might

be a “wonderful” place to be during the

2010-11 season. PN

craig ramsay

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Craig Ramsay